The Anglo-Saxon Wanderer is in search of a new “Gold-friend”. What seems to be the quest of W. H. Auden’s Wanderer?

While the Wanderer in the elegiac poem from the
Anglo-Saxon period spends most of his elegy lamenting the loss of his homeland, family,
king, and fellow seafarers, the speaker in Auden's Wanderer laments something very
different.

Auden's wanderer seems to want to impose a
self-exile based upon the fact that he finds the world around him too restrictive.
Whereas the anonymous Wanderer seeks new friends and a new "Gold-friend" (a kenning for
a king), Auden's wanderer wishes to rekindle the love between himself and the previously
restraining woman in his life.

The Wanderer, in the end,
finds hope in faith; for faith is the only thing that is able to survive in the
world-men and kings will die. Auden's wanderer's search is, instead, for love. For it is
love which he misses the most as he travels the "undried
sea."

In the end, Auden's wanderer recognizes the power of
love and wishes to return home to his, hopefully, faithful
wife.

Ultimately, the main difference between the Anglo
Wanderer and Auden's wanderer is that Auden's can see hope "with day approaching, with
leaning dawn." For Auden's wanderer, he sees hope on the horizon; the Anglo Wanderer
cannot.