It is easy to pick this out word for word, and see that it means, "That was overcome (or overpassed), so may this be." The English in that Great Palace, some of whose doors are more than twelve hundred years old, is the same English, just as the oak-tree two hundred years old is the same oak-tree, though different, that it was when planted. But you would find it difficult to read the English in which Cædmon wrote his great poems.
Old English poetry, too, seems as different from the poetry of to-day as the language we speak seems different from the language they used to speak. For one thing, old English poetry did not have rhymes.
Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee, Gave thee life and bade thee feed By the stream and o'er the mead; Gave thee clothing of delight, Softest clothing, woolly, bright; Gave thee such a tender voice, Making all the vales rejoice? Little lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?
This poem was written somewhat over a hundred years ago by William Blake, but it is modern and part of that brightest and most beautiful room of all English poetry—Nineteenth Century Poetry. What is a rhyme? You can tell if you will study this stanza from "The Lamb." You will see that "thee" of the first line rhymes with "thee" of the second, that "feed" and "mead" rhyme, and that "delight" and "bright" rhyme just as "voice" and "rejoice." Old English poetry was different, too, in that it did not count the syllables in a line of poetry. If you drum on the table and count the syllables of the first and second lines, you will see that each has six, and the following six lines have seven syllables each, and the last two six each. Then if you drum a little more you will see that each of the first two lines has three accents or stresses, and the following six four accents or stresses each.
Then, you ask, what was this old English poetry like? Even if the syllables were not counted and there was no rhyme, it had accents just as our modern poetry has. Every line was divided into half verses by a pause, as, for example:
Warriors of winters young with words spake.
There are two accented syllables in the first half of this line, and one in the second. And now, instead of rhyme, what do you think the old English poetry had? Alliteration. That is a big word, but it is not nearly so difficult as it seems, for it means simply the repetition of the same letter at the beginning of two or more words. Here it is, the letter "w" that is repeated. It was poetry with alliteration and stress which little Finan heard on that night so long ago when the angel came to Cædmon and commanded him to sing.