"The Seafarer" an anonymous poem of uncertain date, was found in the
        Exeter Book, one of the four important collections of Anglo-Saxon poetry
    that has survived.
     
     
        This tale is true, and mine. It tells
        How the sea took me, swept me back
        And forth in sorrow and fear and pain,
        Showed me suffering in a hundred ships,
        In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells
        Of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold
        Of an anxious watch, perched in the bow
        As it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast
        In icy bands, bound with frost,
        With frozen chains, and hardship groaned
        Around my heart. Hunger tore
        At my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered
        On the quiet fairness of earth can feel
        How wretched I was, drifting through winter
        On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow,
        Alone in a world blown clear of love,
        Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew.
        The only sound was the roaring sea,
        The freezing waves. The song of the swan
        Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl,
        The death-noise of birds instead of laughter,
        The mewing of gulls instead of mead.
        Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed
        By ice-feathered terns and the eagles screams;
        No kinsman could offer comfort there,
        To a soul left drowning in desolation.
         
         And who could believe, knowing but
        The passion of cities, swelled proud with wine
        And no taste of misfortune, how often, how wearily,
        I put myself back on the paths of the sea,
        Night would blacken; it would snow from the north;
        Frost bound the earth and hail would fall,
        The coldest seeds. And how my heart
        Would begin to beat, knowing once more
        The salt waves tossing and the towering sea!
        The time for journeys would come and my soul
        Called me eagerly out, sent me over
        The horizon, seeking foreigners' homes.

         But there isn't a man on earth so proud,
        So born in greatness, so bold with his youth,
        Grown so grave, or so graced by God,
        That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl,
        Wondering what Fate has willed and will do.
        No harps ring in his heart, no rewards,
        No passion for women, no worldly pleasures,
        Nothing, only the oceans heave;
        But longing wraps itself around him.
        Orchards blossom, the towns bloom,
        Fields grow lovely as the world springs fresh,
        And all these admonish that willing mind
        Leaping to journeys, always set
        In thoughts traveling on a quickening tide.
        So summer's sentinel, the cuckoo, sings
        In his murmuring voice, and our hearts mourn
        As he urges. Who could understand,
        In ignorant ease, what we others suffer
        As the path of exile stretch endlessly on?

         And yet my heart wanders away,
        My soul roams with the sea, the wales'
        Home, wandering to the wildest corners
        Of the world, returning ravenous with desire,
        Flying solitary, screaming, exciting me
        To the open ocean, breaking oaths
        On the curve of a wave.

           Thus the joys of God
        Are feverent with life, where life itself
        Fades quickly into the earth. The wealth
        Of the world neither reaches to Heaven nor remains.
        No man has ever faced the dawn
        Certain which of Fate's three threats
        Would fall: illness, or age, or an enemy's
        Sword, snatching the life form his soul.
        The praise the living pour on the dead
        Flowers from reputation: plant
        An earthly life of profit reaped
        Even from hatred and rancor, of bravery
        Flung in the devil's face, and death
        Can only bring you earthly praise
        And a song to celebrate a place
        With the angels, life eternally blessed
        In the hosts of Heaven.
         
           The days are gone
        When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory;
        Now there are no rulers, no emperors,
        No givers of gold, as once there were,
        When wonderful things were worked among them
        And they lived in lordly magnificence.
        Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are dead.
        The weakest survives and the world continues,
        Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished.
        The world's honor ages and shrinks,
        Bent like the men who mold it. Their faces
        Blanch as time advances, their beards
        Wither and they mourn the memory of friends.
        The sons of princes, sown in the dust.
        The soul stripped of its flesh knows nothing
        Of sweetness or sour, feels no pain,
        Bends neither its hand nor its brain. A brother
        Opens his palms and pours down gold
        On his kinsman's grave, strewing his coffin
        With treasures intended for Heaven, but nothing
        Golden shakes the wrath of God
        For a soul overflowing with sin, and nothing
        Hidden on earth rises to Heaven.

           We all fear God. He turns the earth,
        He set it swinging firmly in space,
        Gave life to the world and light to the sky.
        Death leaps at the fools who forget their God.
        He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven
        To carry him courage and strength and belief.
        A man must conquer pride, not kill it,
        Be firm with his fellows, chaste for himself,
        Treat all the world as the world deserves,
        With love or with hate but never with harm,
        Though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell,
        Or set the flames of a funeral pyre
        Under his lord. Fate is stronger
        And God mightier than any man's mind.
        Our thoughts should turn to where our home is,
        Consider the ways of coming there,
        Then strive for sure permission for us
        To rise to that eternal joy,
        That life born in the love of God
        And the hope of Heaven. Praise the Holy
        Grace of  Him who honored us,
        Eternal, unchanging creator of earth. Amen.
         

        ...... Translation by : Burton Raffel
         
             
         

             
       
       
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