Each perfect line contains three alliterating words, two in the first section, and one in the first part of the second section.

Cy'ning sceal' mid cea'pe cwene' gebic'gan, bu'num and bea'gum: bu' sceo'lan AE'rest geo'fum god' wes'an.

A king shall with cattel a queen buy, with beakers and bracelets: both should first in gifts good be. (Gnom. Exon., line 82 +.)

Many lines have but one alliterating word in the first section, and irregular sections have three or sometimes only two feet. Rhyme is found occasionally in most poems. A few contain rhyming passages of some length. One is known as the rime song. It contains 87 verses in all sorts of rimes, and is plainly a task poem to show riming skill.

flah' mah' fli'teth' flan' man' hwi'teth, borg'-sorg' bl'teth, bald' ald' thwi'teth, etc. Scyl'dam" bisce'rede scyndan gener'ede' wom' mum biwe'rede" wuldre geher'ede\etc. Subtle fiend fighteth, darts sin whetteth, borrow-sorrow biteth, bold old severeth, etc. From sins freed let us escape saved from stains covered, gloricesly honored, etc.

Almost all the Anglo-Saxon poetry we have is in this verse, varied occasionally by passages in longer verses of similar construction. It is the common verse in Old Saxon, and in Icelandic has been cultivated into a surprising variety of artificial meters. The poems remaining in Anglo-Saxon are few. The Christians destroyed whatever was tainted with paganism, and the Normans neglected everything Anglo-Saxon. They have been divided into seven classes. 1. The ballad epic. Of this we have one poem and a few fragments. "Beowulf" is a poem of 3,183 lines, celebrating the exploits of a Gothic prince Beowulf, for the most part in slaying monsters. The scene is laid in the island of Seeland and the opposite Gothland. It is evidently a pagan production, though rewritten by a Christian. Only one copy of it is known, and no mention of it has been found elsewhere. A few names and facts referred to in it have however been identified in old German history, and serve to show that it embodies historical matter of the end of the 5th century. The manuscript is thought to be of the 10th century. Its existence is mentioned in Wanley's catalogue, 1705. In 1731 it was badly injured by fire. In 1786 the Dane Thorkelin had two copies of it made, and in 1815 published an edition.

No particular notice was taken of it till the late revival of Anglo-Saxon scholarship; but the present generation of Anglo-Saxon scholars, especially in Germany, have studied it with great enthusiasm, and find in it the Iliad and Odyssey of the north. Among many editions, translations, and essays of elucidation and criticism, we mention Kemble, edition (London, 1833) and translation and glossary (1837); Ettmiiller, translation and valuable notes and introduction (Zurich, 1840); Thorpe, text, translation, and glossary (Oxford, 1855); Grein, two editions (Gottingen, 1857 and 1867), and translation (1857); Gruntvig, text and notes (Copenhagen, 1861); Heyne, two editions with notes and glossary (Paderborn, 1863, 1868), and translation (1863); Wackerbarth, translation into rhymed English verses like Scott's "Marniion" (London, 1849); Haigh, "The Anglo-Saxon Sagas," containing a notable attempt to locate Beowulf on English ground (London, 1861); Morley, "English Writers," vol. i. (London, 1867). A few fragments may be classed with "Beowulf," as "The Traveller's Song," 143 lines; "The Eight at Finnsburg," 48 lines; "Bryhtnoth," 325 lines; the first two to be found in Thorpe and Kemble, and all in Grein (1857). 2. The Bible epic.

This is a growth of Christian England. We have the story of its originator, CAedmon, from Beda, who lived near him, and may have seen him. He was an unlearned man, so backward that he could not take his turn in singing to the harp at feasts, and so sensitive that he would leave the board in shame as the harp came round. Once when he had done this, and fallen asleep in a stall near by, a vision appeared to him, and bade him sing. "I cannot sing," said he; "I have left the feast and come here because I cannot sing." "Sing for me though," said the vision; "sing the creation." And he sang the famous verses which were to usher in a new era of song:

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard, metadaes maecti end his modgidanc, uere ualdur fadur; sue he uundra gihuaes eci dryctin or astelidae

He . eristscop aelda barnum heben til hrofe, haleg scepen: tha middungeard moncynnaes uard ed dryctin, Aefter tiadae, firum,foldan, frea allimectig.

"Now must we glorify the guardian of heaven's kingdom, the maker's might, * and his mind's thought, the work of the worshipped when of his wonders each father one, the ever living lord ordered the origin, He erst created for earth's children heavon as a high roof, the holy creator: then this mid world did man's guardian the ever living lord afterward prepare, for men a mansion, the master almighty."

(Hadley's translation.)

Next morning he told his story and repeated the verses. The abbess Hild and her learned men proved him, and found that he could turn into noble poetry passages from the Bible which they read to him. They recognized the gift as divine, and received him into the monastery. There he led a holy life, humble and lovely, and composed many Christian poems. Hosts of imitators followed. The "Heliand," a poem of some 6,000 lines in Old Saxon, celebrating the acts of the Saviour, is thought by many to be a translation from CAedmon. But none equalied him till Milton. A single manuscript remains, containing Genesis (2,935 lines), Exodus (589), Daniel (765), Christ and Satan (733). All that is known of it is that it belonged to Archbishop Usher, who gave it to Junius, who printed it at Amsterdam in 1635, and who bequeathed it to the Bodleian library. There is no external evidence to prove these poems Caedmon's,. but they have been accepted provisionally by most students as a rewriting of his originals in another dialect. The Genesis gives the story of man's first disobedience and his fall, beginning with the fallen angels.