“Like Some Clean Beast”
Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem
“In the evenings at Streonshalh . . . farm labourers gathered to play the harp and to sing.
Caedmon . . . was in the habit of withdrawing to his sleeping-pallet in the byre, or in the
stables, so as not to show himself up. Then one night an apparition in the form of a
man—call him an angel—entered his dream. . . .
“ ‘All that he could learn by listening . . . he pondered in his life and, ruminating like some
clean beast, he turned it into the sweetest of songs.’ ”
~ Michael Schmidt quoting the Venerable Bede, The Story of Poetry, 8
The earliest of English poets came
From lowly stock, so lowly that he lowed,
Almost, his dawn of England songs. A flame
From angel’s mouth like Pentecost bestowed
Upon the neat-herd God’s own gift of lines
And melodies. Perhaps the bullock, heifers, cows
And ass got inspiration, too, the kines
He slept among. Perhaps they made their vows
To God because of him just like the birds
Of Francis in his holiness. The nuns
And Abbess, awestruck by the herdsman’s words,
Made Caedmon a lay brother. Singing stuns,
Inspired as Caedmon’s was. Romantics need
Such myths and want winged dreams to intercede.