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Wednesday 19 August 2020

Genesis Book III - Cædmon

The day departed,
hasting over the dwellings of earth.
And after the gleaming light the Lord, our maker,
thrust on the first of evenings.
Murky gloom pressed hard upon the heels of day;
God called it night.
Our Lord sundered them, one from the other;
and ever since they follow out the will of God
to do it on the earth.

Then came a second day,
light after darkness.
And the Lord of life ordained
a pleasant firmament amid the waters.
Our Lord sundered the seas
and established the heavens.
By His word the King, Almighty God,
raised them above the earth.
The waters were divided under the heavens
by His holy might;
the waters were sundered from the waters,
under the firmament.

Then came hasting over the earth
the third fair morning.
Not yet were the wide ways and spacious tracts
useful unto God,
but the land lay covered by the deep.
The Lord of angels, by His word,
commanded that the waters come together,
which now beneath the heavens
hold their course and place ordained.
Then suddenly, wide-stretching under heaven,
lay the sea, as God gave bidding.
The great deep was sundered from the land.
The Warden of life, the Lord of hosts,
beheld the dry ground far outspread.
And the King of glory called it earth.

Cædmon (658 - 680) England
Translated by George W. Kennedy
Source: The Medieval and Classical Literature Library

This text comes from the Codex Junius 11 which contains Anglo-Saxon poetry by several sources. The Genesis poems are ascribed to Cædmon, though their exact provenance is unproven.

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