Within him boiled his thoughts about his heart; Without, the wrathful fire pressed hot upon him-- He said,--‘This narrow place is most unlike That other we once knew in heaven high, And which my Lord gave me; tho’ own it now We must not, but to him must cede our realm. Yet right he hath not done to strike us down To hell’s abyss--of heaven’s realm bereft-- Which with mankind to people, he hath planned. Pain sorest this, that Adam, wrought of Earth On my strong throne shall sit, enjoying Bliss While we endure these pangs--hell torments dire, Woe! woe is me! Could I but use my hands And might I be from here a little time-- One winter’s space--then, with this host would I-- But these iron bands press hard--this coil of chains-- … There is but one known MS. copy of this poem. It is probably of the tenth, certainly not later than the eleventh century, and is in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is illuminated, and some scenes represented seem to have been taken from the old miracle plays.[9] It was printed in 1655: in this form a copy is said to have reached the hands of Milton, through a friend of the printer: and it may well be that the stern old Puritan poet was moved by a hearing of it,--for he was blind at this date,--to the prosecution of that grand task which has made his name immortal. _Beda._ We might, however, never have known anything of Cædmon and of Saint Hilda and all the monasteries north and south, except for another worthy who grew up in the hearing of the waves which beat on the cliffs of north-eastern England. This was Beda,--respected in his own day for his industry, piety, straightforward honesty--and so followed by the respect of succeeding generations as to get and carry the name of the _Venerable_ Beda. Though familiar with the people’s language,[10] and with Greek, he wrote in monkish Latin--redeemed by classic touches--and passed his life in the monastery at Jarrow, which is on the Tyne, near the coast of Durham, a little to the westward of South Shields. An ancient church is still standing amid the ruins of the monastic walls, and a heavy, straight-backed chair of oak (which would satisfy the most zealous antiquarian by its ugliness) is still guarded in the chancel, and is called Beda’s Chair.