AUSTRALIA - A.D.HOPE A.D. Hope, in full Alec Derwent Hope, (born July 21, 1907, Cooma, New South Wales, Australia—died July 13, 2000, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory), Australian poet who is best known for his elegies and satires. Hope, who began publishing poems when he was 14 years old, was educated in Australia and at the University of Oxford. He taught at various Australian universities, including Sydney Teachers’ College and Melbourne University, until his retirement in 1972. Though traditional in form, his poetry is thoroughly modern, two outstanding examples being “Conquistador” (1947) and “The Return from the Freudian Isles” (1944). Both poems are typical in their satirical approach and striking clarity of diction. Hope also wrote religious and metaphysical poems, as well as erotic verse, which often attracted controversy, as did his attacks on the cultural establishment, which he considered pretentious and empty. His first book of poems, The Wandering Islands, appeared in 1955 and was followed by several volumes of new poems and of collected poems. He also wrote essays and criticism, including A Midsummer Eve’s Dream (1970), The Cave and the Spring (1965), and Native Companions (1974). He was made a member of the Order of the British Empire in 1972 and a Companion of the Order of Australia in 1981. AUSTRALIA POEM A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey In the field uniform of modern wars Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away. They call her a young country, but they lie: She is the last of lands, the emptiest, A woman beyond her change of life, a breast Still tender but within the womb is dry. Without songs, architecture, history: The emotions and superstitions of younger lands, Her rivers of water drown among inland sands, The river of her immense stupidity Floods her monotonous tribes from Cairns to Perth. In them at last the ultimate men arrive Whose boast is not: 'we live' but 'we survive', A type who will inhabit the dying earth. And her five cities, like five teeming sores, Each drains her: a vast parasite robber-state Where second-hand Europeans pullulate Timidly on the edge of alien shores. Yet there are some like me turn gladly home From the lush jungle of modern thought, to find The Arabian desert of the human mind, Hoping, if still from the deserts the prophets come, Such savage and scarlet as no green hills dare Springs in that waste, some spirit which escapes The learned doubt, the chatter of cultured apes Which is called civilization over there. In the first line of the first stanza aspect of Australia’s geographical conditions can be revealed. “A nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey” (line 1, this line explains about Australia’s forest. Australia has high land and low land. Australia’s forests are found in the eastern highland. The third line of the first stanza “Darkens her hills, those endless, out stretched paws” (line 3) also reveals about highland. Australia’s highland divided into many ranges and tablelands, such as the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, the Grampians in central Victoria, and the Glass House Mountains near Brisbane. Then, the second and fourth lines of the second stanza explain about Australian deserted land. Australia is well-known by its contrasting geographical features, therefore not only forest but also desert are decorating Australian lands. The lines “She is the last of lands, the emptiest ,” (line 2) and “Still tender but within the womb is dry.”(line 4) are explaining about how dry is Australia. Australia’s western planteau is primarily made up deserts and vast treeless plains such as Nurlabour Plains. So, it is true that Hope has written ‘the emptiest’ and ‘the womb is dry’ in his poem Australia, due to the fact that the central lowland and the western planteau are making up 80 per cent of Australia’s landmass which that means Australia has wide desert. A.D Hope not only wrote about the desert in second stanza but also in the first and sixth stanza. In the first stanza he wrote “Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away” (line 4) by the word ‘Sphinx’ is related to Australia’s desert to Arabian desert, and this is proven by the third line of the sixth stanza “The Arabian desert of the human mind,”. Therefore, it is true that Australia’s desert is very wide and can be compared to Arabian desert. In the third stanza, lines two to four, A.D Hope explain about rivers in Australia