Page:The Dream of the Rood - ed. Cook - 1905.djvu/23

Rh shall be passed upon him according to his deeds, as the award for his life. L F trembles, rests full of anxiety, remembering all the anguish, the woundings of the sins which I committed first or last in the world.' Cynewulf goes on to say that he must repent in tears, that he will need the intercession of Juliana, and that he begs every one who shall read the poem to pray for him by name that God would be merciful to him in that Great Day.

The Fates of the Apostles has: 'Here may he that is wise of prescience, he who rejoiceth in songs, discover who composed this lay.' Then follow the Cynewulfian runes.

The passage from the Elene is (1237–77): 'Thus I, old and ready to depart by reason of the failing house, have woven wordcraft and wondrously gathered, have now and again pondered and sifted my thought in the prison of the night. I knew not all concerning the right. .. before wisdom, through the noble power, revealed a larger view into the cogitation of my heart. I was guilty of misdeeds, fettered by sins, tormented with anxieties, bound with bitternesses, beset with tribulations, before he bestowed inspiration through the bright order as a help to the aged man. The mighty King granted me his blameless grace and shed it into my mind, revealed it as glorious, and in course of time dilated it ; he set my body free, unlocked my heart, and released the power of song, which I have joyfully made use of in Rh