Meditation on a Bone

A piece of bone, found at Trondhjem in 1901, with the following runic inscription (about A.D. 1050) cut on it: I loved her as a maiden; I will not trouble Erlend’s detestable wife; better she should be a widow.

Words scored upon a bone,

Scratched in despair or rage —

Nine hundred years have gone;

Now, in another age,

They burn with passion on

A scholar’s tranquil page.

The scholar takes his pen

And turns the bone about,

And writes those words again.

Once more they seethe and shout

And through a human brain

Undying hate rings out.

“I loved her when a maid;

I loathe and love the wife

That warms another’s bed:

Let him beware his life!”

The scholar’s hand is stayed;

His pen becomes a knife

To grave in living bone

The fierce archaic cry.

He sits and reads his own

Dull sum of misery.

A thousand years have flown

Before that ink is dry.

And, in a foreign tongue,

A man, who is not he,

Reads and his heart is wrung

This ancient grief to see,

And thinks: When I am dung,

What bone shall speak for me?

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Poems in English 

• Teacher by Poetry In English
• Sleep by Poetry In English
• Ode To A Harmonica by Poetry In English
• Intruder by Poetry In English
• Do You Know What Its Like by Poetry In English
• Hellcat by Fledermaus
• Yours & Mine poem – Alice Fulton by Poetry In English
• Woman In Front Of Poster Of Herself poem – Alice Notley by Poetry In English
• Velocity Of Money poem – Allen Ginsberg by Poetry In English
• The White Cliffs by Poetry In English
• The Next Chance by Poetry In English
• The Melancholy of Birth by Poetry In English
• The islands of happiness by Poetry In English
• The Internet Romance by Poetry In English
• The End of the World by Poetry In English
• The Terms In Which I Think Of Reality poem – Allen Ginsberg by Poetry In English
• Tears by Poetry In English
• Teachers Day special by Poetry In English
• Succeeding Sentiments. by Poetry In English
• Stalker poem – Alice Notley by Poetry In English

More external links (open in a new tab):

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Doska or the Board – write anything

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Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)

Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.

Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees

Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.

Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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