Hello and welcome to the Daily Poem. I'm Heidi White, and today is Friday, April 15th.

There's an old saying that nothing in life is certain except death and taxes.

And both of those certainties converge upon us on this day. April 15th is Tax Day, but I am not going to read for you a poem about

taxes. And in the Western calendar, it is also Good Friday, which is the day of the solemn

commemoration and remembrance of Christ's death. And I am going to read for you a Good Friday poem. This is quite a long excerpt from

a larger poem, and I'm only going to read it once, and then I'll make a few comments, and that'll be

the show for the day. This is taken from The Dream of the Rude, which is an Anglo-Saxon poem, maybe as early as the 8th century.

And it is the earliest Christian poem that we have in English and therefore quite important as a historical and literary artifact.

The poem is written in old English.

And so what I'm going to read for you is a translation by Richard Hammer from 1970.

And as I said, this is quite a quite, quite a long poem.

And so I'm just going to read an excerpt.

And this is taken from the second section of the poem.

And this is how it goes.

The Rude, the Cross of Christ, speaks.

It was long past, I still remember it, that I was cut down at the copses end, moved from my root.

Strong enemies there took me, told me to hold aloft their criminals, made me a spectacle. Men carried me upon their shoulders, set me on a hill,

a host of enemies there fastened me. And then I saw the Lord of all mankind, hasten with eager zeal that he might

mount upon me. I durst not against God's word, bend down or break when I saw tremble all the

surface of the earth. Although I might have struck down all the foes, yet stood I fast.

Then the young hero, who is God Almighty, got ready, resolute and strong in heart.

He climbed onto the lofty gallows tree, bold in the sight of many watching men when he intended to redeem mankind.

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