saint has all the admiration of a Viking for his unknown Pilot, who
stands at the helm in a gale and manages the vessel as he would a
thought.

Although the poet tells of a voyage in eastern seas, he is describing
the German ocean:--

"Then was sorely troubled,
Sorely wrought the whale-mere. Wallowed there the Horn-fish,
Glode the great deep through; and the gray-backed gull
Slaughter-greedy wheeled. Dark the storm-sun grew,
Waxed the winds up, grinded waves;
Stirred the surges, groaned the cordage,
Wet with breaking sea."[21]

Cynewulf is also the probable author of the _Phoenix_, which is in
part an adaptation of an old Latin poem. The _Phoenix_ is the only
Saxon poem that gives us the rich scenery of the South, in place of
the stern northern landscape. He thus describes the land where this
fabulous bird dwells:--

"Calm and fair this glorious field, flashes there the sunny grove;
Happy is the holt of trees, never withers fruitage there.
Bright are there the blossoms...
In that home the hating foe houses not at all,
* * * * *
Neither sleep nor sadness, nor the sick man's weary bed,
Nor the winter-whirling snow...
...but the liquid streamlets,
Wonderfully beautiful, from their wells upspringing,