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 

• Parabola by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Observation Car by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Morning Coffee by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Meditation on a Bone by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Easter Hymn by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Death of the Bird by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Crossing the Frontier by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Conquistador by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Commination by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Australia by Alec Derwent-Hope
• Winter Dream poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• Waking poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• Vision poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• Valedictory poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• Topiary poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• The Reef poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• The Louse-Hunters poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• The Life Theoretic poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• The Flowers poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley
• The Elms poem – Aldous Huxley poems | Poetry Monster by Aldous Huxley

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