The Dream of the Rood

Apart from reading the wonderfully harmonious Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, one of my favorite Easter traditions is reading the Anglo-Saxon poem, "The Dream of the Rood." ("rood" means "crucifix" in Old English) Not only are these verses the first, full Christian poem in the English language, they comprise what may be one of our earliest of all English poems. Historians theorize that the poem may have been penned by Caedmon, whom the Venerable Bede tells us was a plain, uninspired herdsman until taught in the course of a dream to write hymns to God. The poem's enduring quality apparently caught on among the churchmen of Northumbria. Parts of it were inscribed on an equally masterful work of art, the Ruthwell Cross. Side-by-side with such engravings as Mary Magdalene washing Christ's feet with her hair, the healing of the man born blind, and the flight from Egypt, the poem -through the eyes of the cross upon which Jesus died- captures the paradoxical nature of Christ at once submitting to, and yet conquering, death.

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1 Lo! I will tell of the best of dreams,
   what I dreamed in the middle of the night,
   after the speech-bearers were in bed.
   It seemed to me that I saw a very wondrous tree
5 lifted into the air, enveloped by light,
   the brightest of trees. That beacon was all
   covered with gold. Gems stood
   beautiful at the surface of the earth, there were five also
   up on the central joint of the cross. All those fair through eternal decree gazed
10 [on] the angel of the Lord. [It] was certainly not a wicked person’s gallows there,
   but holy spirits, men over the earth,
   and all this famous creation gazed on him.
  Wondrous was that tree of victory, and I stained with sins
  wounded sorely with defects, I saw the tree of glory,
15 honoured with garments, shining joyously,
  adorned with gold....

(Read the remainder of the poem here)