One
joy of my job as an English teacher is discovering beauty. Today, as I was
preparing a review packet for my eleventh-graders on the Anglo-Saxon era, I
stumbled upon this poem by St. Caedmon, an illiterate seventh
century British monk.
Known as the father
of Old English poetry, Caedmon tended horses in the
monastery of St. Hilda of
Whitby. “Hymn of Creation” came to him, fully formed, in a dream. It’s
his only surviving poem, and what a one.
Now
let us praise the Guardian of the Kingdom of Heaven
the
might of the Creator and the thought of his mind,
the
work of the glorious Father, how He, the eternal Lord
established
the beginning of every wonder.
For
the sons of men, He, the Holy Creator
first
made heaven as a roof, then the
Keeper
of mankind, the eternal Lord
God
Almighty afterwards made the middle world
the
earth, for men.
Beautiful!
ReplyDeleteI just read this out loud to my husband........very nice indeed!
ReplyDelete@polkadotpeticoat: How great to imagine you reading that poem out loud, so many centuries after it was written. Thanks for stopping by from Alaska!
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