The Seafarer

May I for my own self song's truth reckon,Journey's jargon, how I in harsh daysHardship endured oft.Bitter breast-cares have I abided,Known on my keel many a care's hold,And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spentNarrow nightwatch nigh the ship's headWhile she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,My feet were by frost benumbed.Chill its chains are; chafing sighsHew my heart round and hunger begotMere-weary mood. Lest man know notThat he on dry land loveliest liveth,List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,Weathered the winter, wretched outcastDeprived of my kinsmen;Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,There I heard naught save the harsh seaAnd ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,Did for my games the gannet's clamour,Sea-fowls' loudness was for me laughter,The mews' singing all my mead-drink.Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the sternIn icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamedWith spray on his pinion.

Not any protectorMay make merry man faring needy.This he little believes, who aye in winsome lifeAbides 'mid burghers some heavy business,Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oftMust bide above brine.Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth thenCorn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh nowThe heart's thought that I on high streamsThe salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.Moaneth alway my mind's lustThat I fare forth, that I afar henceSeek out a foreign fastness.For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,Not though he be given his good, but will have in hisyouth greed;Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithfulBut shall have his sorrow for sea-fareWhatever his lord will.He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-havingNor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delightNor any whit else save the wave's slash,Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,All this admonisheth man eager of mood,The heart turns to travel so that he then thinksOn flood-ways to be far departing.Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not--He the prosperous man--what some performWhere wandering them widest draweth.So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,My mood 'mid the mere-flood,Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhowMy lord deems to me this dead lifeOn loan and on land, I believe notThat any earth-weal eternal standethSave there be somewhat calamitousThat, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.Disease or oldness or sword-hateBeats out the breath from doom-gripped body.And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after--Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,That he will work ere he pass onward,Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,Daring ado,...So that all men shall honour him afterAnd his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,Delight mid the doughty.Days little durable,And all arrogance of earthen riches,There come now no kings nor CaesarsNor gold-giving lords like those gone.Howe'er in mirth most magnified,Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.Tomb hideth trouble.The blade is laid low.Earthly glory ageth and seareth.No man at all going the earth's gait,But age fares against him, his face paleth,Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,And though he strew the grave with gold,His born brothers, their buried bodiesBe an unlikely treasure hoard.