A poem by Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000)
by Alec Derwent Hope
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?
A few random poems:
- Sonnet Of Motherhood VI poem – Zora Bernice May Cross poems
- The Gravy Train by Michael Levy
- Наум Коржавин – Ленинград
- Virginibus Puerisque
- Miracle Ice Cream
- Robert Burns: Inconstancy In Love:
- Forty Years Later by Martin Willitts, Jr
- Шекспир – Чтобы стихи, рожденные когда-то – Сонет 38
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 44. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- Николай Гумилев – Молитва мастеров
- The Gardener LXXXI: Why Do You Whisper So Faintly by Rabindranath Tagore
- Farewell
- Robert Burns: Inscribed On A Work Of Hannah More’s: Presented to the Author by a Lady.
- Loud Silence by Preethi Saravanakumar
- tracks_in_the_private_country.html
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
- Effrontery by Satish Verma
- Earthly Wounds by Satish Verma
- Drift Wood by Satish Verma
- Dream Landing by Satish Verma
- DOWNHILL JOURNEY by Satish Verma
- Doom’s Day by Satish Verma
- Discretion by Satish Verma
- Delinquency by Satish Verma
- Death In Exile by Satish Verma
- DEATH AND VISION by Satish Verma
- Cult of Lynching by Satish Verma
- Crowding by Satish Verma
- CROSSING THE DEAF by Satish Verma
- Courting Fidelity by Satish Verma
- Contraptions by Satish Verma
- Confessional Hurt by Satish Verma
- Commerce by Satish Verma
- Collecting Milkweed by Satish Verma
- BRAMBLE GATES by Satish Verma
- Botanically by Satish Verma
More external links (open in a new tab):
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
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Alec Derwent-Hope (1907–2000) was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.