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:
- Never Try To Trick Me With A Kiss by Sylvia Plath
- Signals by Walid Saba
- Владимир Британишский – О человеке
- To One who Loved not Poetry by Sappho
- Stopped Dead by Sylvia Plath
- Jokes on You by Rohan Dunbar
- a maiden’s broken heart by Raj Arumugam
- Владимир Высоцкий – Михаилу Шемякину под впечатлением от серии “Чрево”
- On the Same poem – John Milton poems
- Анатолий Жигулин – Белый-белый торжественный снег
- Extempore Effusion upon the Death of James Hogg by William Wordsworth
- Symbols by William Butler Yeats
- minding love by Raj Arumugam
- The Affliction Of Margaret by William Wordsworth
- On A Drop Of Dew poem – Andrew Marvell 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
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 41. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 44. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The Blasphemy of Guns. Элла Уилкокс.
- English Poetry. Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Triumph of Time. Алджернон Чарльз Суинбёрн.
- English Poetry. William Barnes. Second Collection. The Heäre. Уильям Барнс.
- English Poetry. Isaac Watts. Hymn 2. Исаак Уоттс.
- English Poetry. Henry Livingston. To the Memory of Sarah Livingston. Генри Ливингстон.
- English Poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Assault. Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей.
- English Poetry. Lucy Maud Montgomery. As the Heart Hopes. Люси Мод Монтгомери.
- English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. In Examination. Руперт Брук.
- English Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Satan Broken Loose. Перси Биши Шелли. Тень Ада
- English Poetry. David Herbert Lawrence. Whales Weep Not!. Дэвид Герберт Лоуренс.
- English Poetry. Thomas Aird. The Devil’s Dream on Mount Aksbeck. Томас Эрд.
- English Poetry. George Eliot. How Lisa Loved the King. Джордж Элиот.
- 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
- English Poetry. Charles Wesley. Hark! A Voice Divides the Sky. Чарльз Уэсли.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. My Room. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
- English Poetry. John Townsend Trowbridge. Midwinter. Джон Таунсенд Троубридж.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. Dark Glasses. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. Dark Glasses. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
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.