Now it is, and now 'tis not--
As it ne'er had been, I wot.
Hence many say--it is man's lot:
All goeth but God's will;
We all die, though we like it ill.

Green about me grows the grain;
Now it yelloweth all again:
Jesus, give us help amain,
And shield us from hell;
For when or whither I go I cannot tell

There were no doubt many religious poems in a certain amount of
circulation of a different cast from these; some a metrical recounting of
portions of the Bible history--a kind unsuited to our ends; others a
setting forth of the doctrines and duties then believed and taught. Of
the former class is one of the oldest Anglo-Saxon poems we have, that of
Caedmon, and there are many specimens to be found in the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. They could, however, have been of little service to
the people, so few of whom could read, or could have procured manuscripts
if they had been able to use them. A long and elaborate composition of
the latter class was written in the reign of Edward II. by William de
Shoreham, vicar of Chart-Sutton in Kent. He probably taught his own
verses to the people at his catechisings. The intention was, no doubt, by
the aid of measure and rhyme to facilitate the remembrance of the facts
and doctrines. It consists of a long poem on the Seven Sacraments; of a
shorter, associating the Canonical Hours with the principal events of the
close of our Lord's life; of an exposition of the Ten Commandments,
followed by a kind of treatise on the Seven Cardinal Sins: the fifth part
describes the different joys of the Virgin; the sixth, in praise of the