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 

• Robert Burns: My Lord A-Hunting: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: The Bonie Moor-Hen: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Prologue: Spoken by Mr. Woods on his benefit-night, Monday, 16th April, 1787 by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Verses Intended To Be Written Below A Noble Earl’s Picture: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epistle To Mrs. Scott: Gudewife of Wauchope-House, Roxburghshire. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Inscription For The Headstone Of Fergusson The Poet: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Extempore In The Court Of Session: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Bonie Dundee: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Rattlin’, Roarin’ Willie: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Mr. William Smellie -A Sketch: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: To Miss Logan, With Beattie’s Poems, For A New-Year’s Gift, Jan. 1, 1787: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Address To A Haggis: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Address To Edinburgh: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Yon Wild Mossy Mountains: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: A Winter Night : by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: On Sensibility: Fragment by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Epistle To Major Logan: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Tam Samson’s Elegy: When this worthy old sportman went out, last muirfowl season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian’s phrase, “the last of his fields,” and expressed an ardent wish to die and be buried in the muirs. On this hint the author composed his elegy and epitaph.-R.B., 1787. by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Composed In Spring: by Robert Burns
• Robert Burns: Inscribed On A Work Of Hannah More’s: Presented to the Author by a Lady. by Robert Burns

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