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.