Yawning received them whole, and on them closed; Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain. Her mural breach, returning whence it rolled. Cadmon conceives the design of seeking out the abode of Adam and Eve: That he with wings Might fly, Revolve in cloud, To where stand wrought Adam and Eve; On earth's kingdom, With weal encircled And we are hither cast Into this deep den. With wings, to revolve in cloud, is like Milton's aery flight through the palpable obscure : But first whom shall we send In search of this new world? Whom shall we find The dark unfathomed infinite abyss, And through the palpable obscure find out Upborne with indefatigable wings TEMPTATION OF EVE. He led her thus with lies, The Creator assigned) So that she her mood Began relax, after those allurements; Against the Lord's word Of death's tree The noxious fruit. Then to her spouse she spake "Adam, my lord, This fruit is so sweet, Mild in the breast, And this bright messenger God's angel good; I by his habit see That he is the envoy His favor it is for us If thou to him this day If we to him obedience Will show. Through the whole world I can the joy of the firmament It became light to me in mind I now have of it Here in my hand, I will fain give it thee; I believe that it Came from God Brought by his command, From what this messenger told me With cautious words. It is not like to aught Else on earth; But, so this messenger sayeth, What shall profit thee such hateful strife That it directly With thy Lord's messenger ? To us is his favor needful; He may bear our errands To the all-powerful I can see from hence Where he himself sitteth That is southeast With bliss encircled, Him who formed this world. I see his angels With feathery wings, And so widely see Came from God." She spake to him oft, And all day urged him The fell envoy stood by Over a long way; To corrupt and to mislead The power of heaven's kingdom: For the hell-miscreant Well knew That they God's ire And hell torment, The torturing punishment Since they God's command Had broken, What time he seduced With lying words To that evil counsel The beauteous woman Of females fairest, That she after his will spake, To seduce God's handiwork. Full oft, Till in the man began So that he trusted to the promise Said in words: Yet did she it through faithful mind, Sinful woes, Must follow To mankind, Because she took in mind That she the hostile envoy's Suggestions would obey; But weened that she the favor Milton's Eve does not tell the story in a purer strain of poetry than this; she has more mannerism about the matter: Milton's Adam is not approached with such a delicate strain of persuasion: nor does he receive as graciously and as freely pardon his erring consort as Cadmon's does : To open eyes, and make them god's who taste; Hath eaten of the fruit; and is become, Not dead as we are threatened, but thenceforth The effects to correspond. THE SAILING OF BEOWULF. The poems of Beowulf are among the oldest of the remains of Saxon literature. The poem of Beowulf is the oldest epic in any modern language, and contains some six thousand lines. "It comes to us," says Mr. Longfellow, "from a very distant and hoar antiquity; somewhere between the seventh and tenth centuries. It is like a piece of ancient armor; rusty and battered, and yet strong. From within comes a voice sepulchral, as if the ancient armor spoke, telling a simple, straight forward narrative: with here and there a boastful speech of a rough old Dane, reminding one of those made by the heroes of Homer." Judging from the language of this poem it must have been written as late as the ninth century: its style, places it in the most advanced state of Saxon civilization and learning. It is simple, and vigorous, in its style, and free in a great measure from the accumulation of epithets, the abrupt metaphor, and the gorgeous imagery which are the common characteristics of the earlier productions of the Saxon mind. Famous was Beowulf; Shed on the lands. So shall the bracelets Purchase endeavor, The deeds shall bepraise Which their men have performed. When the Shyld had awaited The time he should stay, Came many to fare On the billows so free. His ship they bore out To the brim of the ocean A word could control His good fellows, the Shylds, There, at the Hythe, Stood his old father Long to look after him. Won from afar Laden on board. Ne'er did I hear With weapons of war, |