Today is 03 October, it is National Poetry Day and it is Day 669 of the daily poems. We celebrate National Poetry Day with this fine Longship Burial by our poet Fiona Clark, while on the Home Page we announce our next theme. Fiona’s poem is truly a hilde leoma, a gleaming battle light.
Longship Burial at Sutton Hoo
The second stanza contains phrases from my own translation
of the anonymous Anglo-Saxon ‘Seafarer.’
My longship is harboured under the heath,
shadow-ribs curving in the sand,
tall prow, which strode the whale-road,
dragged here with straining ropes
and grate and groan of gravel,
now lies motionless.
Once we carved a curling furrow
through cruel waves
white spray frozen on the snow-wind,
gulls’ barney, gannets’ blether,
eagles’ call echoing from cliff-tops,
as we rowed together.
Here in my earth-hall:
my helmet, chased with a dragon’s
fiery mouth and coiling tail,
lies in golden pieces,
seven silver bowls from far Byzantium
to serve my meat and mead
beyond the grave,
a cloth of gold set with Eastern garnets.
Wolf of wounds, I lie as dust.
My wooden shield, Odin’s cloud,
my bone-beak axe, skull-splitter,
my flashing sword, hilde leoma,
which gleamed in battle,
handle worn to my fist’s grip,
yet all is nothing to my dream
of the freedom of the seas,
feasting in the mead-hall,
my brothers’ company,
and songs of the shield-warriors.
Fiona Clark