Religious Thought in Old English Verse 59 And lef of him to-dreve 7 ne sal; 4. Noght swa wicked men, noght swa; Bot als duste that wind yerthe 8 tas 9 fra,10 5. And tharfore wikell in dome noght rise 6. For Laverd of rightwise wate the wai, Als first was, es, and ai sal be; And leaf of him scatter ne'er shall; 4. Not so the wicked men, not so ; 5. So in the doom they shall not rise, 6. The Lord of good men wots the way; Some interesting religious poems, dating from the earlier part of the fourteenth century, have been published by Dr. Morris for the Early English Text Society. The name of the author is unknown. But,' says their editor, 'they are evidently the work of a man of birth and education; the production of a true poet, and of one who had acquired a perfect mastery over that form of the English tongue spoken in his own immediate locality. . . . They contain many passages which, as Sir F. Madden truly remarks, will bear comparison with any similar one in the works of Douglas or Spenser.' They are written in West Midland dialect, and apparently by the same author who wrote the valuable romance of Sir Gawain. They are all alliterative; but the one first to be mentioned is also rhymed. It is a poem of about 1200 lines, a pathetic 7 To-dreve'; 'to' in composition meant not only our 'to,' but sometimes conveyed the idea of detorioration. Therefore 'to-drefian' was to drive as conquered. 8' Yerthe.' In another MS. it is 'the erthe 'the earth. 9 Tas' from 'tæsan' from which comes to tease.' It means to pluck, pull up, annoy. 10 Fra' is shortened from 'fram'' from,' 'fro.' 11 Wike' is 'weak,' and so 'mean,'' wicked.' 12 Gate,' in the sense of way,' is still used in some parts of England. 13 From 'weorthan'=' to become,' 'shall become,' 'put forth.' 14 As in modern German 'wohnen' to dwell. From wunian.' Compare our 'wonted.' 15 From The Anglo-Saxon and Early English Psalter, edited by J. Stevenson for the Surtees Society, 1845. memorial of the death of his infant child, a little girl of two years old. He describes her as a precious pearl which he had lost; and then tells of his vision when he had sunk in grief upon her grave among the summer flowers. In my quotation from it, I have endeavoured to keep as near to the original as I can consistently with preserving, in some measure, the alliteration as well as the rhyme, and with keeping free of the many words which would now be perfectly unintelligible to an ordinary English reader. Pearl1 that might please a prince's eye, And set in glittering gold so clear, Provèd, I ween, her precious peer. 1 As I have not been able to adhere quite as literally as I could wish to the text, I subjoin some of the original : Perle plesaunte to prynces paye [pleasure] To [very] clanly clos in golde so clere, Oute of oryent I hardyly saye Ne proued I neuer her precios pere. Allas! I leste hyr in on erbere [arbour] Thurg gresse to grounde hit fro me yot; I dewyne [pine] fordolked [in dole] of luf daungere Ofte haf I wayted wyschande that wele, That wont watz [was] whyle devoyde [do away] my wrange, Get [yet] thogt me neuer so swete a sange As stylle stounde [hour] let to me stele. I felle upon that floury flagt Suche odour to my hernez [brains] schot : I slode vpon a stepyng slagte [stroke] On that precios perle withouten spot. Fro spot my spyryt ther sprang in space, My body on balke [in partition] ther bod in sweuen [dream] My goste is gone in godez grace, In aventure ther mervaylez meuen [move]. Early English Alliterative Poems of Fourteenth Century, ed. by R. Morris for E.E.T. E., No 1. Alas, I lost her in a grot Through grass to ground she from me fell,- And pain and pine my heart befell. And longing yearn for her I lost,- Or when with care my soul was crossed. Sweet odours o'er my senses shot; To move in quest where marvels teem. So, through sights of wonder and beauty, he came in vision to a beautiful river, whose banks were of beryl, and its stones Bright glancing in the glittering deep, Gleam as through glass which glows with light ; The welkin on a wintry night. The dear delight of down and dale, Of wandering waters, wood and plain, Built in me bliss, abated bale, Foredid my dole, destroyed my pain. As he passed on, a joy unspeakable flooded his soul, and he thought he saw Paradise on the further side of the stream. Anon he beheld a crystal cliff— And at its foot a child full fair, (So well I knew that sweetest sight!) In gleaming robe of glistening white, Ever I knew her more and more. He was amazed and faint, and dare not speak. At last, to his great joy, she greeted him with a sweet look. Then he spoke, and told her of his sorrow for his lost gem : For since we two were torn in twain, I was a joyless jeweller. Then she answered that, so far from being a lost pearl, she was in a garden of bliss, where was neither wrong nor mourning; and, in sooth, That thou didst lose was but a rose Which flowers and fades as nature bids. It was only in this better land that she had become in truth as a pearl of price. The father wonders how a little child who could neither please God nor pray to Him could be received into such bliss. She answers by telling the parable of the vineyard. She had not borne the burden and heat of the day, but neither had she sinned, and the Lord had been pleased to give to innocence no less than He gives to righteousness. God's good grace is both free and great; and Christ Himself had called the children to Him. Then she tells of the love and glory of the Lamb of God. She shows him the outside of the heavenly Jerusalem, and as the moon began to rise he became aware of a mighty procession of maidens like his own pearl, crowned and in white robes, singing in praise of the Lamb, who went before them; and she was there among them. At last he awakens, and the poem ends with words on the blessedness of being a good Christian, with God Himself for Lord and friend : Keep us, good God, Thy servants true, And pearls of price to please Thee aye. The next poem-alliterative, but not in rhyme—is a collection of stories from the Bible on the sore punishment with which God visits the sinner for all sins of impurity. It is the pure in heart who shall see God. Happy the atheling whose heart is clean, For with good cheer shall he look on the Lord.1 1 Line 27: The hathel clene of his hert hapenez ful fayre, For he schal loke on our Lade with a bone chere. First come the story of the marriage feast, and of him who came in unclean array; from which is drawn the lesson: O ware thee well that all thy weeds be clean, God loves the limbs all lapped in cleanly wise; So see thy Saviour in His blissful seat.1 Then come the stories of the fall of angels and of men; the story of the flood, of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, of the taking of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar, of the captivity of the Jews, of the defiling of the holy vessels by Belshazzar, and of the wrath which fell upon him. Of this pollution of the sacred things he remarks: For when a soul is sanctified to God, He wholly holds and counts it as His own; Yet to defile it God doth fast forbid.2 The third poem, with its moral of patience under provocation, is the story of Jonah. In most AngloSaxon and Early English poems an episode from sea adventure is told with spirit. So it is here in the account of the storm which befell the ship where Jonah was on board. The following is part of it : Anon from north and east the noise begins, When blasts from both blow fierce on the blue main. 1 Early Alliterative Poems, etc., 165: Bot war the wel, if thou wylt, thy wedes ben clene 2 Id. 1139: For when a sawele is sagtled and sakred to drygtyn, |