A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
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?
A few random poems:
- Sonnet To Chatterton poem – John Keats poems
- Валерий Брюсов – Филлида
- Георгий Иванов – Там, над Невой зеленоватой
- Epigram on the same Laird’s Country Seat by Robert Burns
- Robert Burns: Prologue Spoken At The Theatre Of Dumfries: On New Year’s Day Evening, 1790.
- Владимир Маяковский – Был без работы буржуям пир… (Главполитпросвет №24)
- Владимир Маяковский – Октябрь 1917–1926
- Омар Хайям – Что жизнь
- Marked with D. by Tony Harrison
- Владимир Британишский – Сравнения
- The Withdrawal by Robert Lowell
- Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
- Land, Ho! by Thomas Edward Brown
- Николай Заболоцкий – Человек в воде
- Алексей Плещеев – Смотрю на нее и любуюсь
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Les Roses de Sâdi poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Lady Anne Bothwell’s Lament poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Johnnie Armstrang poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Jock O The Side poem – Andrew Lang poems
- In Ithica poem – Andrew Lang poems
- A Highly Valuable Chain Of Thoughts poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Gordon Of Brackley poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Edom O’ Gordon poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Double Ballade Of Primitive Man poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Before The Snow poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades V – Of His Choice Of A Sepulchre poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades IV – Of Life poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades III – Of Blue China poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades II – Of The Book-Hunter poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballades I – To Theocritus, In Winter poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of True Wisdom poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Summer Term poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Southern Cross poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of Sleep poem – Andrew Lang poems
- Ballade Of The Royal Game Of Golf poem – Andrew Lang poems
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
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.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.