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 

• Taita Falcon above the Zambezi by Tom Mukasa by Poetry In English
• Steeds of Autumn by Todd H. C. Fischer by Poetry In English
• Sorry by Tom Mukasa by Poetry In English
• Ribbons & Pearls by Timothy Cole by Poetry In English
• Racial Memories of a Chickadee by Todd H. C. Fischer by Poetry In English
• My Miracle Valentine by Tirtha Raj Baral (Sanu Punatare) by Poetry In English
• Mother’s Day, 1993 by Todd H. C. Fischer by Poetry In English
• Mother Earth; Her Beauty And Her Destruction by TMBedell by Poetry In English
• Manifestations by Tom Shea by Poetry In English
• Love’s Divinest Power by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• In Token Of The Love You Gave by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Imbrium by Todd H. C. Fischer by Poetry In English
• I Make My bed Of Roses by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Gentle Heart, Indulge Thy Dreaming by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Edgar Allan Poe by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• Cenotaph, Manitoulin Island by Todd H. C. Fischer by Poetry In English
• Beyond The Veil by Timothy Thomas Fortune by Poetry In English
• And Still to USA they get! by Tom Mukasa by Poetry In English
• Walls at Drogheda by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh by Poetry In English
• The Death of Knowledge by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh by Poetry In English

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