THE WIFE'S LAMENT

The song of myself is a sad, sad song.

Only I know of the troubles I've seen,

The suffering, the sorrow, the heartache, the hurt –

And always the keenest of all my cares

Is an exile's endurance, the hunger for home.

Since becoming a woman I've known such woe:

Early and late, present and past – but never

So much, no, never so much,

Never so much as now. Since the dawn

When my dear lord, across the wide waves,

Took his departure, far from his friends,

Each daybreak brings back to me all the same

Sorrow: where is my loved one?

Where's my lord gone?

When I first came here,

Alone and unwelcome, to live with my lover,

Hunting for happiness, forlorn of all friends,

Scheming in secret my kinsmen conspired

To cleave us asunder, my new-found family

Pulled us apart. They wanted the whole world

To widen between us, so we'd live in longing

With no hope in our hearts;

My man had commanded me

To keep to this country, to live in this land

Though my friends here were few.

That's the source of my sadness:

Though I'd found a fellow with the sweetest smile,

With a face of friendship, free of all care –

His heart hid harm. He'd murder in mind.

How vainly we vowed that nothing in life 30

Would put us asunder; we'd keep one another

Till death did us part! Now that's all in the past;

Our bond is broken, borne on the wind,

Tossed on the tideway, gone without trace.

And though he's so dear, that violent vendetta –

That death-dealing duel, the feud that he fights for –

Means misery for me. Now those cruel kinsmen

Confine me to dwell in a forest fastness,

Under an oak, in a dreary dug-out

Scraped from the soil. Ancient this earth-work:

As old as my tears. My hovel's hedged in

By high-rearing hills, fenced in by forests

Of tangling briars. Piercing as thorns

Is my heart's sharp pain; dim as the dales

Is my darkening mind.

It's here, down here, that I feel most fiercely

The pain of that parting from my loved lord.