Andreas: The Legend of St. Andrew by Unknown
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page 7 of 77 (09%)
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[Footnote 2: See 369-381.] Daybreak and sunset, too, are described with much beauty, and in one passage at least with strong imagination. We can have no doubt that the poet was a close watcher and keen lover of nature. We can imagine him walking on the cliffs beside his beloved ocean, watching for the sunrise, rejoicing in the glory of the sky, As heaven's candle shone across the floods.[1] [Footnote 1: See 243.] I have said, too, that he was a devout churchman. Many of the noble hymns and prayers with which the poem abounds are largely original, expanded from a mere line or two in the Greek. Many and beautiful are the epithets or kennings which he applies to God, taken in part from the Bible, and in part from the imagery of the not wholly extinct heathen mythology. Thoroughly English is his love of violent action, of war and bloodshed. Andrew is a "warrior brave in the battle"; the apostles are Thanes of the Lord, whose courage for the fight Failed never, e'en when helmets crashed in war. and their missions are rather military expeditions than peaceful pilgrimages. One concrete example will serve well to show in what spirit the author has dealt with his original. The disciples of Andrew are so terrified by the sea that the Lord (disguised as a shipmaster) suggests that |
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