Old English Poems: Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose
General
Old English Poems: Translated into the Original Meter Together with Short Selections from Old English Prose
English poetry -- Old English, ca. 450-1100 -- Modernized versions
No sorrow nor sleep, nor sick-bed's pain,
Nor wintry winds, nor weather's raging,
Fierce under the heavens; nor the hard frost
Causeth discomfort with cold icicles.
60 Neither hail nor frost fall from the heavens,
Nor wintry cloud nor water descendeth
Stirred by the storms; but streams there flow,
Wondrously welling and watering the earth,
Pouring forth in pleasant fountains;
65 The winsome water from the wood's middle
Each month of the year from the mould of earth,
Cold as the sea, coursing through the woods,
Breaketh abundantly. It is the bidding of the Lord
That twelve times yearly that teeming land
70 The floods shall o'erflow and fill with joy.
The groves are green with gorgeous bloom,
And fairest of fruits; there fail not at all
The holy treasures of the trees under heaven,
Nor falleth from the forests the fallow blossoms,
75 The beauty of the trees; but, bounteously laden,
The boughs are hanging heavy with fruit
That is always new in every season.
In the grassy plain all green appear,
Gorgeously garnished by God in his might,
80 The forests fair. Nor fails the wood
In its pleasing prospect; a perfume holy
Enchanteth the land. No change shall it know
Forever till he ends his ancient plan,
His work of wisdom as he willed it at first.
II
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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