| May I for my own self song's truth reckon, | |
| Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days | |
| Hardship endured oft. | |
| Bitter breast-cares have I abided, | |
| Known on my keel many a care's hold, | 5 |
| And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent | |
| Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head | |
| While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted, | |
| My feet were by frost benumbed. | |
| Chill its chains are; chafing sighs | 10 |
| Hew my heart round and hunger begot | |
| Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not | |
| That he on dry land loveliest liveth, | |
| List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea, | |
| Weathered the winter, wretched outcast | 15 |
| Deprived of my kinsmen; | |
| Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew, | |
| There I heard naught save the harsh sea | |
| And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries, | |
| Did for my games the gannet's clamour, | 20 |
| Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter, | |
| The mews' singing all my mead-drink. | |
| Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern | |
| In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed | |
| With spray on his pinion. | 25 |
| Not any protector | |
| May make merry man faring needy. | |
| This he little believes, who aye in winsome life | |
| Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business, | |
| Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft | 30 |
| Must bide above brine. | |
| Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north, | |
| Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then | |
| Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now | |
| The heart's thought that I on high streams | 35 |
| The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone. | |
| Moaneth alway my mind's lust | |
| That I fare forth, that I afar hence | |
| Seek out a foreign fastness. | |
| For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst, | 40 |
| Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed; | |
| Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful | |
| But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare | |
| Whatever his lord will. | |
| He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having | 45 |
| Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight | |
| Nor 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, | 50 |
| All this admonisheth man eager of mood, | |
| The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks | |
| On flood-ways to be far departing. | |
| Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying, | |
| He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow, | 55 |
| The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not -- | |
| He the prosperous man -- what some perform | |
| Where wandering them widest draweth. | |
| So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock, | |
| My mood 'mid the mere-flood, | 60 |
| 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 anyhow | 65 |
| My lord deems to me this dead life | |
| On loan and on land, I believe not | |
| That any earth-weal eternal standeth | |
| Save there be somewhat calamitous | |
| That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain. | 70 |
| Disease or oldness or sword-hate | |
| Beats 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, | 75 |
| Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice, | |
| Daring ado, ... | |
| So that all men shall honour him after | |
| And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English, | |
| Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast, | 80 |
| Delight mid the doughty. | |
| Days little durable, | |
| And all arrogance of earthen riches, | |
| There come now no kings nor Cæsars | |
| Nor gold-giving lords like those gone. | 85 |
| 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 layed low. | 90 |
| 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, | 95 |
| 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 bodies | 100 |
| Be an unlikely treasure hoard. | |