Page:The Elene of Cynewulf.djvu/51

 (Y), he mourned; a companion to need (N), he suffered crushing grief and anxious care, although before him his horse (E) measured the miles and proudly ran, decked with gold. Hope (W) is waned, and joy through the course of years; youth is fled, and the pride of old. Once (U) was the splendor of youth(?); now after that alloted time are the days departed, are the pleasures of life dwindled away, as water (L) glideth, or the rushing floods. Wealth (F) is but a loan to each beneath the heavens; the beauties of the field vanish away beneath the clouds, most like unto the wind when it riseth loud before men, roameth amid the clouds, courseth along in wrath, and then on a sudden becometh still, close shut in its narrow prison, crushed by force.

Thus shall all this world pass away, and in like manner devouring flame shall seize upon whoever was born into it, at that time when the Lord himself ’with a host of angels shall come unto judgment. There shall each man hear the doom on all his deeds from the mouth of the judge, and likewise shall pay the penalty for all the foolish words ever spoken by him, and all his overbold thoughts. Then shall the people divide into three parts for the embrace of the flame, every man who hath ever lived throughout the broad earth. Those who have clung fast to the truth shall be highest in the flame, the throng of the blessed, the host of them that yearn for glory, the multitude of the righteous, and thus may they endure and suffer more lightly without distress. He tempers for them all the glare of the flame as shall be most easy for them and most mild. The sinful men, those