Until her dwellers abandoned their feast-boards. 
       Void stood the work of the giants of old. 
     One who was viewing full wisely this wall-place,
       Pondering deeply his dark, dreary life. 
     Spake then as follows, his past thus reviewing,
       Years full of slaughter and struggle and strife:—­
     “Wither, alas, have my horses been carried? 
       Whither, alas, are my kinspeople gone? 
     Where is my giver of treasure and feasting? 
       Where are the joys of the hall I have known? 
     Ah, the bright cup—­and the corseleted warrior—­
       Ah, the bright joy of a king’s happy lot! 
     How the glad time has forever departed,
       Swallowed in darkness, as though it were not! 
     Standeth, instead of the troop of young warriors,
       Stained with the bodies of dragons, a wall—­
     The men were cut down in their pride by the spearpoints—­
       Blood-greedy weapons—­but noble their fall. 
     Earth is enwrapped in the lowering tempest,
       Fierce on the stone-cliff the storm rushes forth,
     Cold winter-terror, the night shade is dark’ning,
       Hail-storms are laden with death from the north. 
     All full of hardships is earthly existence—­
       Here the decrees of the Fates have their sway—­
     Fleeting is treasure and fleeting is friendship—­
       Here man is transient, here friends pass away. 
     Earth’s widely stretching, extensive domain,
       Desolate all—­empty, idle, and vain.” 
     In ‘Modern Language Notes’:  Translation of W.R.  Sims.

          THE SEAFARER

     Sooth the song that I of myself can sing,
     Telling of my travels; how in troublous days,
     Hours of hardship oft I’ve borne! 
     With a bitter breast-care I have been abiding;
     Many seats of sorrow in my ship have known! 
     Frightful was the whirl of waves when it was my part
     Narrow watch at night to keep on my Vessel’s prow
     When it rushed the rocks along.  By the rigid cold
     Fast my feet were pinched, fettered by the frost,
     By the chains of cold.  Care was sighing then
     Hot my heart around; hunger rent to shreds
     Courage in me, me sea-wearied!  This the man knows not,
     He to whom it happens, happiest on earth,
     How I, carked with care, in the ice-cold sea,
     Overwent the winter on my wander-ways,
     All forlorn of happiness, all bereft of loving kinsmen,
     Hung about with icicles; flew the hail in showers. 
     Nothing heard I there save the howling of the sea,
     And the ice-chilled billow, ’whiles the crying of the swan. 
     All the glee I got me was the gannet’s scream,
     And the swoughing of the seal, ’stead of mirth of men;
     ’Stead of the mead-drinking, moaning of the sea-mew. 
     There the storms smote on the crags, there the swallow of the sea
     Answered to them, icy-plumed; and that answer oft the earn—­
     Wet his wings were—­barked aloud.