What are five examples of imagery in the first 25 lines of "The Seafarer"?

The use of imagery within a text allows a reader to create mental images based upon the descriptions offered by the author. Well written imagery appeals to the senses of the reader and offers spatial awareness in order to create a image with depth and detail.

Examples of imagery within the first twenty-five lines of "The Seafarer" are as follows.

1. "How the sea took me, and swept me back / and forth." This images allows readers to create a mental image where the speaker has been taken by the sea and tossed back and forth between the waves. Most readers are aware what the sea looks like and how it moves. The image of the speaker being jostled by the sea is made obvious by the sweeping motion of the water/waves one is typically familiar with.

2. "Smashing serf" refers to the waves crashing upon the beach or rocks. Similar to the previous image, this image illustrates the power of the water.

3. "Sweated in the cold" is an unusual image. Given the direct contradiction. some readers may feel confused by the image (being both hot and cold at the same time). That said, readers may have experience with being ill and breaking out in cold sweats. This type of experience will help the reader to create a mental image of sweating in the cold.

4. "My feet were cast / in icy bands, bound with frost" illustrates a very cold person. Having one's feet frozen solid by ice creates a very distinct image.

5. "Hunger tore" appeals to both taste and touch. To be hungry can bring about images of starving people. The personification of hunger (tearing at one) allows one to be very creative with the mental image created. Hunger could be represented by a beast tearing at one's stomach.

6. "Hung with icecicles...hailstorms flew" allow the reader to picture a very cold scene/ This scene is not only cold, it is dangerous. Engaged readers will picture ice flying from all directions.

7. The "song of the swan," "cry of the sea-fowl," " eagle's screams," and "mewing of gulls" all appeal to the reader's sense of sound. The multiple bord sounds compound the "noise" the reader may hear.

8.

What are some examples of imagery in the poem "The Seafarer"?

Imagery refers to the technique a writer uses to create, in words, a picture in the reader's mind through the use of figurative language. Not only does the author use the technique for visualization, but also to enhance and emphasize a specific image or sentiment.

The translation of The Seafarer by Ezra Pound exhibits many such powerful representations and clearly creates images of the trials and tribulations a sailor has, or had to, endure.

The poem's first two lines present alliteration, a technique in which the consonants are repeated in consecutive words:

May I for my own self song's truth reckon, 

Journey's jargon

What are some examples of imagery in the poem "The Seafarer"?

The "Seafarer" is an Anglo Saxon elegy that begins with a concrete description of the sea and ends with abstractions about the past, faith, and rules of conduct.  The beginning of the poem is filled with images that convey the miserable life of one sailing the north seas.  Images are descriptive words and phrases that appeal to our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.

The images used in the poem appeal to many different senses.  We have auditory (hearing) images of the "smashing surf," "the deah-noise of birds," the "mewing of gulls," the echoes of the "icy-feathered terns," the "eagle's screams."  We also have such tactile (touch) images as the "icy bands" of sleet, the "ice-cold sea" as well as the visual (sight) images of the tossig salt waves and the "towering sea."

These images work to make the reader feel as if he or she is experiening the sea just as the seafarer did long ago.  We understand the sea's hardships--the cold, the loneliness, and the danger--and the difficult life that the seafarer has chosen.

What do most of the initial images in "The Seafarer" refer to?

The Anglo-Saxon poem "The Seafarer" is one hundred and twenty-four lines long; the first twenty five of them are thematically linked and can therefore be considered "the beginning," as you mention in your question. In those first twenty-five lines, most of the imagery centers around the cold conditions which cause the seaman such misery. 

The deep coldness of the sea is seen over and over in the sensory imagery of this section of the poem. The sailor is "sweating in the cold" during his time at watch, his feet are "cast in icy bands" and tied down with "icy chains." The sea itself is "ice-cold," "hung with icicles" and fraught with "freezing waves."

            This tale is true, and mine. It tells 
            How the sea took me, swept me back 
            And forth in sorrow and fear and pain, 
            Showed me suffering in a hundred ships, 
5          In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells 
            Of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold 
            Of an anxious watch, perched in the bow 
            As it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast 
            In icy bands, bound with frost, 
10        With frozen chains, and hardship groaned 
            Around my heart. Hunger tore 
            At my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered 
            On the quiet fairness of earth can feel 
            How wretched I was, drifting through winter 
15        On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow, 
            Alone in a world blown clear of love, 
            Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew. 
            The only sound was the roaring sea, 
            The freezing waves.

As bad as the physical cold is for him, the figurative coldness he finds from being at sea makes him feel just as wretched. This emotional freezing is shown through much pain and suffering, and the icy conditions on the outside matches the emotional numbness inside of him. He is "[a]lone in a world blown clear of love" and instead of laughter and love (friendship and camaraderie) he only hears the screams of terns and eagles. 

            ...The song of the swan 
20        Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl, 
            The death-noise of birds instead of laughter, 
            The mewing of gulls instead of mead. 
            Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed 
            By icy-feathered terns and the eagle’s screams; 
25        No kinsman could offer comfort there, 
            To a soul left drowning in desolation.  

The speaker of this poem leaves little doubt about the miseries of living life on the seas, as his opening lines are replete with images of physical and emotional cold and misery; however, he will soon make it clear that this life, despite its miseries, is one he loves.