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 Бенедиктов – Благодарю Вас за цветы
- Taketh away by Tanisha Avarsekar
- When I Met My Muse by William Stafford
- Валерий Брюсов – Двадцать лет назад ты умерла
- Honeycomb
- Олег Григорьев – Зашли мы к Сизову с приятелем
- In Imitation of E. of Dorset : Artemisia poem – Alexander Pope
- Asleep! O Sleep A Little While, White Pearl! poem – John Keats poems
- Passage to India. by Walt Whitman
- The Lads in Their Hundreds poem – A. E. Housman
- Says. by Walt Whitman
- Юргис Балтрушайтис – Ткач
- Song of Diego Valdez by Rudyard Kipling
- Run to Death poem – Amy Levy poems | Poems and Poetry
- To a Waterfowl by William Cullen Bryant
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 Высоцкий – Марш студентов-физиков
- Владимир Высоцкий – Марш аквалангистов
- Владимир Высоцкий – Марине
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мао Цзедун большой шалун
- Владимир Высоцкий – Люблю тебя
- Владимир Высоцкий – Лукоморья больше нет
- Владимир Высоцкий – Лежит камень в степи
- Владимир Высоцкий – Ленинградская блокада
- Владимир Высоцкий – Купола
- Владимир Высоцкий – Куплеты Бенгальского
- Владимир Высоцкий – Кто за чем бежит
- Владимир Высоцкий – Красное, зелёное, жёлтое, лиловое
- Владимир Высоцкий – Космонавту Ю. Гагарину
- Владимир Высоцкий – Корабли постоят, и ложатся на курс
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка лягушонка Джимми и ящерки Билли
- Владимир Высоцкий – Мартовский Заяц
- Владимир Высоцкий – Королевский крокей
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня Сашки Червня
- Владимир Высоцкий – Одесские куплеты
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песенка про прыгуна в длину
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.