Maey ich be me sylfum soth-yied wrekan, sithas seyan, hu ich yeswinkdagum

I can make a true song about myself, tell of my travels, how in days of toil I often suffered hours of anguish, have borne bitter heart-sorrow, known in my keel many halls of care, the awful surge of the waves, where a grim night-watch often held me at the ship's prow as it tossed by the cliffs. Cold-clinched were my feet, fettered by frost in chilling chains, while cares sighed hot about my heart; hunger tore from within this sea-weary soul. That, the man knows not who lives on land in luxury, how I, wretched and sorrowful, on an ice-cold sea wintered on paths of exile, bereft of kinsmen, hung with hoar-frost; hail flew in showers.

There I heard nothing but the hammering sea, the ice-cold wave. At times the swan's song I took for my pleasure, the gannet's cry and the curlew's call for the laughter of men, the seagull's singing for the sipping of mead. Storms beat the stone-cliffs, where the tern, icy-feathered, answered back; and always the eagle screamed, its wings wet with spray. No sheltering kinsman could comfort this destitute soul.

And so he little believes, who has known life's joys safe in the strongholds, suffering few hardships, proud and wine-flushed, how I, weary, often had to endure on the ocean-ways. Night-shadows fell, snow flew from the north, frost fettered the ground, and hail fell to earth, the coldest of kernels. And so they pound now, these thoughts in my heart, that I should test the high streams, the salt-waves' sport, my own self to try; my soul's desire summons me always to set out, to seek a far-off land, the home of strangers.

For there is no man on this earth so proud, nor so grand in his giving, nor so keen in his youth, nor so daring in his deeds, nor with a lord so dear, that he is not always anxious about his sea-faring, for what the Lord will have allotted him. His heart has no mind for the harp, nor for receiving rings, no joy in a wife, no delight in the world, nothing at all but the tossing of waves; for he who ventures on the water is ever seized with longing.

The groves bear their blossoms, the boroughs grow fair, the meadows are bright, the world rushes onward; and all this urges the eager of heart, the soul to set out on its journey, for one who so thinks to travel far on the flood-ways. The cuckoo calls too, with its mournful cry, summer's warden sings, sowing a sorrow bitter in the breast-hoard. This the blessed man knows not, the one who lives in ease, what some must endure who walk the widest paths of exile.

And so my thought soars now beyond my heart's confines, my spirit roams with the sea-flood, over the whale's home it wanders wide across the world's face, and returns to me eager and hungry; the lone-flier screams, urging my heart to the whale-road, irresistibly, over the ocean's expanse.

For hotter to me are the joys of the Lord than this dead life, loaned to us on land. I do not believe that earthly wealth will last forever. For one of three things will always bring a man's life to its turn: illness or age or the edge of the sword will tear the soul from the fated body.

Therefore for every man the praise of the living, the last word spoken, is the best memorial: that he should strive, before he must go, to work good on earth against the malice of fiends, with daring deeds to defy the devil, so that the sons of men shall sing his praise, and his glory will live on with the angels for ever and ever, the splendor of eternal life, a joy among the hosts.

The days are departed, all the pride of earth's kingdoms; there are no kings now, no kaisers, no givers of gold like the great ones of old, who worked among themselves the mightiest deeds and lived in the most lordly glory. This host has all fallen, their joys have fled; the weaker remain and hold this world, wearing it out with their work. Glory is laid low, the grandeur of earth grows old and withers, as does every man now across the middle-earth. Age comes upon him, his face grows pale; the grey-haired man grieves, knowing his old friends, the sons of princes, are given to the earth. Nor can his flesh-home, when the life has fled, taste any sweetness or feel any sorrow, nor stir a hand, nor think with his heart. And though a brother buries his born brother beside the dead, strewing his grave with gold, with treasures of all kinds to travel with him, that gold cannot go with him; nor can it help a soul that is sinful before the fear of God, when he has hidden it away while he lived here.

Great is the terror of the Measurer, for by it the world turns. He established the steadfast foundations, the plains of the earth and the sky above. A fool is he who fears not his Lord: death will find him unprepared. Blessed is he who lives humbly: grace comes to him from heaven. The Creator makes that man's mind firm, for he trusts in His might. A man must steer a strong mind, and hold it steady, true to his word, and pure in his ways. Every man must hold a measure of malice for friend and for foe. Fate is stronger, the Measurer mightier, than any man's mind.

Let us think where we have our home, and then think how we may come thither, and let us then strive that we may be allowed into that eternal blessedness, where life is born of the Lord's love, our hope in the heavens. Thanks be to the Holy One, the Prince of Glory, the everlasting Lord, that He has honored us for all time. Amen.