'Thus perceive I that he knoweth my mind.'

Compare this with Milton's lines--

'So should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
_This knows_ my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace.'

Caedmon saw, without being able fully to express, the complex idea of
Satan, as distracted between a thousand thoughts, all miserable--tossed
between a thousand winds, all hot as hell--'pale ire, envy, and despair'
struggling within him--fury at man overlapping anger at God--remorse and
reckless desperation wringing each other's miserable hands--a sense of
guilt which will not confess, a fear that will not quake, a sorrow that
will not weep, a respect for God which will not worship; and yet,
springing out of all these elements, a strange, proud joy, as though
the torrid soil of Pandemonium should flower, which makes 'the hell he
suffers seem a heaven,' compared to what his destiny might be were he
either plunged into a deeper abyss, or taken up unchanged to his former
abode of glory. This, in part at least, the monk of Whitby discerned;
but it was reserved for Milton to embody it in that tremendous figure
which has since continued to dwindle all the efforts of art, and to
haunt, like a reality, the human imagination.

Passing over some interesting but subordinate Saxon writers, such as
Ceolfrid, Abbot of Wearmouth; Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury; Felix of
Croyland; and Alcuine, King Egbert's librarian at York, we come to one
who himself formed an era in the history of our early literature--the