A rumination on some crumbling stonework done by "the Giants" (the Romans). Written before 1000 AD, this poem leads to Shakespeare, Hopkins, Dylan Thomas and some current experimentalists -- the most musical of which must be hearing translations of early English in their heads.
"Wierd" meant death, fate, what happens, what is. It's a shivery word; it makes my heart pound. It's good for October.
The spelling of wierd is correct in this translation. The elipses indicate text that couldn't be found. All of what we have of the poem is here.
The Ruin (exerpt)
Well-wrought this wall: Wierds broke it.
The stronghold burst ...
the work of the Giants, the stonesmiths,
mouldereth.
Rime scoureth gatetowers,
snapped rooftrees, towers fallen,
rime on mortar.
Shattered the showershields, roofs ruined,
age under-ate them. And the wielders and wrights?
Earthgrip holds them — gone, long gone,
fast in gravesgrasp while fifty fathers
and sons have passed.
Wall stood,
gray lichen, red stone, kings fell often,
stood under storms, high arch crashed --
stands yet the wallstone, hacked by weapons,
by files grim-ground ...
shone the old skilled work ...
sank to loamcrust.
From The Earliest English Poems, Penguin Books, Third Edition, 1991. Translation by Michael Alexander
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