One of my favorite poems...
The Seafarer
Anonymous
Translated by Margaret Williams
from A Sacrifice of Praise
Full little he thinks who has life's joy
and dwells in cities and has few disasters,
proud and wine-flushed, how I, weary often,
must bide my time on the brimming stream.
Night-shades darken, it snows from the north,
frost binds the ground, hail falls on the earth,
the coldest corn. For this my heart-thoughts
are knocking now, for I must set out
on the high streams, the rolling salt-waves.
Hour by hour my heart's lust urges
my spirit to go forth, that far from here
I may seek a land of strange people.
There is no one so proud among earth's men,
nor so gifted with goods nor so bold in youth,
nor so brave in deeds, with a lord dear to him
that he has not sorrow in his sea-faring--
too little the Lord will do for him.
He thinks not of the harp nor of ring-giving
nor of the joy of a woman, nor of the world's hope,
nor of ought else save the roll of the waves;
But ever he feels longing, who goes on the waters.
The woods have bright blossoms, the burghs are fair,
plains gleam with loveliness, the world full of life;
all these urge on the eager heart
to go journeying, for the man who thinks
to go afar on the flood-ways.
And the cuckoo warns with wailing voice;
summer's guardian sings, telling the sorrow
bitter in its breast-hoard. The man who is well off
knows but little of what they endure
who go in exile the farthest away.
So my thought wanders over my heart treasures,
my inner spirit goes over the sea-flood,
over the whale's home, wanders away
on the earth's face. It comes back to me
hungry and greedy; the lone flier cries,
urges unceasing the heart to roam
on the whale-way of the wide waters,
the broad streams. Thus the joys of the Lord
are hotter within me than this dead life
passing over the land. I do not believe
that the wealth of the earth will stand forever.
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