Sith rent him on the rood with full red wounds:  then.
  To all the woes that him wasted, I wot not few,
  Then deemedst (him) to have been dead, and dressed for ever. 
  But, Death, how didst thou then, with all thy derffe words, fierce.
  When thou pricked at his pap with the point of a spear,
  And touched the tabernacle of his true heart,
  Where my bower was bigged to abide for ever? built.
  When the glory of his Godhead glinted in thy face,
  Then wast thou feared of this fare in thy false heart; affair.
  Then thou hied into hell-hole to hide thee belive; at once.
  Thy falchion flew out of thy fist, so fast thou thee hied;
  Thou durst not blush once back, for better or worse, look.
  But drew thee down full in that deep hell,
  And bade them bar bigly Belzebub his gates. greatly, strongly.
  Then thou told them tidings, that teened them sore; grieved.
  How that king came to kithen his strength, show.
  And how she[21] had beaten thee on thy bent,[22]
            and thy brand taken,
  With everlasting life that longed him till. belonged to him.

When Life has ended her speech to Death, she turns to her own followers and says:—­

Therefore be not abashed, my barnes so dear, children.
Of her falchion so fierce, nor of her fell words. 
She hath no might, nay, no means, no more you to grieve,
Nor on your comely corses to clap once her hands. 
I shall look you full lively, and latch full well, search for: 
And keere ye further of this kithe,[23] above [lay hold of.

                    the clear skies.

I now turn from those poems of national scope and wide social interest, bearing their share, doubtless, in the growth of the great changes that showed themselves at length more than a century after, and from the poem I have just quoted of a yet wider human interest, to one of another tone, springing from the grief that attends love, and the aspiration born of the grief.  It is, nevertheless, wide in its scope as the conflict between Death and Life, although dealing with the individual and not with the race.  The former poems named of Pierce Ploughman are the cry of John the Baptist in the English wilderness; this is the longing of Hannah at home, having left her little son in the temple.  The latter seems a poorer matter; but it is an easier thing to utter grand words of just condemnation, than, in the silence of the chamber, or with the well-known household-life around, forcing upon the consciousness only the law of things seen, to regard with steadfastness the blank left by a beloved form, and believe in the unseen, the marvellous, the eternal.  In the midst of “the light of common day,” with all the persistently common things pressing upon the despairing heart, to hold fast, after what fashion may be possible, the vanishing song that has changed its key, is indeed a victory over the flesh, however childish the forms in which the faith may embody itself, however weak the logic with which it may defend its intrenchments.