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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• happiness.html by Alan Alexander Milne
• At the Zoo poem – A. A. Milne poem by Alan Alexander Milne
• Vestiges poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog) poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• The Flash Reverses Time poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• Que Sera Sera poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• Old Boy poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• Einstein Defining Special Relativity poem – A. Van Jordan poems by A Van Jordan
• A Tempest in a Teacup poem – A. Van Jordan poems | Poetry Monster by A Van Jordan
• A Tempest in a Teacup poem – A. Van Jordan poems | Best Poems by A Van Jordan
• In Memoriam by Fledermaus
• Taylor Swift by Fledermaus
• Wisdom in Love by Lutfi Abdallah a.k.a Laso by Poetry In English
• Why I Do Not Miss You! by Praveen Parasar by Poetry In English
• Weaving waves by Shailendra Singh by Poetry In English
• Trademark by Samuel Stephen Wakdok by Poetry In English
• Time Well-Served by Luis Estable by Poetry In English
• This I Beg To Have by Luis Estable by Poetry In English
• The True Lover by A. E. Housman by Poetry In English
• The Song of My Heart by Olawuyi Mutiu by Poetry In English

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