index     Michael Alexander: 1966 The Earliest English Poems   go to  line 62: click next line to return The tale I frame shall be found to tally the history is of myself.                                         Sitting day-long at an oar's end clenched against clinging sorrow breast-drought I have borne, and bitterness too. I have coursed my keel through care-halls without end over furled foam, I forward in the bows through the narrowing night, numb, watching for the cliffs we beat along.                                         Cold then nailed my feet, frost shrank on its chill clamps, cares sighed hot about heart, hunger fed on a mere-wearied mind.                                         No man blessed with a happy land-life is like to guess how I, aching-hearted, on ice-cold seas have wasted whole winters; the wanderer's beat cut off from kind......... hung with hoar-frost.                                         Hail flew in showers, there was no sound there but the slam of waves along an icy sea. The swan's blare my seldom amusement; for men's laughter there was curlew-call, there were the cries of gannets, for mead-drinking the music of the gull. To the storm striking the stone cliffs gull would answer, eagle scream from throats frost-feathered. No friend or brother by to speak with the despairing mind. This he little believes whose life has run sweet in the burghs, no banished man, but well-seen at wine-round, my weariness of mind on the ways stretching over the salt plains. Night thickened, and from the north snowflakes; hail fell on the frost-bound earth, coldest of grains.                                         There come thoughts now knocking my heart, of the high waves, clashing salt crests, I am to cross again. Mind-lust maddens, moves as I breathe soul to set out, seek out the way to a far folk-land flood-beyond. For no man above mould is so mood-proud, so thoroughly equipped, so quick to do, so strong in his youth, or with so staunch a lord that before faring on the sea he does not fear a little whither the Lord shall lead him in the end. His heart is not in harping nor in the having of rings, has no delight in women not the world's gladnesses nor can think of anything outside the thrash of waves, sea-struck, is distracted, stillness lost. The thriving of the treeland, the town's briskness, a lightness over the leas, life gathering, everything urges the eagerly mooded man to venture on the voyage he thinks of, the faring over flood, the far bourn. And the cuckoo calls him in his care-laden voice, scout of summer, sings of new griefs that shall make breast-hoard bitter.                                         Blithe heart cannot know through its happiness, what hardships they suffer who drive the foam-furrow furthest from land. Spirit breaks from the body's chest to the sea's acres; over earth's breadth and whale's range roams the mind now, homes to the breast hungry and thirsty. Cuckoo's dirge drags out my heart, whets will to the whale's beat across wastes of water; far warmer to me are the Lord's kindnesses than this life of death lent us on land.                                         I do not believe earthly estate is everlasting: three things all ways threaten a man's peace and one before the end shall overthrow his mind; either illness or age or the edge of vengeance shall draw out the breath from the doom-shadowed. Wherefore, for earl whosoever, it is afterword, the praise of livers-on, that, lasting, is best; won in the world before wayfaring, forged, framed here, in the face of enmity, in the Devil's spite: deeds, achievements. That after-speakers should respect the name and after them angels have honour toward it for always and ever. From those everlasting joys the daring shall not die.                                         Days are soon over, on earth imperium with the earl's hand fails; kings are not now, kaisers are not, there are no gold-givers like the gone masters who between them framed the first deeds in the world, in their lives lordly, in the lays renowned. That chivalry is changed, cheer is gone away, it is a weaker kind who wields earth now, sweats for its bread. Brave men are fewer, all excellence on earth grows old and sere as now does every man over the world; age fares against him, his face bleaches and his thatch thins: had a throng of friends of noble houses, knows now they all are given to the ground. That grieves his white head. Once life is going, this gristle slackens; nothing can pain or please flesh then, he cannot stir a finger, fix his thinking. A man may bury his brother with the dead and strew his grave with the golden things he would have him take, treasures of all kinds, but gold hoarded when he here lived cannot allay the anger of God towards a soul sin-freighted. Great is the terrible power of God, before which the earth shall turn aside; He established the firm foundations, the expanse of the earth, the heavens above. Foolish is the man who does not fear his Lord; death shall come upon him unprepared. Blessed is the man who lives in trust; grace shall come to him from the heavens. The Lord shall confirm that spirit in him, for he believes in His might. A man should manage a headstrong spirit and keep it in its place, and be true to men, fair in his dealings. He should treat every man with measure, restrain enmity towards friend and foe. He may not wish his cherished friend to be given over to the fire nor to be burnt on the pyre, yet Doom is stronger and God is mightier than any man's conception. Let us think where it is that we may find a home and then consider how we come thither, and then indeed we may strive so that we may be able to enter into that everlasting blessedness where all life is in the Lord's love, the bliss of heaven. Thanks be to the Holy One therefore, the Prince of Glory, the everlasting Lord, that He has raised us up forever. Amen.