ain.
Now departed the Northmen in their nailed ships,
Dreary from dart-play on Dyngesmere.
55 Over the deep water to Dublin they sailed,
Broken and baffled back to Ireland.
So, too, the brothers both went together,
The King and the Aetheling; to their kinsmen's home,
To the wide land of Wessex --warrior's exultant.
60 To feast on the fallen on the field they left
The sallow-hued spoiler, the swarthy raven,
Horned of beak, and the hoary-backed
White-tailed eagle to eat of the carrion,
And the greedy goshawk, and that gray beast,
65 The wolf in the wood. Not worse was the slaughter
Ever on this island at any time,
Or more folk felled before this strife
With the edge of the sword, as is said in old books,
In ancient authors, since from the east hither
70 The Angles and Saxons eagerly sailed
Over the salt sea in search of Britain,--
Since the crafty warriors conquered the Welshmen
And, greedy for glory, gained them the land.

31. _Anlaf_: the Old English form of "Olaf."

52. _Heirs of Edward_: the English, descendants of Edward the Elder.

58. _The Aetheling_: Edmund the Aetheling (or prince) of line 3.

THE BATTLE OF MALDON

[Critical edition: Sedgefield, _The Battle of Maldon and Six Short Poems
from the Saxon Chronicle_, Boston, 1904, Belles Lettres Edition.

Date: It appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 991.

"_The Battle of Maldon_ treats not of legendary heroes of the Germanic
races but of an actual historic personage, an English hero and patriot
fallen in battle against a foreign invader a very short time before the
poem was made. A single event in contemporary history is here described
with hardly suppressed emotion by one who knew his hero and loved him.
There is none of the allusiveness and excursiveness of the _Beowulf_; we
have here not a member of an epic cycle, but an independent song. Very
striking is the absence of ornament from the _Battle of Maldon_; all is
plain, blunt, and stern."--Sedgefield, _The Battle of Maldon_, pp.
vi-vii.]

. . . . . . . . . . was broken;
He bade the young barons abandon their horses,
To drive them afar and dash quickly forth,
In their hands and brave heart to put all hope of succe