mine wunden And she shall my wounds
Makien alle isunde, Make all sound,
Al hal me makien All hale me make
Mid halweige drenchen. With healing draughts.
And seoethe Ich cumen wulle And afterwards I will come
To mine kineriche To my kingdom
And wunien mid Brutten And dwell with Britons
Mid muchelere wunne." With much joy.

With this, compare the following lines from Tennyson's _The Passing of
Arthur_:--

"...I am going a long way
* * * * *
To the island-valley of Avilion,
Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea,
Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.
* * * * *
He passes to be King among the dead,
And after healing of his grievous wound
He comes again."

Layamon employed less alliteration than is found in Anglo-Saxon
poetry. He also used an occasional rime, but the accent and rhythm of
his verse are more Saxon than modern. When reading Tennyson's _Idylls
of the King_, we must not forget that Layamon was the first poet to
celebrate in English King Arthur's deeds. The _Brut_ shows little
trace of French influences, not more than a hundred French words being
found in it.

Orm's Ormulum.--A monk named Orm wrote in the Midland dialect a
metrical paraphrase of those parts of the _Gospels_ used in the church
on each service day throughout the year. After the paraphrase comes
his metrical explanation and application of the _Scripture_.

He says:--

"Diss boc iss nemmnedd Orrmulum
Forrethi ethatt Ormm itt wrohhte."

This book is named Ormulum
For that Orm it wrote.

There was no fixed spelling at this time. Orm generally doubled the
consonant after a short vowel, and insisted that any one who copied
his work should be careful to do the same. We shall find on counting
the syllables in the two lines quoted from him that the first line has
eight; the second, seven. This scheme is followed with great precision
throughout the poem, which employs neither rime nor regular
alliteration. Orm used even fewer French words than Layamon. The date
of the _Ormulum_ is probably somewhere between 1200 and 1215.

The Ancren Riwle.--About 1225 appeared the most notable prose work
in the nat