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 

• Rain After a Vaudeville Show by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Portrait of a Boy by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Portrait of a Baby by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Poor Devil! by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Nos Immortales by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Music by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• May Morning by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Love in Twilight by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Lonely Burial by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Going Back to School by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylum by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Elegy for an Enemy by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Dinner in a Quick Lunch Room by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Dedication by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Colors by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Before an Examination by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• Alexander VI Dines with the Cardinal of Capua by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• A Minor Poet by Stephen Vincent Benet by Stephen Vincent Benét
• The Grammar Lesson by Steve Kowit by Poetry In English
• The Convoy by Stephenie Tucker by Poetry In English

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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.

 

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