The Complete Old English Poems
Page 46
Offered mercy to those in misery, sustained the sick,
Granted comfort to the needy in my holy name
When they prayed for compassion. You gave shelter 495
To the lost and lonely, bread to the hungry,
Clothing to the naked. You gave healing and hope
With your heart’s joy and your soul’s deep affection
To the sick and suffering, bedridden with disease.
You strengthened their spirits and gave them courage. 500
What you did for them you did for me.
When you offered them love, you earned my blessing.
Enjoy your eternal reward among my beloved.”
The Lord’s words to the evil will be unlike
Those to the good. His mercy will be menace, 505
His delight, doom—no love on the sinister side.
The faithless will find no favor, no grace
But a grim unlife—their reward shall be
Only a righteous judgment for their unholy
Words and works. They must endure doom. 510
The Lord’s compassion will be lost to the wicked,
His mercy missing to those mired in sin.
They will be charged and tried, championed
By no one, found guilty and grimly judged.
They will know both reckoning and wrath. 515
Sinners will be doomed for their wicked words,
Their waste of days, their squandering life.
Their balance sheet will be a bit short
When they’re brought before God to settle accounts.
Then the almighty Lord shall speak to sinners, 520
As if addressing a single lost soul, saying:
“Listen! I made you with my own hands,
Gave you a living soul and limbs of clay,
A beautiful body and a bright mind,
A form and figure in the image of myself. 525
I set you above all creatures, gave you gifts,
Power and prosperity, intelligence and insight.
I offered you wisdom without woe,
Majesty without misery, grace without gloom,
But for my wealth of gifts you felt no gratitude. 530
I gave you land and a place in paradise
With its bright plenty of blooming hues,
But you failed to fulfill your own promise
And refused to heed my words of warning.
You listened instead to that treacherous demon, 535
The satanic slayer, murderer of mankind.
Now I pass over the pain of that old story—
How you embraced sin, debasing my gifts
At the subtle urging of the devious fiend.
I gave you joy out of my loving generosity, 540
Pleasure in paradise in modest measure,
But you wanted more, unchecked power
And the capacity and knowledge of your Creator.
To the devils’ delight, you became a stranger
To paradise, an alien to your own best joy, 545
And you were cast out, away from bliss,
Away from the promised homeland of souls,
Deprived of the blessed company of your Creator.
You were driven into the dark world of woe
To suffer the wages of sin and endure 550
Pain and hardship, toil and trouble,
The curse of exile, and the dread of death,
Doomed in the end to endless damnation,
A bitter life in hell with no help from anyone.
Then I began to lament that my own handiwork, 555
The miracle of man, the wonder of the world,
Should pass so smoothly into the dark power
Of fierce fiends, that the children of men
Should suffer such torture and torment,
Live out eternity in a loveless home. 560
So I descended as a child into the womb
Of a beautiful maiden, a glorious mother,
Pure and pregnant, to be born in Bethlehem,
Alone a solace and savior to mankind.
There they swaddled me with their own hands, 565
Wrapped me in the plain clothes of the poor,
And laid me down in a dark cradle.
I suffered for the sins of the wretched world
And seemed a small thing to the children of men.
I lay on hard stone, a babe in a crib, 570
A manchild in the manger—for this I came
To rescue you from sin, the savagery of hell,
The flagrant fires of damnation, so you could shine
Among the saved, bright with the blessed,
In holy bliss instead of hellish flame. 575
For your salvation I suffered human pain.
It was not for pride that I endured adversity,
The shame and suffering of a fleshly body,
But because I wanted to be human like you,
To offer myself as a model for mankind— 580
Blessed, beautiful, released from sin.
For this love I bore brutal beatings,
Savage strokes to my head and face,
The spit of evil mouths on my fair cheeks.
Men gave me a drink of vinegar and gall, 585
A bitter quench for their own Creator,
The unsweet taste of human torment.
They offered me the wrath of fierce foes,
Scourging my body with stinging whips.
Hardened with hate, they held back nothing. 590
With a humble heart, I suffered their scorn,
Both misery and mockery, agony and abuse.
I endured both punishment and pain for you.
They wreathed a twisted crown of thorns
About my head and crushed it down cruelly. 595
Then I was hung on a high tree, nailed to the cross,
Riding the rood. A spear punctured my side,
Piercing my ribs, opening a hole
For the red gore to pour out onto the earth.
My blessed blood was a grim gift. 600
All this I did so that you could be delivered
From the devil’s tyranny. I bore this suffering
So that you could finally be free from sin,
Secure in faith. I sent my living spirit forth
From my broken body. See now the life-wounds 605
Left on my palms, the holes of pain.
See now the piercings on my poor feet
Where they nailed me up on the innocent wood.
See now the wound in my side that wept blood.
How unequal was that reckoning between us! 610
I bore your pain so that you might have the promise
Of a homeland in heaven with all its blessings.
I dearly bought life for you with my death
So that you could live in the light without sin.
I gathered your grief so that you could find glory. 615
My harmless body was secluded in a sepulcher
So that you might shine with the angelic hosts.
Why did you reject that redemption I offered you
Out of love, bought with the pain of my body?
Were you a fool forgetting to be thankful? 620
For the bitter death I endured in martyrdom,
I ask now for nothing except the life
That you have wasted in worldly delights,
Trading your soul’s promise for sin and shame,
Drinking deeply from the cup of desire, 625
Polluting your spirit, my sweet home within.
I shaped for you a sacred tabernacle,
A worldly home, a walking joy, a bright body
Rescued from demons, set free from sin.
Why have you spoiled and defiled this gift? 630
Why do you hang me on the cross of your hands?
This is more bitter than my fate on the wood.
Why do you crucify
me on the rood of your sins
So willfully when I died willingly for you
To draw you from darkness to eternal delight, 635
From the flames of hell to a home in heaven?
I was poor in this world so that you might prosper
Eternally in the next. I was a beggar on earth
So that you might be blessed in my heavenly realm,
But for these gifts your heart knew no gratitude. 640
You saved no thanks for your Lord and Savior.
I commanded you to comfort and cherish my people,
To share the possessions I gave you with the poor.
You were greedy, not giving. You offered no welcome
To the needy at your door and denied them everything 645
In your heart and home. You gave no food to the hungry,
No clothes to the naked, no drink to the thirsty,
Though they were parched and prayed for water
In my name. You offered no help or healing,
No sustenance or shelter, no comfort or consolation. 650
You never had a kind word for a suffering soul.
In scorning the poor, you have scorned me,
So now you must endure exile from God
And endless torment in the devils’ den.”
Then the Lord of victories will pronounce his sentence, 655
Deliver his doom full of pain to the damned:
“The time of torment is at hand. Let the unholy,
Who turned willfully away from the angels,
Turn toward the demons who will devour their joy,
Despise their being, emblazon their bodies 660
With a slash of fire in the hell that was shaped
For Satan and his devils, rebels in their wrath,
Exiles in torment. Into that swarm of sin
And shame, you are destined to sink and suffer.
My gift to you now is the grim abyss— 665
Descend with your friends to the friendless flames.”
The doomed will not be able to deny God’s word.
The damned shall carry out the King’s command.
Those who sinned will be ushered into
The demon’s maw to feel the clutch 670
Of fire, the claw of dread. The undead
Will not rest, the endlessly evil, the unblessed.
Then the Lord of mercy shall be merciless—
The Savior of mankind turn slayer of men.
No one walking in this world will escape 675
God’s judgment—no getaway for God’s foe!
Then the Lord will swing his victory-sword
With his right hand hard against the unholy,
Sweeping sinners and demons alike into the abyss,
The evil embrace of darkening flames, 680
A fiery fate. They shall dwell forever
In that death-hall, a hell-house of pain,
Exiled from the mind and memory of God.
These sinners will be snared, twisting in torment,
Surrounded with flame. Their evil is ubiquitous, 685
Their agony unending. In hell the unvirtuous
Will meet their vengeance—an endless dying.
In that eternal fire there is no mercy,
In that never-ending night there is no hope.
Nothing can cleanse those unforgiven crimes, 690
Nothing purge the sins of those hellish citizens.
They are the forgotten, the unforgiven, the damned.
The devil’s bottomless pit will feast upon them
In flaming delight. It will burn them daily
With an ancient fire, freeze them sometimes 695
With a terrible frost, twist them in torture,
Offer them jaws of the dragon, serpent-fangs,
The greedy mouth of the great worm.
There is no escape from that prison of pain—
That unholy ravening will be their doom. 700
Mindful of hell’s torment, we declare this truth:
The man who has given up the guardian of his soul,
Who no longer listens to words of wisdom,
Who cares not whether his eternal soul
Is saved or damned, wretched or redeemed, 705
Whether it will know the joys of heaven
Or the harassments of hell—that man is lost.
In his heedless heart he feels no sin,
No shame—he has no dread of damnation.
He has no remorse for the ruin he’s caused, 710
No regret that the Holy Spirit is lost to him
Because of his sins in this earthly life.
Finally the wicked must stand before God,
Stained with sin, shaking with dread,
Pale as death. Then shall the truth-breaker, 715
The traitor, the tortured, the unloved, the unworthy,
Be fulfilled with fire, steeped in flame,
Overwhelmed with fear before his Lord.
He will bear the signs of shame, the dark
Marks of guilt—the countenance of a criminal. 720
The children of men, now the children of sin,
Will weep and wail, shed terrible tears,
When time has run out—too late for change,
Too late for mercy, too late for saving the soul,
When their Lord and Judge, once generous, 725
Will no longer listen, even as they deplore
What they’ve done. Righteousness has no regrets.
Their sorrow will fall on the deaf ears of God.
The time to repent will have surely past.
That healing will be lost that would have sustained 730
The soul in this life and brought the heart health.
There will be no grief in the good, no gladness
Or well-being in the evil. Each one will receive
His own just reward in the sight of God.
A wise man should be watchful when body and soul 735
Are bound together while he lives on earth
In the Lord’s light if he wants to secure salvation.
He should follow God’s will, be faithful and attend
To the needs of his soul, celebrate its beauty,
Sustain its blessing, be prudent in words and works, 740
Examine the manner of his mind, the habit of his heart,
While he still wanders in this world of shadows,
This transitory time, so that in his coming and going,
His joy will not fade, his life will not lose
Its bloom and beauty, its being with God, 745
The reward for the righteous that the high King
Of creation has assigned to those who carefully
Nurture and sustain their sacred souls,
Whose hearts have heard and followed the Holy Word.
On Judgment Day, heaven and hell will be filled 750
With the children of men, each soul rewarded
With doom or delight, bane or blessing.
The abyss shall swallow the enemies of God,
The fiercest of flames punish the wicked,
The sons of sin, the daughters of iniquity. 755
In hell they will find no relief or redemption,
No escape from evil, no freedom from flames.
Their fate will be fixed, inscribed in fire.
Only a fool would forget this troubling truth,
Thrust it out of his mind, shove it willingly 760
Away from his soul since he should know
That God will bring vengeance on the unvirtuous,
Wasting the wicked, demolishing the wicked,
When life and death share out the souls.
The house of torment will be open to the evil, 765
Welcoming the wicked through the doors of the damned.
All the oath-breakers and sin-lovers
Will fill up the hell-house with their dark souls.
The Lord of
judgment shall then set apart
The sinful from the saintly, the baleful from the blessed, 770
And the evil shall enter immediately into hell,
Enduring torture and tumult, savagery and suffering,
An unfolding punishment, an unending pain.
There will be thieves and criminals in endless throngs,
Liars, adulterers, unfaithful fornicators, 775
Perjurers, murderers, malefactors, felons—
God will deliver them to the clutch of fiends,
The delight of devils, the wrack of pain.
Wretched shall be those who chose sin in life
On that day, cut off from their Creator, 780
Denied the great mercy of their own Maker,
Doomed to death, to unlife underground
In the caves of corruption with the brood of unbeing,
The bars of fire, the prisons of flame.
There they will stretch out their limbs 785
Each dark morning to be bound and burned,
Singed and scourged in punishment for their sins.
Then the Holy Spirit, through the might of God,
The Creator’s command, shall lock up the gates
Of unholy hell, the greatest of death-halls, 790
Filled with fiends and foes, misery and men.
That will be a house of unjoy for demons
And people, the pained and perishing undead.
No one may escape from those pitiless shackles,
Those chilling bonds, their hearts bound forever 795
By ice and fire. They broke God’s law.
They were imbued with sin instead of scripture;
They read not, recked not, the Lord’s word.
Now they must live in endless night,
Oppressed by pain, damned by their deeds, 800
Since they despised the glories of heaven.
Then the chosen shall come before Christ,
Bearing a treasure, a brightness beyond words,
A bliss beyond reckoning. Their days shall be filled
With endless delight, a living joy, 805
Cradled in the embrace of their loving Creator,
In the comfort and community of saints and angels,
In their homeland in heaven without end—
And there the sinless shall be clothed in light,
Shielded from sorrow, swathed in peace, 810
Gathered in glory, a radiant grace.
They will exist in the love of the Lord,
His shelter and security, his comfort and care,
And he will guard and preserve them all their days.
In heaven there shall be angels singing hymns, 815
The sweetness of saints, the presence of Christ,
The beauty of the Beloved, brighter than sunlight,
Love of dear ones, life without death,
The happiness of hosts, the heart-joy of men,