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Yawning received them whole, and on them closed;

Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire

Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.
Disburthen'd heaven rejoiced, and soon repair'd

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
Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet

The dark unfathomed infinite abyss,

And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight

Upborne with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle ?

TEMPTATION OF EVE.

He led her thus with lies,
And with wiles instigated
The woman to that evil
Until began within her
The serpent's counsel boil ;
(To her a weaker mind had

The Creator assigned)

So that she her mood

Began relax, after those allurements;
Therefore she of the enemy received,

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
Of our Lord
Heaven's King.

His favor it is for us
Better to gain
Than his aversion,

If thou to him this day
Spake aught of harm,
Yet will he it forgive

If we to him obedience

Will show.

Through the whole world
Over the broad creation;

I can the joy of the firmament
Hear in heaven;

It became light to me in mind
From without and within
After the fruit I tasted;

I now have of it

Here in my hand,
My good lord,

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
Heavenly King.

I can see from hence

Where he himself sitteth

That is southeast

With bliss encircled,

Him who formed this world.

I see his angels
Encompass him

With feathery wings,
Of all folks greatest,
Of bands most joyous.
Who could to me
Such perception give
If now it
God did not send
Heaven's Ruler ?
I can hear from far

And so widely see

Came from God."

She spake to him oft,

And all day urged him
To that dark deed,
That they their Lord's
Will break.

The fell envoy stood by
Exciting his desires,
And with wiles urged him,
Dangerously followed him:
The foe was full near
Who on that dire journey
Had fared

Over a long way;
Nations he studied
Into that great perdition
Men to cast,

To corrupt and to mislead
That they God's loan
The Almighty's gift,
Might forfeit,

The power of heaven's kingdom:

For the hell-miscreant

Well knew

That they God's ire
Must have

And hell torment,

The torturing punishment
Needs receive,

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,
Was as a help to him

To seduce God's handiwork.
Then she to Adam spake,
Fairest of women,

Full oft,

Till in the man began
His mind to turn;

So that he trusted to the promise
Which to him the woman

Said in words:

Yet did she it through faithful mind,
Knew not that hence so many ills,

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
Of heaven's King
Wrought with the words
Which she to the man
Revealed, as it were a token,
And vowed them true,
Till that to Adam
Within his breast
His mind was changed
And his heart began
Turn to her will.

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 :

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To open eyes, and make them god's who taste;
And hath been tasted such; the serpent wise,
Or not restrained as we, or not obeying,

Hath eaten of the fruit; and is become,

Not dead as we are threatened, but thenceforth
Endued with human voice and human sense,
Reasoning to admiration; and with me
Persuasively hath so prevailed that I
Have also tasted, and have also found

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;
Wide sprang the blood
Which the heir of Shylds

Shed on the lands.

So shall the bracelets

Purchase endeavor,
Freely presented,
As by thy fathers;
And all the young men
As is their custom,
Cling round their leader
Soon as the war comes.
Lastly thy people

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
And his comrades sat down
At their oars as he bade:

A word could control

His good fellows, the Shylds, There, at the Hythe,

Stood his old father

Long to look after him.
The band of his comrades,
Eager for outfit,
Forward the Atheling.
Then all the people
Cheered their loved lord,
The giver of bracelets.
On the deck of the ship
He stood by the mast.
There was treasure

Won from afar

Laden on board.

Ne'er did I hear
Of a vessel appointed
Better for battle,

With weapons of war,
And waistcoats of wool.
And axes and swords.

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