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:
- A Virginal poem – Ezra Pound poems
- I explain the silvered passing of a ship at night, by Stephen Crane
- Past and Present by Thomas Hood
- Vaulting by Satish Verma
- Jerusalem Delivered – Book 03 – part 04 by Torquato Tasso
- Atlantis by W H Auden
- English Poetry. Charles Lockhart. Epistle to a Friend, with a Copy of Burns’s Letters. Чарльз Локкарт. Послание другу при возвращении ему томиков стихов Бернса
- Private Property
- Михаил Кузмин – Утешение
- Alice Fell, Or Poverty by William Wordsworth
- Robert Burns: Complimentary Versicles To Jessie Lewars: On Her Recovery
- Sonnet LIII by William Shakespeare
- love_flower.html
- Do Not Accept by Yehuda Amichai
- English Poetry. Thomas Moore. From “Irish Melodies”. 99. ’Twas One of Those Dreams. Томас Мур.
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
- Владимир Корнилов – В Македонии
- Владимир Корнилов – Утро
- Владимир Корнилов – Учитель
- Владимир Корнилов – Трофейный фильм
- Владимир Корнилов – Тоска
- Владимир Корнилов – Сызнова
- Владимир Корнилов – Суворов
- Владимир Корнилов – Стих стиху
- Владимир Корнилов – Старость
- Владимир Корнилов – Спортлото
- Владимир Корнилов – Спасенье
- Владимир Корнилов – Сорок лет спустя
- Владимир Корнилов – Соперник
- Владимир Корнилов – Собака подлеца
- Владимир Корнилов – Слово
- Владимир Корнилов – Слепец
- Владимир Корнилов – Щитовидка
- Владимир Корнилов – Рифма
- Владимир Корнилов – Репертуар
- Владимир Корнилов – Разговор
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.