[Illustration: ANGLO-SAXON GLEEMAN. _From the tapestry designed by H.A. Bone_.] The oldest Anglo-Saxon song known, which is called _Widsið_ or the _Far Traveler_, has been preserved in the _Exeter Book_. This song was probably composed in the older Angle-land on the continent and brought to England in the memories of the singers. The poem is an account of the wanderings of a gleeman over a great part of Europe. Such a song will mean little to us unless we can imaginatively represent the circumstances under which it was sung, the long hall with its tables of feasting, drinking warriors, the firelight throwing weird shadows among the smoky rafters. The imagination of the warriors would be roused as similar experiences of their own were suggested by these lines in Widsið's song:-- "Ful oft of ð=am h=eape hw=inende fl=eag giellende g=ar on grome ð=eode." Full oft from that host hissing flew The whistling spear on the fierce folk. The gleeman ends this song with two thoughts characteristic of the poets of the Saxon race. He shows his love fur noble deeds, and he next thinks of the shortness of life, as he sings:-- "In mortal court his deeds are not unsung, Such as a noble man mill show to men, Till all doth flit away, both life and light." A greater _scop_, looking at life through Saxon eyes, sings:-- "We are such stuff As dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep."[6] The _scop_ in the song called _The Wanderer (Exeter Book)_ tells how fleeting are riches, friend, kinsman, maiden,--all the "earth-stead," and he also makes us think of Shakespeare's "insubstantial pageant faded" which leaves "not a rack behind." Another old song, also found in the _Exeter Book_, is the _Seafarer_. We must imagine the _scop_ recalling vivid experiences to our early ancestors with this song of the sea:-- "Hail flew in hard showers. And nothing I heard But the wrath of the waters, The icy-cold way At times the swan's song; In the scream of the gannet I sought for my joy, In the moan of the sea whelp For laughter of men, In the song of the sea-mew For drinking of mead."[7] To show that love of the sea yet remains one of the characteristics of English poetry, we may quote by way of comparison a song sung more than a thousand years later, in Victoria's reign:-- "The wind is as iron that rings, The foam heads loosen and flee; It swells and welters and swings, The pulse of the tide of the sea. Let the wind shake our flag like a feather, Like the plumes of the foam of the sea! * * * * * In the teeth of the hard glad a weather, In the blown wet face of the sea."[8] Kipling in _A Song of the English_ says of the sea:-- "...there's never a wave of all her waves But marks our English dead." Another song from the _Exeter Book_ is called _The Fortunes of Men_. It gives vivid pictures of certain phases of life among the Anglo-Saxons:--