The Gift Giver Comes, the Gift Giver Goes

The weary mind cannot withstand wyrd,
the troubled heart can offer no help,
and so those eager for fame often bind fast
in their breast-coffers a sorrowing soul,
just as I have had to take my own heart—
Often wretched, cut off from my own homeland,
far from dear kinsmen—and bind it in fetters,
ever since long ago I hid my gold-giving friend
in the darkness of earth, and went wretched,
winter-sad, over the ice-locked waves,
sought, hall-sick, a treasure-giver,
wherever I might find, far or near,
someone in a meadhall who might know my people,
or who would want to comfort me, friendless,
accustom me to joy.


from The Wanderer, by Anonymous (trans. by Roy. M. Liuzza)