Classic Poem

Mortal flesh is full of grief,
The world, cold thing, 's a sermon.
Today a gay man of gold
Has brooches, rings, and jewels,
Heaps of scarlet and camlet,
And fine silk, if it's in vogue,
Splendid drinking-horns of gold,
Wine and kestrels and falcons.
Mounted on Gascon stallions
He rides before, and all bow.
To ask for a good farmhold
On his lands is an offence;
He gets a weak man under
His thumb, and seizes his place,
Takes his farm from one who's blind,
And takes another's acres,
Takes the grain under ashtrees,
Takes an innocent man's hay,
Collects two hundred cattle,
Gets the goods, and jails the man.

Futile the frantic plotting
Of weak clay, dead in a day.
From bare earth he came, dark cold,
Coldly he goes in ashes.
Two cows he'd not surrender
Yesterday, for two from God!
Today in earth he's worthless,
Of all his goods he has none.
Pain fills him, when he goes there,
Covered with gravel and grit;
His bed will be much too base,
His forehead next the roof-beam;
His tight-belted robe the shroud,
His cradle earth and gravel;
The porter above his head
Earth black as a nightmare;
His proud flesh in an oak-chest,
His nose a pale sorry grey;
His coat of mail black with grime,
Its fringes all have rusted;
His robe wood, grief's constriction,
His shirt without sleeves or shape;
His sure road into this earth,
His arms across his bosom;
His walks vacant, gone the wine,
His cook deserts his kitchen;
His hounds, in the empty hall,
His steeds, in doubt about him;
His wife, from the drinking hall,
Quite rightly, weds another;
His stately whitewashed mansion
A small coffin the world spares;
The wealth of the world leaves him
Down below with empty hands.

When in his honoured coffin
He's speeded from court to church,
No pretty girl will follow,
No healthy man, past the grave.
No slender wanton will slide
Her hand beneath that blanket.
No grief will long continue
Nor lie a month on his grave.
When for an hour he's lain there,
This man with long yellow hair,
Should he notice, dark the house,
A toad will tend his bedside.
Under the neck of the stone
More fat worms than fair branches.
Around him in earth's sad house
More coffins than great stallions.
The choir priests detest dealing
With the three executors:
Three hundred pounds in payment
Received for their services;
His kin above will be proud
If they complete three masses.
There the spirit will possess
No mansion, rank, or favour,
No ornament, no idols,
Only what it did for God.

Where are the towers? the town?
The many courts? the singers?
The gabled houses? the land?
The high places for merit?
Where's the morsel? the new dish?
The roast? the cook who serves it?
Where's the wine? the birds? the boughs
Carried throughout the country?
The wine-cellar? the kitchen
Under the hill? Where's the mead?
The trip to England? the gear?
The splendid bards? the dais?
Where are the huge gentle hounds?
The flock of swans? the stallions?
The full wardrobe? the treasure?
Possessions on land and sea,
The great hall newly enclosed,
The palaces, the mansions?
There remains no small holding,
Only seven feet, man's end.

The flesh, once wrapped in purple,
Lies in a chest next the choir,
And there the soul does not know,
Dim-witted, where it's going.
For the wrongs and heresies
Committed in his lifetime,
That dark day, as I'm a man,
Is too late for repentance.
There not one of his hundred
He'll reward, that sleep's too long;
Not one fellow will follow,
He'll not conquer, nor bear arms,
Nor love girls, nor be greeted,
Nor pace through council and court;
He'll have no mead for a spree,
Nor leave the grave to revel.
I'd not give a head of leek
For his corpse in the coffin.

The soul, shuttled shamefully,
Between ice and fire, freezes,
Where he's compelled, no shelter,
To a close compact with cold.
What help in a hall of ice?
Beware, the pit is frightful.
Pools and infernal ovens,
Cauldrons, dragons, devils' shapes;
See each beast, Christ is mighty,
Horned and tusked and glowering;
The hand of every devil
Holds a crooked cooking fork;
And a smoky blackness like
Flood-tide's treacherous onslaught.
May Christ, that place is dreadful,
Preserve men from going there!

Learn that there's a worldly state
Leads many to the devil.
Holy Saint Benedict says
God gives only one heaven.
Just one may, eloquent words,
Be won, though helped by Mary.
Let no man in the pleasure
Of lust find his heaven here,
Lest he lose, say the masters,
Eternal heaven through sin:
Day without night is displayed,
Health without drawn-out illness,
The gaily coloured face of
Heaven's land, better than wealth.
This world fails, a nest of twigs,
But heaven lasts for ever,
Without end, all men as one,
Amen, O Son of Mary!