Paradise as Dante's or Milton's,--a conception that could never have
occurred to a poet of the warlike Saxon race before the introduction
of Christianity:--

"...Hunger is not there nor thirst,
Sleep nor heavy sickness, nor the scorching of the Sun;
Neither cold nor care."[20]

_Elene_ is a dramatic poem, named from its heroine, Helena, the mother
of the Roman emperor Constantine. A vision of the cross bearing the
inscription, "With this shalt thou conquer," appeared to Constantine
before a victorious battle and caused him to send his mother to the
Holy Land to discover the true cross. The story of her successful
voyage is given in the poem _Elene_. The miraculous power of the true
cross among counterfeits is shown in a way that suggests kinship with
the fourteenth century miracle plays. A dead man is brought in contact
with the first and the second cross, but the watchers see no divine
manifestation until he touches the third cross, when he is restored to
life.

_Elene_ and the _Dream of the Road_, also probably written by
Cynewulf, are an Anglo-Saxon apotheosis of the cross. Some of this
Cynewulfian poetry is inscribed on the famous Ruthwell cross in
Dumfriesshire.

Andreas and Phoenix.--Cynewulf is probably the author of _Andreas_,
an unsigned poem of special excellence and dramatic power. The poem,
"a romance of the sea," describes St. Andrew's voyage to Mermedonia to
deliver St. Matthew from the savages. The Savior in disguise is the
Pilot. The dialogue between him and St. Andrew is specially fine. The