Burton Raffel: 1964 go to: line 62
"The Seafarer" an anonymous poem of uncertain date, was found in the
This tale is true, and mine. It tells But there isn't a man on earth so
proud, And yet my heart wanders
away, Thus the joys of God
...... Translation by : Burton Raffel
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.
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?
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.
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.