Those that must travel alone ever hope for relief. Those who wander the earth remember hardships, slaughters, dead kinsmen. Dawn particularly stimulates such memories. They are so grievous they cannot be revealed to any living man. To keep one's thoughts private is a great virtue, though a weary mind is seldom functional. Hardships have afflicted the speaker, but still he keeps his thoughts to himself: he buried his lord, travelled away, sought a 'bestower of treasure' (sinces bryttan). Sorrow, though, remains his companion, not the gold or glory he once enjoyed. Observances of rituals past fill the mind, but waves and snow, a hostile climate, are what the eyes see. Nostalgia makes current sorrow more acute.
The mind does not 'grow dark' (gesweorce), though it is filled with thoughts of past comrades and an ageing world. The wise man should be patient, unimpulsive, not too hasty to speak and so on. The young should not boast. The wise understand the horrors of an aged earth, carpetted with ruins and the bodies of kinsmen. A survivor will consider where the horses, men, treasure-givers, feast-halls and revelries have gone, nostalgic for the bright cup, the mailed warrior and the majesty of the lord. None now live, storms and darkness have descended. Everything on earth is fraught with hardship, everything passes, money, friends, men and kin. In such circumstances, a man must keep his honour and withhold his resentment, and seek mercy from the Father in heaven.