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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External links

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Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh

Poems in English 

• Robert Burns: The Young Highland Rover: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: My Peggy’s Charms: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Braving Angry Winter’s Storms: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Banks Of The Devon: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epitaph For Mr. W. Cruikshank: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: A Rose-Bud By My Early Walk: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Blythe Was She: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On Scaring Some Water-Fowl In Loch-Turit : A wild scene among the Hills of Oughtertyre. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Bonie Lass Of Albany: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Theniel Menzies’ Bonie Mary: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lady Onlie, Honest Lucky: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Castle Gordon: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Strathallan’s Lament: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epigram On Parting With A Kind Host In The Highlands: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Lines On The Fall Of Fyers Near Loch-Ness.: Written with a Pencil on the Spot. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Humble Petition Of Bruar Water: To the noble Duke of Athole. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Birks Of Aberfeldy: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Verses Written With A Pencil Over the Chimney-piece in the Parlour of the Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth.: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Libeller’s Self-Reproof: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Poet’s Reply To The Threat Of A Censorious Critic: My imprudent lines were answered, very petulantly, by somebody, I believe, a Rev. Mr. Hamilton. In a MS., where I met the answer, I wrote below:- by Robert Burns

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