European Elegies/Winter/The sun-dirge

by Anonymous

56.THE SUN-DIRGE

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I saw the sun sink, blotched with blood;My fainting spirit almost failed;All former solar glories paledBeside that lurid plenitude.

I saw the sun sink, while it shedSuch fire that I swooned, and soreA seething river, thick with gore,Bellowed from dark depths of the dead.

I watched that sun with eyes astrainIn fluttering, fearful joylessness;My very heart in its distressDissolved away in clotted pain.

I watched that sun with anguisht eyes;Impending death began to freezeMy tongue as taut as winter trees,And utter frost congealed the skies.

Then my sun sank to rise no more,For waters of the wild waste hillsWent wailing o'er me, and my illsWere washed to nothing down death's shore.

From the Old Icelandic, eleventh century.