Jorge Luis Borges - On Embarking on a Study of Anglo-Saxon Grammar lyrics

I after fifty generations (Time opens such gulfs out to us all) Return to the far bank of a mighty river The Norsemen's longships never reached, To the harsh, hard-wrought words Which, with a tongue now long gone to dust, I used in the days of Northumbria and Mercia Before becoming Haslam or Borges. Last Saturday, we read how Julius Cæsar Was the first to come from Romeburg to unveil Britain; Before the grapes grow back, I shall have heard The nightingale of the riddle And the elegy spoken by the twelve Warriors round their king's burial mound. To me, these words seem symbols of other symbols, Variants of German or English-to-be, But they were once images of the actual Used by a man to proclaim a sword or the sea; Tomorrow they will come alive again, Tomorrow, fyr will not be fire, but rather that lot Of tamed and changeling god Whom none can face without feeling an ancient fear. Glory be to the unending weft Of cause and effect Which, before showing me the mirror Wherein I shall see no one or some other, Grants me this perfect contemplation Of a language at its dawn.