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 

• Address to the Toothache by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Address to the shade of Thomson by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Address to the Deil by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Address to Edinburgh by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Address to a Haggis by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Adam Armour’s Prayer by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Winter Night by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Vision by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Tippling Ballad—When Princes and Prelates, etc. by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Red, Red Rose by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Prayer under the Pressure of Violent Anguish by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Prayer in the Prospect of Death by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Poet’s Welcome to his Love-Begotten Daughter by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A New Psalm for the Chapel of Kilmarnock by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Mother’s Lament for her Son’s Death by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Grace before Dinner by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• A Grace after Dinner by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• News, lassies, news (Song) by Robert Burns by Robert Burns
• Mally’s meek, Mally’s sweet (Song) by Robert Burns by Robert Burns

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Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.

 

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