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 

• Covenent by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Columns by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cold Iron by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cleared by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cities and Thrones and Powers by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Christmas in India by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cholera Camp by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Chapter Headings by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Chant-Pagan by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Certain Maxims Of Hafiz by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cells by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Cain and Abel by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• By the Hoof of the Wild Goat by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Butterflies by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Brookland Road by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Bridge-Guard in the Karroo by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Boots by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Blue Roses by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Bill ‘Awkins by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling
• Belts by Rudyard Kipling by Rudyard Kipling

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