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 

• V: Some Verses: To The Author Parthenius by William Alexander by William Alexander
• To Prince Charles by William Alexander by William Alexander
• To his Majestie by William Alexander by William Alexander
• The Sonnet, The Lady, And The Prince by William Alexander by William Alexander
• The Roses And The Mothers Cannot Choose by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 58 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 57 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 56 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 55 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 54 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 53 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 52 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 51 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 50 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 5 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 49 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 48 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 47 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 44 by William Alexander by William Alexander
• Sonet 43 by William Alexander by William Alexander

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