The Wanderer

Anonymous, Late 9th Century

Adapted from the Anglo-Saxon by Jeffrey Burghauser (June 2025)

The Philosopher in Meditation (Rembrandt, 1632)

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The solitary mortal chases Grace,

The solitary mortal chases Grace,

___His Maker’s mercy. Even though his heart

Be sick, he longs to cross the icy sea

___To navigate the all-demanding path

Of Exile. Submit, for this is Fate.

____________So said the Wanderer, his burdened mind,

____________A codex overstuffed with miseries.

____________And slaughters. Kinsmen’s corpses. Ruined halls.

Each time the barren sun expresses forth

___Her icy light, my soul laments its woes.

There isn’t any man alive to whom

___I can confess my innermost concerns.

The mournful soul a treasure chamber is.

___It is a soul-confounding virtue to

Maintain the door’s uncompromising lock.

___A weary, weary mind cannot confront

The merciless indignities of Fate.

___I quested far and near for some new king

Dispensing gems, delicious mead, and love—

___Dispensing solace to the desolate.

I quested far and near for some new king

___To cheer me with delights. The lonely man

Has only awful sorrow for a friend.

___He’s rich in woe, not golden filigree.

Soon Sleep and Sorrow fuse upon the wretch.

___His dreams reconstitute the image of

The regal hall’s profuse comradery.

___He dreams of someone’s brotherly embrace.

He dreams of former days, when he was loved.

___But slung into alertness with a start,

He sees prepared before him fallow ways

___Unfolding through the swirls of snow and hail.

The heart’s distress becomes more ponderous;

___And melancholy, inexhaustible.

The wincing faces of my slaughtered kin

___Procéss before me. Tell me why my mind

Should not be dolorous when I reflect

___On dark, impulsively abandoned halls.

No man discovers Wisdom till he takes

___His share of sorrows. Patience marks the wise—

The stoicism born of knowing that

___No mortal man should be too passionate,

Too quick to speak, too timid, rash, afraid,

___Exultant, greedy, or engaged before

He comprehends the substance of this world—

___Before he sees how Life unmakes herself.

The wise man grasps how ghastly it shall be

___When every specimen of earthly wealth

Is wasted in the manner of these walls—

___These wind-assaulted walls, confined in ice;

Substantial blackthorn plucked from loamy earth.

___The mead-halls crumble, and the Masters lie

Bereft of joy. The band of warriors,

___Impressively arrayed upon the ridge:

Resounding battle carried some away.

___I know of one enfolded by the keen,

Encrimsoned talons of a shrieking bird,

___And then conveyed across the icy waves;

Another one I knew, assigned to Death

___In searing increments by thrashing wolves,

And yet another hidden in the earth.

___The Maker of the World unmade this place,

Until (the noise of its inhabitants

___Resolving into Silence’s estates)

The mighty castle stood untenanted.

___The wretched mortal who reflects upon

This palisade-surrounded place (…upon

___The darkness that must be a human life)

Will often summon from the charnel vaults

___Of Memory so many battles with

A worthy foe. But when the daylight finds

___These present miseries, the mortal cries:

“The horse is gone. The potentate is gone.

___The blade is gone. The always-open hand

So freely circulating gold is gone.

___The benches in the hall, the hall itself,

The chalice, chainmail, pride of princes, all

___So shockingly, so consummately gone.”

For life on Middle Earth is aught but pain,

___And Fate’s caprices hurriedly rewrite

Whatever might be written in the sky.

___Divine abundance levered from the hills,

Mementos, chanted verses, turquoise glass,

___Enameled aestels, bold compatriots,

Sweet lyres, heroes mounted on their steeds,

___The slaughter-horns composed of hammered bronze,

Attentive womenfolk…they pass away.

___And Fate (that brutally impulsive lass)

Produces vacancy upon the earth.

____________So said the briny, casket-chested man

____________Reduced into a state of wisdom by

____________Experience’s sheer primeval heft.

____________It is a worthy man who keeps the faith.

____________It is a worthy man who never too

____________Impetuously throws ajar the cage

____________Containing his accumulated grief…

____________Unless he knows beforehand how to find

____________The humble ear associated to

____________Eternity’s sublime Anointed One.

____________For well is it with him who follows Grace—

____________Authentic solace’s eternal source.

____________For well is it with him who knows the Lord

____________In whom abides our true security.

 

 

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Jeffrey Burghauser is a teacher in Columbus, Ohio. He was educated at SUNY-Buffalo and the University of Leeds. He currently studies the five-string banjo with a focus on pre-WWII picking styles. A former artist-in-residence at the Arad Arts Project (Israel), his poems have appeared (or are forthcoming) in Appalachian Journal, Fearsome Critters, Iceview, Lehrhaus, and New English Review. Jeffrey’s book-length collections are available on Amazon, and his website is www.jeffreyburghauser.com.

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