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:
- Владимир Британишский – Как турмалин, что субстанцию сланца
- Vehicles by W. S. Merwin
- The Poetry That Is Life
- An October Nocturne by Yvor Winters
- On The Bus
- Robert Burns: The Book-Worms:
- Lincoln by Vachel Lindsay
- Out Of The Window
- On A Battered Beauty (From The Greek) by William Cowper
- A Song On The Baths by William Strode
- Владимир Маяковский – Про гидру контрреволюции сегодня сказ (РОСТА № 79)
- Ольга Берггольц – Мне не поведать о моей утрате
- How to Make Money Online Writing and Selling eBooks
- I, or Someone Like Me by Marvin Bell
- Panic
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
- For Sale by Shel Silverstein
- Folk Singer’s Blues by Shel Silverstein
- Father Of A Boy Named Sue by Shel Silverstein
- Everybody’s Makin’ It Big But Me by Shel Silverstein
- Enter This Deserted House by Shel Silverstein
- Dreadful by Shel Silverstein
- Don’t Give A Dose To The One You Love Most by Shel Silverstein
- Dirty Ol’ Me by Shel Silverstein
- Dance To It by Shel Silverstein
- Crouchin’ On The Outside by Shel Silverstein
- Crocodile’s Toothache by Shel Silverstein
- Come Skating by Shel Silverstein
- Come After Jinny by Shel Silverstein
- Colors by Shel Silverstein
- Cloudy Sky by Shel Silverstein
- Clarence by Shel Silverstein
- Channels by Shel Silverstein
- Changing Of The Seasons by Shel Silverstein
- Captain Hook by Shel Silverstein
- Bury Me In My Shades by Shel Silverstein
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.