Durham. Anglo-Saxon Poem. Durham. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. 1876-79. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. England: Vols. I-IV

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Durham

Anglo-Saxon Poem


THIS city is celebrated
In the whole empire of the Britons.
The road to it is steep.
It is surrounded with rocks,
And with curious plants.	5
The Wear flows round it,
A river of rapid waves;
And there live in it
Fishes of various kinds,
Mingling with the floods.	10
And there grow
Great forests;
There live in the recesses
Wild animals of many sorts;
In the deep valleys	15
Deer innumerable.
There is in this city
Also well known to men
The venerable St. Cudberth;
And the head of the chaste King	20
Oswald, the lion of the Angli;
And Aiden, the Bishop:
Aedbert and Aedfrid,
The noble associates.
There is in it also	25
Aethelwold, the Bishop;
And the celebrated writer Bede;
And the Abbot Boisil,
By whom the chaste Cudberth
Was in his youth gratis instructed;	30
Who also well received the instructions.
There rest with these saints,
In the inner part of the Minster,
Relicks innumerable,
Which perform many miracles,	35
As the chronicles tell us,
And which await with them
The judgment of the Lord.