* * * * *

  With thorn y-crowned, crucified, and on the cross died;
  And sythen his blessed body was in a stone buried; after that.
  And descended adown to the dark helle,
  And fetched out our forefathers; and they full fain weren. glad.
  The third day readily, himself rose from death,
  And on a stone there he stood, he stey up to heaven. where:  ascended.

Here there is no rhyme.  There is measure—­a dance-movement in the verse; and likewise, in most of the lines, what was essential to Anglo-Saxon verse—­three or more words beginning with the same sound.  This is somewhat of the nature of rhyme, and was all our Anglo-Saxon forefathers had of the kind.  Their Norman conquerors brought in rhyme, regularity of measure, and division into stanzas, with many refinements of versification now regarded, with some justice and a little more injustice, as peurilities.  Strange as it may seem, the peculiar rhythmic movement of the Anglo-Saxon verse is even yet the most popular of all measures.  Its representative is now that kind of verse which is measured not by the number of syllables, but by the number of accented syllables.  The bulk of the nation is yet Anglo-Saxon in its blind poetic tastes.

Before taking my leave of this mode, I would give one fine specimen from another poem, lately printed, for the first time in full, from Bishop Percy’s manuscript.  It may chronologically belong to the beginning of the next century:  its proper place in my volume is here.  It is called Death and Liffe.  Like Langland’s poem, it is a vision; but, short as it is in comparison, there is far more poetry in it than in Piers Plowman.  Life is thus described: 

  She was brighter of her blee[18] than was the bright sun;
  Her rudd[19] redder than the rose that on the rise[20] hangeth;
  Meekly smiling with her mouth, and merry in her looks;
  Ever laughing for love, as she like would.

Everything bursts into life and blossom at her presence,

  And the grass that was grey greened belive. forthwith.

But the finest passage is part of Life’s answer to Death, who has been triumphing over her: 

  How didst thou joust at Jerusalem, with Jesu, my Lord,
  Where thou deemedst his death in one day’s time! judgedst.
  There wast thou shamed and shent and stripped for aye! rebuked.
  When thou saw the king come with the cross on his shoulder,
  On the top of Calvary thou camest him against;
  Like a traitor untrue, treason thou thought;
  Thou laid upon my liege lord loathful hands,
  Sithen beat him on his body, and buffeted him rightly, then.
  Till the railing red blood ran from his sides; pouring down.