IV C?DMON THE COWHERD

A very great modern poet, Coleridge, who wrote "The Ancient Mariner," said that prose was words in their best order, but that poetry was the best words in their best order. This is a simple and good definition of poetry. Yet there is even more than best words in their best order in the room beyond the door over which is written Poetry. Perhaps, however, beautiful words in their best order would always teach us to find what is beautiful and to love the good. I do not know. Do you?

C?dmon's poem, written about 670, marks the beginning of English poetry in Great Britain, for "Beowulf" was first sung in another land—the land of the conquerors of England—before it was brought to British soil. The verses of C?dmon's poetry are as stormy as the sea which beats at the bottom of the cliffs of Whitby, on which rose the monastery of Streoneshalh. C?dmon was at first a servant in this monastery, but when the[Pg 31] power to sing came to him it lifted not only C?dmon himself to something better than he had been; it has also lifted men and women ever since to better ways of thinking and feeling and to greater happiness than they would ever have had without English poetry. Bede, who wrote about C?dmon, said, "He did not learn the art of poetry from men, nor of men, but from God." C?dmon sang many songs, chiefly songs about stories in the Bible. Our first poetry was religious. "Dark and true and tender is the north," and true and tender is all great English poetry since that most precious of all the golden doors was thrown open in the Great Palace of English Literature.

Almost more interesting than the stories which C?dmon resung for the world is the story of the way the gift of song came to C?dmon.

One day a little boy stood by a fishing-boat from which he had just leaped. He dug his toe in the sand and looked up to the edge of the rocky cliff above him.

"What dost see, lad?" said his uncle, who was tossing his catch of fish to the sand; "creatures of the mist in the clouds yonder?"

"Nay, uncle," answered Finan, "there is no Grendel in the clouds. Last night at the Hall a man sang to the harp that Grendel was a moor-treader. Also he told of the deeds of the hero [Pg 32]Beowulf, and he said that Beowulf had killed Grendel."

Finan's eyes were on the distant moor, which was the color of flame in the evening light. Already twinkling above were little stars bright as the sheen of elves. There, he knew, for everybody said so, lived elf and giant and monster. There in the moor pools lived the water-elves. Across its flame of heather strode mighty march-gangers like Grendel, and in the dark places of the mountains lived a dragon, crouched above his pile of gold and treasure.

There stood the miraculous tree, of great size, on which were carved the figures of beasts and birds and strange letters which told what gods the heathen worshiped before the gentle religion of Christ was brought to England. There lived the Wolf-Man, too, so friendless and wild that he became the comrade of the wolves which howled in those dark places. There lived a bear, old and terrible, and the wild boar rooting up acorns with his huge curved tusks.

Nearer the village was the wolf's-head tree—more terrible tree than any in the mysteries of forest and fen-land. This was the gallows on which the village folk hung those who did evil. Finan could see the tree where it stood alone in the sunset light. And he heard the rough cawing of ravens as they settled down into its dark branches to roost.

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"Caw, caw," croaked one raven, "ba-a-d man, ba-ad man."

"Caw, caw," sang another raven, "ba-ad."

Then they flapped their wings and settled to their sleep.

"Uncle," Finan said, "I will go up the cliffside."

The fisherman looked up. He heard the chanting from the church, and saw an immense white cross upright on the cliff's edge. But he knew not of what adventure little Finan was thinking.

"Aye," he said, "go. Perhaps you will see the blessed Hild."

So it came about that little Finan climbed the cliff on that evening which was to prove a night wonderful in its miracle. There was born that night that which, like the love of Christ, has made children's lives better and happier.

Finan reached the top of the cliff by those steps which were cut into it, and then took the main road, paved and straight, which led toward the Great Hall. He went along slowly under the apple-trees. He saw a black-haired Welsh woman draw water. Little children not so big as Finan were sitting on the steps by their mothers, who were spinning in their doorways. He passed a dog gnawing a bone flung to it for its supper.

A cobbler, laying by his tools, looking up, saw Finan and greeted him. A jeweler was fixing [Pg 34]ornaments on a huge horn he had polished. Carpenters were leaving a little cottage which they were building. The road was full of men—swineherds and cowherds, plowboys and wood-choppers from the forests beyond, gardeners and shepherds—all on their way to the Great Hall. Some men there were in armor, too, their long hair floating over their shoulders.

Inside the windows, which in those days contained no window-glass, torches and firelight would soon begin to flame, and mead would be passed. Already a loud horn was calling all who would to come.

Suddenly something sharp stabbed Finan, and he cried out.

A man, a woman, and a little child came rushing from one of the household yards, flapping their garments and screaming: "The bees! The bees!"

They had just found their precious hive empty. The bees had swarmed, and unless they could find them there would be no more sweet-smelling mead made from honey in that household that year.

Another bee stung Finan. And there they were clinging to a low apple bough just above his head. They hung in a great cluster, like a bunch of dark grapes.

"Dame," said a cowherd, who was in the road, to the people who were crying out for their bees, "yonder lad knows where the bees are."

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Finan rubbed his head and looked up at the angry, humming swarm.

"Aye," he said, and laughed.

"Throw gravel on the swarming bees," called the cowherd, C?dmon.

The man and woman and Finan took handfuls of gravel from the roadside and flung them over the bees, and sang again and again, "Never to the wood, fly ye wildly more!"

Then they laughed, and the bees swarmed.

"Now," said C?dmon, who was a wise cowherd, "hang veneria on the hive, and if ye would have them safe lay on the hive a plant of madder. Then can naught lure them away."

When they reached the Hall folk were already eating inside. Little Finan saw C?dmon go in quietly, for C?dmon was attached to the Abbess Hild's monastery and had a right to go in and eat. Inside they were singing for the sake of mirth, and the torches and firelight were flaming.

Through the open window—for windows were always open then, and the word window meant literally "wind-eye"—Finan saw the harp being passed from one to another.

They sang many songs as the harp passed from hand to hand, songs of war and songs of home.

But when the harp was passed to C?dmon, who had charmed the bees, he shook his head sorrowfully, saying that he could not sing, and got up sad and ashamed and went out.

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Little Finan wanted to shout through the window to him to sing about the bees. He did not dare, for he was afraid of being discovered. Instead he followed behind C?dmon. He wished to ask him why he could not sing. This he did not dare to do, either, but he went on to the fold where the cowherd had gone to care for the cattle. And there on the edge of the fold the little boy, unseen by the cowherd, fell asleep. Shortly afterward C?dmon, too, fell asleep.

It must have been near the middle of the night when the stars one and all were shining and dancing with the sheen of millions and millions of elves, and the sea down below the cliff was singing a mighty lullabye, that little Finan started wide awake, hearing a voice speak.

"C?dmon," spoke a man who stood beside the sleeping cowherd, "sing me something."

C?dmon drowsily answered: "I cannot sing anything. Therefore went I away from the mirth and came here, for I know not how to sing."

Again the mysterious stranger spoke. "Yet you could sing."

And Finan heard the sleep-bound voice of C?dmon ask, "What shall I sing?"

"Sing to me," said the stranger, "the beginning of all things."

And at once C?dmon began to sing in a strong voice, and very beautifully, the praise of God who made this world. And his song had all the [Pg 37]beat of sea waves in it—sometimes little waves that lapped gently on the shore and bore in beautiful shells and jeweled seaweed. But more often its rhythm was as mighty as ocean waves that tossed big ships.

Then the wandering stranger, hearing the beauty of the song, vanished. C?dmon awoke from his sleep, and he remembered all that he had sung and the vision that had come to him. And he was glad. He arose and went to the Abbess Hild to tell her what had happened to him, the least of her servants.

In the presence of many wise men did Hild bid C?dmon tell his dream and sing his verses. And he did as he was told, and it was plain to all that an angel had visited C?dmon. The Abbess Hild took him into the monastery, and she ordered that everything be done for him. And C?dmon became the first and one of the greatest of English poets. And even as Christ was born in a manger in Bethlehem, English poetry was born in a cattle-fold in a town which was called Streoneshalh, which means "Bay of the Beacon." And to mankind since C?dmon, the first English poet, English song has been a beacon to all the world.

If you open a book written in the English of to-day, it is easy to read it—just as easy as to [Pg 38]understand the speech we use among one another. But the English of fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago would be difficult to read. There is an illustration of this English in a line from "Deor's Lament":
Thas ofer eode, thisses swa maeg.

It is easy to pick this out word for word, and see that it means, "That was overcome (or overpassed), so may this be." The English in that Great Palace, some of whose doors are more than twelve hundred years old, is the same English, just as the oak-tree two hundred years old is the same oak-tree, though different, that it was when planted. But you would find it difficult to read the English in which C?dmon wrote his great poems.

Old English poetry, too, seems as different from the poetry of to-day as the language we speak seems different from the language they used to speak. For one thing, old English poetry did not have rhymes.
Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life and bade thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?

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This poem was written somewhat over a hundred years ago by William Blake, but it is modern and part of that brightest and most beautiful room of all English poetry—Nineteenth Century Poetry. What is a rhyme? You can tell if you will study this stanza from "The Lamb." You will see that "thee" of the first line rhymes with "thee" of the second, that "feed" and "mead" rhyme, and that "delight" and "bright" rhyme just as "voice" and "rejoice." Old English poetry was different, too, in that it did not count the syllables in a line of poetry. If you drum on the table and count the syllables of the first and second lines, you will see that each has six, and the following six lines have seven syllables each, and the last two six each. Then if you drum a little more you will see that each of the first two lines has three accents or stresses, and the following six four accents or stresses each.

Then, you ask, what was this old English poetry like? Even if the syllables were not counted and there was no rhyme, it had accents just as our modern poetry has. Every line was divided into half verses by a pause, as, for example:
Warriors of winters young with words spake.

There are two accented syllables in the first half of this line, and one in the second. And now, instead of rhyme, what do you think the old English[Pg 40] poetry had? Alliteration. That is a big word, but it is not nearly so difficult as it seems, for it means simply the repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words. Here it is, the letter "w" that is repeated. It was poetry with alliteration and stress which little Finan heard on that night so long ago when the angel came to C?dmon and commanded him to sing.