The Seafarer Might I of the mere1-strife meet verse fashion, Roamings ration2, how I, struggling sea-weeks, Scourges suffered ever. Acrid anguish ate my heart fast-anchored, Grasped me by gunwale3 garrulous care-grips And rippling wave-claw, where I bent over bowsprit4, Oft broken by bleary nightwatch as the ship Scratched keel to cliffs. Clasped in coldness My feet were, frost-shod, algor5-greaved, Where grief’s heat haggards6 my heart, Hunger wastes from within the sea-worn soul. Should ever you doubt, fair-plainsman, Days of the fairest befall you, hear how I Wandered a winter’s salt-wretched out-roads Tilling the ice-rich surf; relations were reft of me there, My hair was flecked of frost-nails And the hail-flocks flew. What could I hear In the sea-craw’s cackle, save crackling waves of ice? At sail-lithe the swan-sigh soothed me, Bickering rooks I took for my Yule-cheer, Cries of the curlew for the laughter of kinsmen, Mews7, mocking, my music and mead-drink. Rock shook under storm-fist, stone-cliffs Veined of the Thor-levin8--terns mid-heaven To the gale turn frosted feathers; scream-eagle springs And spreads his spray-heavy staysails9; no kind companion Consoles the care-swept sea-wretch. This he cannot conceive- the burgher of living’s delight, Wine-washed mid fortune's flood, his haughty abode Beyond baleful journey- the weary home I made by the brine-way. Noons narrow nightward, north-snow's shadow,
1 "Mere": sea 2 "Ration": v., apportion, order 3 "Gunwale": rhymes with "tunnel"; rim of a boat 4 "Bowsprit": bow of a boat 5 "Algor": chill 6 "Haggards": as a verb, a novel coinage perhaps, etymologically evoking also the wildness of an untamed raptor 7 "Mews": gulls 8 "Levin": lightning 9 "Staysails": auxiliary sails to catch the wind