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 

• Show It At The Beach by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• She’s My Ever Lovin’ Machine by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Scum Of The Earth by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Sarah Cynthia Slyvia Stout Would Not Take The Garbage Out by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Rosalie’s Good Eats Cafe by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Rock ‘N’ Roll Band by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Ring Of Grass by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Recipe For A Hippopotamus Sandwich by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Put Something In by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Polly In A Porny by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Point Of View by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Pathetic Way Of Getting Over Me by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• On The Way To The Bottom by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Never Bite A Married Woman On The Thigh by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• My Mind Keeps Movin’ by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Morgan’s Curse by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Melinda Mae by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Mama I’ll Sing One For You by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Makin’ It Natural by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein
• Lookin’ For Myself by Shel Silverstein by Shel Silverstein

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