Sorrowing tearfully,
Saddest of men,
Can I sing cheerfully,
As I could then?

Many a verity

In those glad times
Of my prosperity

Taught I in rhymes;
Now from forgetfulness

Wanders my tongue,

Wasting in fretfulness

Metres unsung.

Worldliness brought me here
Foolishly blind,

Riches have wrought me here
Sadness of mind;

When I rely on them

Lo! they depart,

Bitterly, fie on them!

Rend they my heart.

Why did your songs to me,
World-loving men,

Say joy belongs to me

Ever as then?

Why did ye lyingly

Think such a thing,

Seeing how flyingly

Wealth may take wing?

The original is the opening poem of Boethius; whereof very little is here adopted by Alfred; but it is almost entirely an independent poem. This may fairly be regarded as a picture of Alfred's own mind in the dark times of his adversity. He reviews past glories,-hints at a confession of some of those early sins of worldliness and arrogance whereof Asser has spoken,-rebukes flatterers, and lies down alongside of Boethius in his dungeon, with that sympathy which a brotherhood in grief alone can give.

III. A FYTTE OF DESPAIR.

Heu, quam praecipiti mersa profundo Mens hebet, et propria luce relicta,

Thone ecan gefean

Thringth on tha thiostro
This se worulde,

Stormas beatath,

Weoruld bisgunga:

Mode gelumpen :

Thonne hit winnende,

His agen leoht

An forlæteth,

10

And mid uua forgit

Nu hit mare ne wat
For Gode godes,
Buton gnornunge,
Fremdre worulde :
Him is frofre thearf.

ALAS! in how grim

A gulf of despair,

Dreary and dim

For sorrow and care,

My mind toils along

When the waves of the world

Stormy and strong

Against it are hurl'd.

When in such strife

My mind will forget

Its light and its life

In worldly regret,

And through the night

Of this world doth grope

Lost to the light

Of heavenly hope.

Thus it hath now

Befallen my mind

I know no more how

Here also we have almost all Alfred; it is in fact an expansion of the two first lines of Boethius as given above, and not a trans

lation of the whole ode; which is of much more considerable length. Like the former morsel, it recals the days when our deserted king sang his sorrows to his lonely harp in the neat herd's hut, or on the marsh of Æthelingay.

O THOU, that art Maker of heaven and earth,
Who steerest the stars and hast given them birth,
For ever Thou reignest upon Thy high throne,
And turnest all swiftly the heavenly zone.

Thou, by Thy strong holiness, drivest from far
In the way that Thou willest each worshipping star;
And, through thy great power, the sun from the night
Drags darkness away by the might of her light.

The moon, at Thy word, with his pale-shining rays
Softens and shadows the stars as they blaze,
And even the Sun of her brightness bereaves
Whenever upon her too closely he cleaves.

So also the Morning and Evening Star
Thou makest to follow the Sun from afar,
To keep in her pathway each year evermore,
And go as she goeth in guidance before.

Behold too, O Father, Thou workest aright
To summer hot day-times of long-living light,
To winter all wondrously orderest wise

Short seasons of sunshine with frost on the skies.

Thou givest the trees a south-westerly breeze,
Whose leaves the swart storm in its fury did seize
By winds flying forth from the east and the north
And scattered and shattered all over the earth.

On earth and in heaven each creature and kind
Hears Thy behest with might and with mind,
But Man and Man only, who oftenest still
Wickedly worketh against Thy wise will.

For ever Almighty One, Maker and Lord,

On us, wretched earthworms, Thy pity be pour'd; Why wilt Thou that welfare to sinners should wend,

But lettest weird ill the unguilty ones rend?

Evil men sit, each on earth's highest seat,
Trampling the holy ones under their feet;
Why good should go crookedly no man can say,
And bright deeds in crowds should lie hidden away.

The sinner at all times is scorning the just,
The wiser in right, and the worthier of trust;
Their leasing for long while with fraud is beclad;
And oaths that are lies do no harm to the bad.

O Guide, if Thou wilt not steer fortune amain
But lettest her rush so self-will'd and so vain,
I know that the worldly will doubt of Thy might,
And few among men in Thy rule will delight.

My Lord, overseeing all things from on high
Look down on mankind with mercy's mild eye,
In wild waves of trouble they struggle and strive,
Then spare the poor earthworms, and save them alive!

This is one of the best known of King Alfred's paraphrases, and is almost worthy of its holy subject; for elevation of sentiment and breadth of view not easily exceeded by any uninspired writer. The metre here adopted is a long line only in appearance; for it has a regular break in the middle, and is in fact nearly the same as the 149th psalm: one very appropriate in an address to the Glorious Creator.

The Sun and Moon exchange genders in the Anglo-Saxon language; as in the modern German. Mr Fox refers us to an asserted instance of this interchange in Shakspeare, 1st HENRY IV, A. 1. S. 2, which however is very doubtful; where Prince Hal likens "the blessed Sun himself to a fair hot wench in a crimson taffety." It is much more to the point to take notice that in Hebrew the same peculiarity of genders is observable, where the moon is masculine while the sun is usually feminine. We may add this verbal evidence to those adduced by Turner, bearing upon the Asiatic origin of the Saxons, whom he, with great probability, considers to be the Sacæ of Herodotus.