Besides studies in Biblical English, the poet has made a number of studies in the Old Anglo-Saxon poets, most of whom were religious men who liked sad and terrible subjects. In the poem entitled "After Death" we have an example of this Anglo-Saxon feeling combined with the plain strength of a later form of language, chiefly Middle English, with here and there a very quaint use of grammar. It was common in Anglo-Saxon poetry to depict the horrors of the grave. Here we have a dead man talking to his own coffin, and the coffin answers him horribly: The four boards of the coffin lid Heard all the dead man did. . . . . . . . "I had fair coins red and white, And my name was as great light; "I had fair clothes green and red, And strong gold bound round my head. "But no meat comes in my mouth, Now I fare as the worm doth; "And no gold binds in my hair, Now I fare as the blind fare. "My live thews were of great strength, Now am I waxen a span's length; "My live sides were full of lust, Now are they dried with dust." The first board spake and said: "Is it best eating flesh or bread?" The second answered it: "Is wine or honey the more sweet?" The third board spake and said: "Is red gold worth a girl's gold head?" The fourth made answer thus: "All these things are as one with us." The dead man asked of them: "Is the green land stained brown with flame? "Have they hewn my son for beasts to eat, And my wife's body for beasts' meat? "Have they boiled my maid in a brass pan, And built a gallows to hang my man?" The boards said to him: "This is a lewd thing that ye deem. "Your wife has gotten a golden bed; All the sheets are sewn with red. "Your son has gotten a coat of silk, The sleeves are soft as curded milk. "Your maid has gotten a kirtle new, All the skirt has braids of blue. "Your man has gotten both ring and glove, Wrought well for eyes to love." The dead man answered thus: "What good gift shall God give us?" The boards answered anon: "Flesh to feed hell's worm upon." I doubt very much whether a more terrible effect could be produced by any change of language. The poem is an excellent illustration of the force of the Old English, without admixture of any sort. Do not think that this is simple and easy work; perhaps no other living man could have done it equally well. It is not only in these simple forms, however, that Swinburne shows us the results of his Old English studies. Two of the most celebrated among his early poems, "The Triumph of Time" and the poem on the swallow, "Itylus," are imitations of very old forms of English verse, though the language is luxurious and new. I have already given you a quotation from the former poem, describing the poet's love of the sea. I now cite a single stanza of "Itylus."