ees go forth
To all men on earth of every race.
For the graces granted let us give him thanks--
For his manifold mercies to the men of earth.

3. ELEGIAC GROUP

THE WANDERER

[Text used: Kluge, _Angelsaechsisches Lesebuch_. It is also given in
Bright's _Anglo-Saxon Reader_.

Alliterative translations: Edward Fulton, _Publications of the Modern
Language Association of America_, vol. xii (1898); Pancoast and Spaeth,
_Early English Poems_, p. 65.

Lines 77 ff. and 101 ff. have been compared to a passage in Keats's
_Hyperion_ (book ii, 34-38).]

Often the lonely one longs for honors,
The grace of God, though, grieved in his soul,
Over the waste of the waters far and wide he shall
Row with his hands through the rime-cold sea,
5 Travel the exile tracks: full determined is fate!
So the wanderer spake, his woes remembering,
His misfortunes in fighting and the fall of his kinsmen:
"Often alone at early dawn
I make my moan! Not a man now lives
10 To whom I can speak forth my heart and soul
And tell of its trials. In truth I know well
That there belongs to a lord an illustrious trait,
To fetter his feelings fast in his breast,
To keep his own counsel though cares oppress him.
15 The weary in heart against Wyrd has no help
Nor may the troubled in thought attempt to get aid.
Therefore the thane who is thinking of glory
Binds in his breast his bitterest thoughts.
So I fasten with fetters, confine in my breast
20 My sorrows of soul, though sick oft at heart,
In a foreign country far from my kinsmen.
I long ago laid my loyal patron
In sorrow under the sod; since then I have gone
Weary with winter-care over the wave's foamy track,
25 In sadness have sought a solace to find
In the home and the hall of a host and ring-giver,
Who, mindful of mercy in the mead-hall free,
In kindness would comfort and care for me friendless,
Would treat me with tenderness. The tried man knows
30 How stern is sorrow, how distressing a comrade
For him who has few of friends and loved ones:
He trails the track of the exile; no treasure he has,