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It is quite in accordance with this theory that the personal epilogue of the Elene should tell us how he came to write the poem, and that it should recapitulate his life, first in simple verse, and then in a riddling representation under the Runic letters of his name.

"Thus I," so he begins, "old and ready for death in this frail tabernacle "

1237. Craft of words have woven,

Over it, and o'er it thought,
In the night, my thinking!
Rightly of the Rood the truth,
Wisdom had unveiled
Through a might majestic.

wondrously have culied them out anxiously have sifted, Never thoroughly did I know till a roomier knowledge

to the inwit of my soul,

Then he recalls what he had been, how light came to him, how the power of song returned; God Himself restored it.

1243.

I was stained with mis-deeds,

Snared with sins was I, with my sorrows tortured,
Bound with bitter thoughts, burdened sore with troubles,
Ere the Lord gave lore to me through a light-imparting
Form; 1

'Tis a gift unshameable

For my solace, now I'm old!
Me the mighty King has measured ;
Dazzling has unfolded it,
He my bone-coffer unbound,
He unlocked the singing art,
With a will, the world within.

in my mind outpoured it; day by day for it made room! He my breast-locker unwound, that I used with all my heart,

Then he recurs to his subject of the Cross of Christ, "the tree of glory," and at first speaks of the story he has just told, of the Invention of the Cross, and of his meditation of it. "Not only once, but often, I had inward thinking of the tree of glory, before I unveiled the wonder which enwrapt the bright wood; as in books, and in the course of history, and in writings, I found all made known that concerned that beacon light of victory."

But now, at line 1257, as I explain the passage, he turns from the story of Helena to speak directly of the story of his own soul. He calls to remembrance his own Finding of the Cross in his life; it is of the hour of his conversion that he is thinking when he says, "Till then I myself was crushed"-till the hour I found the Rood in my heart. Here is the passage, and

1 I suggest that this may mean the form, the vision of the Cross - that is, if we take the Dream of the Rood to be written by Cynewulf; but the words might be translated, "in His luminous way," or "through light-bearing office."

though made obscure by the various meanings which may be given to the runes in which he signs his name, the general biographical direction of it is clear, and so is the state of his soul.

1257.

Beaten by care-billows,

Aye till then was ill-content!

C began to fail,

Though he in the mead-hall took of many treasures,

Of the appled gold. Y was wailing sorely!

N was his companion; harrowing was the grief he brought,
'Twas a Rune that cramped him,1 when before him E

proudly raced along,

W is weakened now!
and my youth are passed away,
U was in the times of old
Now the gone-by days
when the fated hour came-
living,

Paced along the mile-paths,
Prankt with woven wires.
After years, my pleasure
And my ancient pride!
Once a gleam of youth.
Far away have faded
Vanished, with delight of
Flood that follows flood
Is but lent below the lift,
Vanish all the welkin under,
When in sight of men,
Hunts the clouds along,
And all suddenly again
In its clamped chambers

as when L doth fall apart,

F for every soul
and the land's adornments*
to the wind most like
roaring, it up-steps the sky,
hurries raging on,2
silent is become,

closely prisoned now;

Pinned with mighty pressure down.3

"So has all this world passed away," and so is Cynewulf's melancholy note struck again; but he does not remain in it. He passes on into triumph, and the Elene ends with a picture of the righteous, victorious in beauty.

With the Elene the poems signed by Cynewulf come to an end; but there is yet another poem, the conclusion at least of which I believe to be written by him, and this conclusion was, in my opinion, the last thing he ever wrote. This poem is the Dream of the Rood, and the questions regarding its authorship, and the poem itself will be hereafter treated. At present, I assume that the conclusion is his, and it closes then this sketch

1 Enge rune,

a narrow rune." A secret grief that bound his soul in a prison of pain. The rune itself may be alluded to.

2 This is the old imagination of the Wild-Hunt in the sky, which Grimm traces back to the worship and name of Woden. But I think it is older far than Woden.

8 C. stands for Cene.

Y. stands for Yfel.

N. stands for Nyd.
E. stands for Eh.

W. stands for Wyn.
U. stands for Ur.

"The keen warrior began to fail."
"The wretched one was wailing."
"Need was his companion."
"When before him the Horse."

"Joy is weakened now."

"Ours was once the radiance of youth."

L. stands for Lagu. after wave, falls apart, F. stands for Feoh.

"As when Water falls apart. Day after day, like wave
the one from the other."
"Wealth is but lent

etc.

of his character. Cynewulf, looking back when all his poems were finished, has resolved to place on record and to glorify the Dream and the happy hour he had when first he knew Christ; and then, saying farewell to life, to express his joy in the heaven whither he was going. "The Rood of the Lord which I erst beheld" (aer sceawode) is a phrase which seems to say that he is speaking of a vision seen at the beginning of his Christian life. He tells that vision in the previous part of the poem, either in his own words, or in editing an old fragmentary poem on the same subject, and he tells it always in the past tense. When the story is told he begins at line 122 his personal confession, and the resemblance it bears to the conclusion of the Elene, and the spirit of the verse, full at first of his pathetic individuality, and then marked by his rushing and exultant manner when he is engaged in hope or praise, are so like Cynewulf's work, and so unlike the work of any other Anglo-Saxon poet, that I cannot see why a critic should go out of his way to allot the poem, or at least this conclusion of it, to another writer.

The first lines of this personal confession are still retrospective. They tell how he felt immediately after the Dream, which I place at the time of his conversion, and as its cause. He felt blithe of mood," for he was forgiven; "passionate in prayer, eager for death," common feelings in the hearts of men in the first hours of their religious enthusiasm.

122. Then I prayed me to the Tree,

With a mickle eagerness,

With a smallish company;

Passioned for departure.

pleasant of my mood,

where alone I was

and my spirit was

This is followed- so I read the passage-by two half-lines which tell us that he did not die, as he then desired, but was forced to live on through many days of sorrow

-

Far too much have I endured

In all long-wearying days.

So far the verses seem retrospective. Now he turns to the present and describes his actual state of soul

126.

Now the hope of life is mine
and with service due,
than all other men,
Will I have to that,
I have made my refuge

So that I may seek-
All alone, and oftener
Honour Victory's Tree!
Mickle in my mind!

Ready near the Rood.1

1"I have directed my defence to the Rood" is literal, but seems without meaning.

Then he remembers all the friends who have gone before him, and sings his death-song, waiting in joyful hope to meet those he loved at the evening-meal in heaven. "Few are left me now of the men in power I knew"

131. Few of friends on earth!

They have fared from hence,
wended to the King of Glory :
near to their High Father,
And I wait me here,
till my Lord His Rood,
long ago on earth,
fetch my soul away :-

where the bliss is mickle,
There the High God's folk

Far away from worldly joys,
Now in Heaven they live,
Wonning in their glory!
(Living) day by day
Which I looked upon,
From this fleeting life
And shall bring me then
Happiness in Heaven!
To the Evening-meal are set,
And He there shall place me
Dwell in (winsome) glory;
In delight rejoice!
Who upon the earth
On the gallows-tree
There He did release us,
And the heavenly Home.

there is everlasting joy!
where thenceforth I may
well among the saints
May the Lord befriend me,
long ago has suffered
for the guilt of men!

there our life He gave us,

At last, with a happy reversion to the earlier theme of which he was so fond to the deliverance of the Old Testament saints from Hades - he turns from himself, now going home, to the triumphant home-coming of Jesus.

148.

Hope was then renewed,

With fresh blossoming and bliss, for the souls who'd borne the

fire:

on that (soaring) path;
when with multitudes He came,
to the home of God: :-
to the Angels' bliss,

Strong the Son with conquest was,
Mighty and majestical,1
With the host of spirits,
He the Almighty King-
And to all the Holy Ones,
Had abode in glory -
Where His lawful heirship lay –

who in Heaven long before when the Omnipotent came home, God the Lord of all!

This is the close of the Dream of the Rood. It is the close, in my opinion, of the work and life of Cynewulf. If it be truly his, we bid him farewell, with thoughts satisfied in quiet. His regret has merged in rapture. We see him pass away "as sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing, as having nothing, and yet possessing all things."

1 "Majestical" is successful, and "home" in the next line is literally realm.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SIGNED POEMS OF CYNEWULF

THE Juliana is in the Exeter Book. In placing it first among the poems of Cynewulf, after the earlier Riddles, I differ from the greater number of the critics. I cannot class it after the Christ, for the Christ is written with all the poetic power which Cynewulf possessed, and a poet in his power does not fall back in a long poem into conventional work. He may do a short poem like the Fates of the Apostles in a weary manner, but not a long piece like the Juliana. I must then place it where it is.

Its sources are the Acta S. Julianae, virginis, martyris. Cynewulf has taken the legend and worked it up with some care for unity of feeling and for accumulating development. Juliana is led from triumph to triumph, till she receives the crown of life in death. One episode after another carries on the action, and these episodes are couched in dialogue. There is a leading thought, a special aim, and these are conducted, through such play and clash of passion as Cynewulf could conceive, to the final purification of the heroine whose image at last is left alone upon our minds. There is then a certain art in the poem. But the art is not good, and the work is poorly done. Abrupt changes, crude dialogue, wearisome repetition, but by no means so wearisome as we meet in the first part of Guthlac, disfigure Cynewulf's recast of the legend. I have a fancy that he was unconsciously bored by the whole matter, that Christian legend was so new to his genius that he worked it mechanically. Nevertheless, there are certain curious and clever things in the poem which I select in the following account of it.

In the days of Maximian there was a prince named Heliseus, a cruel persecutor of the Christians, whose heart began to love Juliana, daughter of Africanus, but she said nay to him unless he would become a Christian. "No torments," she

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