"Then comes, at dawn, the east wind, keen with frost."

Milton writes:--

"...the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire."[17]

When Satan rises on his wings to cross the flaming vault, the
_Genesis_ gives in one line an idea that Milton expands into two and a
half:--

"Swang ðaet f=yr on tw=a f=eondes craefte."
Struck the fire asunder with fiendish craft.

"...on each hand the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, rolled
In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale."[18]

It is not certain that Milton ever knew of the existence of the
Caedmonian _Genesis_; for he was blind three years before it was
published. But whether he knew of it or not, it is a striking fact
that the temper of the Teutonic mind during a thousand years should
have changed so little toward the choice and treatment of the subject
of an epic, and that the first great poem known to have been written
on English soil should in so many points have anticipated the greatest
epic of the English race.

THE CYNEWULF CYCLE

Cynewulf is the only great Anglo-Saxon poet who affixed his name to