Best Saxon Poems
Isaac's son
saac's son
Saxon
O Israel where are you
I know you are not a Jew
Joseph come home
come home O child come home
I spy David's thrown
we'll have to make preparations
to bring it back to Jerusalem
so that when our savior comes home
he will have a proper place to sit
there upon his fathers thrown
for sins the Lord with held the blessings
over twenty five hundred years
and then we suddenly received them
swiftly they fade away
think we will ever learn our lesson
think we'll ever straighten our ways
"Be sure to observe my Sabbaths
keep the sanctified day
do not go around worshiping idols"
now blessings are fading away
does anybody else know
what does the word of God say
soon the skies will be iron
and the land will turn to brass
plagues shall scald our people
and our cities will break like glass
that fell down from the heavens
shattered and scattered all to pieces
we should have obeyed the laws of our father
like we were told to by the great king Jesus
O Ephraim, O Manasseh
I pray we learn our lesson fast
so that the pain doesn't have to last
we will all soon be slaves
God's will and try to be brave
still I pray
my God have mercy
and I pray to see the day
when we all learn to live
within God's laws and learn his ways
O America, O Britain
nation overseas and mine
don't you know God is going to punish us
time after time after time
until we learn the way to happiness
and inherit eternal life
we will walk by the river of life that flows
I guess we’ll have to learn the hard way
I guess that's just how it goes
they don't believe God and they wont believe me
I guess that soon enough
everybody in the world will know
everybody in the world will see
(Jer: 50:4-6)
In those days, and in that time, saith the LORD,
the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together,
going and weeping: they shall go, and seek the LORD their God.
They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, Come,
and let us join ourselves to the LORD in a perpetual covenant that shall not be
forgotten.
My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray,
they have turned them away on the mountains:
they have gone from mountain to hill,
they have forgotten their resting place.
Free verse has
more going for it than this:
no rhyme pattern at all,
no use of meter.
One upside though...
over quick!
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A Seox (Anglo Saxon for 'six'), consisting of 6 unrhymed lines 3/7/6/5/4/3
The Wanderer, Part III
The wise man contemplates these ruins,
considers this dark life soberly,
remembers the blood spilled here
in multitudes of battles,
then says:
“Where is the horse now? Where, its riders?
Where, the givers of gifts & treasure, the gold-friend?
Where, the banquet-seats? Where, the mead-halls’ friendly uproars?
Gone, the bright cup! Gone, the mailed warrior!
Gone, the glory of princes! Time has slipped down
the night-dome, as if it never were!
Now all that remains is this wall, wondrous-high,
decorated with strange serpentine shapes,
these unreadable wormlike runes!
The strength of spears defeated the earls,
lances lusting for slaughter, for some glorious victory!
Now storms rage against these rock-cliffs,
as swirling snows & sleet entomb the earth,
while wild winter howls its wrath
as the pale night-shadow descends.
The frigid north sends hailstones to harry warriors.
Hardships & struggles beset the children of men.
The shape of fate is twisted under the heavens
as the Wyrdes decree.
Life is on loan, wealth transitory, friendships fleeting,
man himself fleeting, everything transitory,
& earth’s entire foundation stands empty.”
Thus spoke the wanderer, wise-hearted, as he sat apart in thought.
Good is the man who keeps his word to the end.
Nor should a man manifest his breast-pangs before he knows their cure,
how to accomplish the remedy with courage.
Keywords/Tags: Anglo-Saxon, translation, Old English, wanderer, wise, wisdom, ruins, runes, war, battles, time, travel, travail, wall, winter, ice, snow, sleet, storms, night, shadows, life, friendships, loss, lost, sorrow, dark
The beast with two backs,
Rarely attacks,
As it is preoccupied,
With whom it interacts.
The man with two heads,
(One of them red),
Is a far bigger threat,
Until one head is dead.
Long nosed earthy bookworm knows 'bout Angler Saxon
Shell yours truly share hook line
and sinker, regarding how I nearly
fell prey to off fish shill
doom for umpteenth time?
Ya haint got no choice... to late,
cuz eyes already clicked bait,
though don't worry be happy fate
will find thee enjoying poetic tête-à-tête
rhyming Hors d'oeuvres
ain't no Shakespearean literary great
expert, nonetheless might interest
with special Labor Day rate
absolute zero charge courtesy
to mollycoddle principally
as figurative paypal pit tate
ting gently massaging your pate
anyway don't get doggies in a dimple
yawping personal ambition
of this doggone puppy not to create
literary accomplishment appraised great
merely to fritter away time possibly
unexpectedly, unknowingly,
unwittingly... titillate.
Herewith follows "FAKE" off fish hill
anecdote without wallowing
in self pity and deemed gill
tee of slimy overkill,
whereby fisherman seeks likes of me,
who favors lollygagging
within Brooklyn rill
frequented by Jack and Jill
ice cream in vain
when riled, poked, nabbed...
courtesy angler England Bill
unaware his carping cavil
never fooling this ever will
fill squiggly... d'ya phylum me?
As proud Annelida where trawler
(accompanied with boating mate)
blithely tosses yours truly into catcher's
reel tin can - grim fate
ah, but survival skills include
ability to regenerate
in thee event mine body electric rotate
headed, chopped, perforated, segmented...
evening, increasing, licking... odds
laughing to myself, which doth not abate,
cuz I outsmarted, thus aye state
with modesty if perchance just a sliver
lopped off, destiny cannot eliminate
opportunity not to agitate,
but rather duplicate, replicate
unisexual worman hood
without need to feign
being irate, thus
pretend to equivocate.
KING ALFRED THE GREAT MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS
King Alfred the Great (c. 849-899), arguably the first great king of England, may have done more to lay the groundwork for English literacy and literature than any other English monarch. And he was quite the scholar himself, although there is no consensus that the following translations were primarily Alfred’s work. He could have done the translations himself; he could have overseen the work; or he may have commissioned the translations. No one really knows.
Alfred the Great undertook to translate “the most needful works for all men to know.” He wanted to succeed “both in war and in wisdom.” Alfred has also been credited with helping to develop a new English prose style.
The Meters of Boethius: Prelude or Verse Preface
attributed to King Alfred the Great, circa 880 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Thus begin the tales King Alfred taught us.
The great West Saxon ruler, in his cunning,
Understood the art of all songmen,
Revealed his great skill as a poet.
Keenly he longed for Saxons to craft such songs,
To make men merry with manifold amusements,
To ward away world-weariness with pleasing poems.
Alfred loved poetry for its art and power,
Longed for it to free men from both boredom and pride.
But the arrogant man, in his self-importance,
Pays little heed to wise words. Still I must speak,
Begin my singing, weave tales well-known
For attentive mortals. Hear me, if you will.
Boethius Lay I: The Goths
from King Alfred the Great's Meters of Boethius, circa 880 AD
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Long ago the Goths left Scythia,
swarms of shieldmen streaming from the east,
two savage tribes tramping southward,
both growing in greatness year by year.
Under the rule of two remarkable kings,
Raedgod and Aleric, their people prospered.
Many Goths made it across the Alps,
intent on conquest, raging with war-lust.
Braying brazen battle-boasts, eager to attack
the awaiting Romans, their armor flashing,
stout shieldmen descended, waving war-banners
and slashing swords.
They intended to overrun Italy...
Keywords/Tags: Alfred the Great, Old English, Anglo-Saxon English, Boethius Translations, West Saxon, poet, poetry, art, power, pride, wise, wisdom, king, kings, leadership, war, battle, England, literature, words
The Wanderer, Part II
Awakening, the friendless man confronts the murky waves,
the seabirds bathing, broadening out their feathers,
the hoar-frost, harrowing hail & snow eternally falling…
Then his heart’s wounds seem all the heavier for the loss of his beloved lord.
Thus his sorrow is renewed,
remembrance of his lost kinsmen troubles his mind,
& he greets their ghosts with exclamations of joy, but they merely swim away.
The floating ones never tarry.
Thus care is renewed for the one whose weary spirit rides the waves.
Therefore I cannot think why, surveying this world,
my mind should not contemplate its darkness.
When I consider the lives of earls & their retainers,
how at a stroke they departed their halls, those mood-proud thanes!,
then I see how this middle-earth fails & falls, day after day…
Therefore no man becomes wise without his share of winters.
A wise man must be patient,
not hot-hearted, nor over-eager to speak,
nor weak-willed in battles & yet not reckless,
not unwitting nor wanting in forethought,
nor too greedy for gold & goods,
nor too fearful, nor too cheerful,
nor too hot, nor too mild,
nor too eager to boast before he’s thought things through.
A wise man forbears boastmaking
until, stout-hearted, his mind sure & his will strong,
he can read the road where his travels & travails take him.
The wise man grasps how ghastly life will be
when all the world’s wealth becomes waste,
even as middle-earth already is, in so many places
where walls stand weather-beaten by the wind,
crusted with cold rime, ruined dwellings snowbound,
wine-halls crumbling, their dead lords deprived of joy,
the once-hale host all perished beyond the walls.
Some war took, carried them off from their courses;
a bird bore one across the salt sea;
another the gray wolf delivered to Death;
one a sallow-cheeked earl buried in a bleak barrow.
Thus mankind’s Maker laid waste to Middle Earth,
until the works of the giants stood idle,
all eerily silenced, the former joys of their halls.”
Keywords/Tags: Anglo-Saxon, translation, Old English, wanderer, winter, ice, snow, frost, sea, ocean, seabirds, heart, heartbreak, loss, loneliness, alienation, sorrow, death, ghosts, dark, darkness, wise, wisdom, war, bird, birds, wolf, giants
In my writes replies and poeming I often use a certain word
Therein..This word in truth 'is imput see.' Not sanctioned in
The current dictionary.? And yet the English langauge grand has
Been the work of tounge and hands, one of which is Saxon
West..Or Germanic..? If I pass the test? And 'im' within
Germanic tounge 'is the same as in.' Thats where I'm coming from , so from a plaited and interwoven vocabulary
Not formerly chosen.. Nor of standard till Alfreds day would be' he
An Saxon Anglo btw..I find two words are the same to use
In-put or Im-put to my peruse.'
Widsith the Far-Traveler, Part II
ancient Anglo-Saxon poem
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
Hrothulf and Hrothgar, uncle and nephew,
for a long time kept a careful peace together
after they had driven away the Vikings' kinsmen,
vanquished Ingeld's spear-hordes,
and hewed down at Heorot the host of the Heathobards.
Thus I have traveled among many foreign lands,
crossing the earth's breadth,
experiencing both goodness and wickedness,
cut off from my kinsfolk, far from my family.
Thus I can speak and sing these tidings in the mead-halls,
of how how I was received by the most excellent kings.
Many were magnanimous to me!
I was among the Huns and the glorious Ostrogoths,
among the Swedes, the Geats, and the South-Danes,
among the Vandals, the Wærnas, and the Vikings,
among the Gefthas, the Wends, and the Gefflas,
among the Angles, the Swabians, and the Ænenas,
among the Saxons, the Secgan, and the Swordsmen,
among the Hronas, the Danes, and the Heathoreams,
among the Thuringians and the Throndheims,
also among the Burgundians, where I received an arm-ring;
Guthhere gave me a gleaming gem in return for my song.
He was no gem-hoarding king, slow to give!
I was among the Franks, the Frisians, and the Frumtings,
among the Rugas, the Glomms, and the Romans.
I was likewise in Italy with Ælfwine,
who had, as I'd heard, commendable hands,
fast to reward fame-winning deeds,
a generous sharer of rings and torques,
the noble son of Eadwine.
I was among the Saracens and also the Serings,
among the Greeks, the Finns, and also with Caesar,
the ruler of wine-rich cities and formidable fortresses,
of riches and rings and Roman domains.
He also controlled the kingdom of Wales.
I was among the Scots, the Picts and the Scrid-Finns,
among the Leons and Bretons and Lombards,
among the heathens and heroes and Huns,
among the Israelites and Assyrians,
among the Hebrews and Jews and Egyptians,
among the Medes and Persians and Myrgings,
and with the Mofdings against the Myrgings,
among the Amothings and the East-Thuringians,
among the Eolas, the Ista and the Idumings.
Keywords/Tags: Widsith, Anglo-Saxon, translation, Old English, minstrel, travel, travels, traveler, poet, poetry, songs, music, earth, world, places, peace, war