From all misdoers. 
    Fair is the field, Full happy and glad,
    Filled with the sweetest Scented flowers. 
    Unique is that island, Almighty the worker
    Mickle of might Who moulded that land. 
    There oft lieth open To the eyes of the blest,
    With happiest harmony, The gate of heaven. 
    Winsome its woods And its fair green wolds,
    Roomy with reaches.  No rain there nor snow,
    Nor breath of frost, Nor fiery blast,
    Nor summer’s heat, Nor scattered sleet,
    Nor fall of hail, Nor hoary rime,
    Nor weltering weather, Nor wintry shower,
    Falleth on any; But the field resteth
    Ever in peace, And the princely land
    Bloometh with blossoms.  Berg there nor mount
    Standeth not steep, Nor stony crag
    High lifteth the head, As here with us,
    Nor vale, nor dale, Nor deep-caverned down,
    Hollows or hills; Nor hangeth aloft
    Aught of unsmooth; But ever the plain,
    Basks in the beam, Joyfully blooming. 
    Twelve fathoms taller Towereth that land
    (As quoth in their writs Many wise men)
    Than ever a berg That bright among mortals
    High lifteth the head Among heaven’s stars.

Two noteworthy points may be marked in this extract.  Its feeling for natural scenery is quite different from the wild sublimity of the descriptions of nature in Beowulf.  Cynewulf’s verse is essentially the verse of an agriculturist; it looks with disfavour upon mountains and rugged scenes, while its ideal is one of peaceful tillage.  The monk speaks out in it as cultivator and dreamer.  Its tone is wholly different from that of the Brunanburh ballad or the other fierce war-songs.  Moreover, it contains one or two rimes, preserved in this translation, whose full significance will be pointed out hereafter.

The anarchy of Northumbria, and still more the Danish inroads, put an end to the literary movement in the North and the Midlands; but the struggle in Wessex gave new life to the West Saxon people.  Under AElfred, Winchester became the centre of English thought.  But the West Saxon literature is almost entirely written in English, not in Latin; a fact which marks the progressive development of vocabulary and idiom in the native tongue.  AElfred himself did much to encourage literature, inviting over learned men from the continent, and founding schools for the West Saxon youth in his dwarfed dominions.  Most of the Winchester works are attributed to his own pen, though doubtless he was largely aided by his advisers, and amongst others by Asser, his Welsh secretary and Bishop of Sherborne.  They comprise translations into the Anglo-Saxon of