A monk's prayer
Bitter is the wind tonight,
It tosses the ocean's white hair:
Tonight I fear not the fierce warriors of Norway
Coursing on the Irish Sea.
-Anonymous [Translated by Kuno Meyer]
Wind fierce to-night
Wind fierce to-night.
Mane of the sea whipped white.
I am not afraid. No ravening Norse
On course through quiet waters.
-Anonymous [Translated by Seamus Heaney]
Serendipity today - I pull out a Kuno Meyer translation from St Patrick's Irish Poetry posts past. And lo, that evening, reading through a book of Seamus Heaney translations. I discover the same poem with a different rendering. The fear of the Viking raider impelled many an imagining of the sea, and poem. [- J.V.
The painting is by Albert Ryder.
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