, at morning-tide the glorious star, glided o'er grounds, God's
candle bright the eternal Lord's, until the noble creature sank to its
setting."

The poet describes the enemy's defeat and flight, the slaughter that
ensues, and with cries of joy calls upon the flocks of wild birds, the
"swart raven with horned neb," and "him of goodly coat, the eagle," and
the "greedy war hawk," to come and share the carcases. Never was so
splendid a slaughter seen, "from what books tell us, old chroniclers,
since hither from the east Angles and Saxons ('Engle and Seaxe'), came
to land, o'er the broad seas, Britain ('Brytene') sought, proud
war-smiths, the Welsh ('Wealas') o'ercame, men for glory eager, the
country gain'd."[53]

The writer's heart swells with delight at the thought of so many
corpses, of so great a carnage and so much gore; he is happy and
triumphant, he dwells complacently on the sight, as poets of another day
and country would dwell on the thought of paths "where the wind swept
roses" (ou le vent balaya des roses).

These strong men lend themselves willingly, as do their kin over the
sea, to the ebb and flow of powerful contrary feelings, and rush body
and soul from the extreme of joy to the acme of sorrow. The mild
_serenite_, enjoyed by men with classical tendencies was to them
unknown, and the word was one which no Norman Conquest, no Angevin rule,
no "Augustan" imitation, could force into the language; it was unwanted,
for the thing was unknown. But they listen with unabated pleasure, late
in the period, to the story of heroic deeds performed on the Continent
by men of their own race, whose mind was shaped like theirs, and who
felt the same feelings. The same blood and soul sympathy which animates
them towards their own King AEthelstan, lord of earls, ring-giver of
warriors--not a myth that one, not a fable his deeds--warms the songs
they devote to King Waldhere of Aquitaine, to the Scandinavian warrior
Beowulf, and to others, probably, who belonged to the same Germanic
stock. Not a word of England or the Angles is said in those poems; still
they were popular in England. The Waldhere song, of which some sixty
lines have been preserved, on two vellum leaves discovered in the
binding of an old book, told the story of the hero's flight from
Attila's Court with his bride Hildgund and a treasure (treasures play a
great part in those epics), and of his successive fights with Gunther
and Hagen while crossing the Vosges