Call of the sea explained how to#

Our thoughts should turn to where our home is,Įternal, unchanging creator of earth. Amen. Though an enemy seek to scorch him in hell, 115 With love or with hate but never with harm, Treat all the world as the world deserves, 110īe firm with his fellows, chaste for himself, To carry him courage and strength and belief. He who lives humbly has angels from Heaven Gave life to the world and light to the sky.ĭeath leaps at the fools who forget their God. On his kinsman’s grave, strewing his coffin 100 With treasures intended for Heaven, but nothingįor a soul overflowing with sin, and nothing The soul stripped of its flesh knows nothingīends neither its hand nor its brain. A brother Wither and they mourn the memory of friends. 90īent like the men who mold it. Their faces Kept spinning by toil. All glory is tarnished. The weakest survives and the world continues, Those powers have vanished, those pleasures are

When wonderful things were worked among them No givers of gold, as once there were, 85 When the kingdoms of earth flourished in glory With the angels, life eternally blessed 80 Of the world neither reaches to Heaven nor

Of the world, returning ravenous with desire, In his murmuring voice, and our hearts mournĪs the paths of exile stretch endlessly on? In thoughts traveling on a quickening tide. No passion for women, no worldly pleasures, 45įields grow lovely as the world springs fresh,Īnd all these admonish that willing mind 50 Wondering what Fate has willed and will do. That he feels no fear as the sails unfurl, So born to greatness, so bold with his youth, The time for journeys would come and my soul The salt waves tossing and the towering sea! 35 Night would blacken it would snow from theįrost bound the earth and hail would fall, I put myself back on the paths of the sea. The passion of cities, swelled proud with wineĪnd no taste of misfortune, how often, how Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoedīy icy-feathered terns and the eagle’s screams The death-noise of birds instead of laughter, Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl, 20 On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow, 15 How wretched I was, drifting through winter With frozen chains, and hardship groaned 10 Of smashing surf when I sweated in the coldĪs it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells 5 Poem Text This tale is true, and mine. It tells For comparison, read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Whatever themes one finds in the poem, “The Seafarer” is a powerful account of a sensitive poet’s interaction with his environment. Moreover, “The Seafarer” can be thought of as an allegory discussing life as a journey and the human condition as that of exile from God on the sea of life.

For example, the speaker discusses being buried with treasure and winning glory in battle (pagan) and also fearing God’s judgment in the afterlife (Christian). The poem addresses both pagan and Christian ideas about overcoming this sense of suffering and loneliness. In this section, the speaker urges the reader to forget earthly accomplishments and anticipate God’s judgment in the afterlife. In the second section, the speaker makes an abrupt shift to moral speculation about the fleeting nature of fame, fortune, and life itself, ending with an explicitly Christian view of God as wrathful and powerful. The first section is a painfully personal description of the suffering and mysterious attractions of life at sea. Moreover, the poem can be read as a dramatic monologue, the thoughts of one person, or as a dialogue between two people. “The Seafarer” can be read as two poems on separate subjects or as one poem moving between two subjects. “The Seafarer” is divisible into two sections, the first elegiac and the second didactic. Even in its translated form, “The Seafarer” provides an accurate portrait of the sense of stoic endurance, suffering, loneliness, and spiritual yearning so characteristic of Old English poetry. Old English resembles German and Scandinavian languages, and one cannot read it without at least one year of intense study. Old English (the predecessor of modern English) is the name given to the Germanic tongues brought to England by the invading tribes who crossed the English channel from Northern Europe.

Call of the sea explained how to#

“The Seafarer” has its origins in the Old English period of English literature, 450-1100, a time when very few people knew how to read or write. “The Seafarer” was first discovered in the Exeter Book, a hand-copied manuscript containing the largest known collection of Old English poetry, which is kept at Exeter Cathedral, England.