Seafarer

The short story the seafarer to me seems interesting because there are still people around these days that prefer the sea over the land. Taking a guess I'd say a small handful go on to become religious fanatics, but I could easily be underestimating the holy former seamen population of the world. This poem to me seems like it was written because he wanted to be on the sea. You don't return to a place that you don't want to be unless; someone asks you to come back, your convicted, you have a disease, or you simply can't leave. So I'd say he wrote this based on option #4. This character seems to love god and wishes to do so alone on the sea. Maybe he hated his king, other civilians, perhaps even the local monastery. We don't know. We just know he liked the sea and god.