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?

Poetry Monster – Home

A few random poems:

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 

• Woken Up By Beautiful Dreams by Poetry In English
• The Poet Angels Who Came To Dinner by Poetry In English
• The Nomad039s Vision Ode To A Skylark Dressed In Black by Poetry In English
• The Man That Poetry Made by Poetry In English
• Power Of Thought by Poetry In English
• Once Was A Singer For God Remembering Nekia by Poetry In English
• My Aroma by Poetry In English
• Lost Love Is Never Lost by Poetry In English
• Holiday Letter For A Poet Gone To War by Poetry In English
• Gratitudes Of A Dozen Roses by Poetry In English
• Every Hour Henceforth by Poetry In English
• Cell Mate by Poetry In English
• Calling The Spirits by Poetry In English
• Angel Of Christmas Love Shining Bright by Poetry In English
• Angel Of Better Days To Come by Poetry In English
• All Night In Savannah The Wind Wrote Poetry by Poetry In English
• The Solitary Oak On Mount Kremlin Bicetre by Poetry In English
• The Prison Of The Past by Poetry In English
• The Dead Woman by Poetry In English
• Pathos Is The Skyward Tanka by Poetry In English

More external links (open in a new tab):

Russian Commerce Agency

Dealing Monster

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

Poems by Author and Category

The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works