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The Earliest Native Poems from the British Isles

Since I will be serving as a guest editor of International poetry for the time being, I thought I would go back to the root source of what we now call English poetry. I have long been fascinated with native poetry, whether Native American, African, Arabic, etc. Where better to start than with the oldest natives to have written in the (then-fledgling) English language? These are my translations of three of the oldest extant English poems. No one can claim to know exactly what the poets were saying, because we don’t have clear definitions for some of the words. But I think we can still get a pretty good idea of what the ancient poets were thinking and feeling ...

"The Song of Amergin" may be the oldest poem related to the British Isles, but its origins remain a mystery. It was written by an unknown poet at an unknown time at an unknown location. The unlikely date 1268 B.C. was furnished by Robert Graves, who translated the "Song of Amergin" in his influential book The White Goddess (1948). Graves remarked that "English poetic education should, really, begin not with Canterbury Tales, not with the Odyssey, not even with Genesis, but with the Song of Amergin."

The Song of Amergin

translation by Michael R. Burch

I am the sea wind

I am the ocean wave

I am the sea roar

I am the bull of the seven battles

I am the cliff hawk

I am the sunlit dewdrop

I am the greenest herb

I am the rampaging boar

I am the pool salmon

I am the level lake

I am the vale echoing voices

I am the battle-hardened spearhead

I am the god who gave you fire

Who knows the secrets of the unhewn Dolmen

Who understands the ages of the Moon

Who knows where the Sunset settles ...

The original poem:

Am gaeth i m-muir,

Am tond trethan,

Am fuaim mara,

Am dam secht ndirend, [dam = ox, deer, stag?]

Am séig i n-aill, [séig = hawk, eagle or vulture?]

Am dér gréne,

Am cain lubai,

Am torc ar gail,

Am he i l-lind,

Am loch i m-maig,

Am brí a ndai,

Am bri danae,

Am bri i fodb fras feochtu,

Am dé delbas do chind codnu,

Coiche nod gleith clochur slébe?

Cia on co tagair aesa éscai?

Cia du i l-laig fuiniud gréne?

"Cædmon's Hymn" was composed sometime between 658 and 680 AD; it appears to be the oldest extant poem in the English language that can be dated. According to the Venerable Bede (673-735) the poem's author, Cædmon, was an illiterate herdsman who was given the gift of poetic composition by an angel. As the word "hymn" in the title suggests, the lyric was probably meant for a song, but the music has been lost if it ever existed.

However, the poem has been preserved in 19 different ancient manuscripts and in a Latin translation by Bede, so it appears to be authentic, and to have been very popular and admired in its day. In the original poem, hardly a word is recognizable as English because Cædmon was writing in a somewhat Anglicized form of ancient German. The word "England" derives from Angle-land: the Angles were a Germanic tribe that migrated to the British Isles, as were the Saxons and the Jutes. Cædmon wrote his poem in the Anglo-Saxon tongue, which was still largely Germanic. Nevertheless, by Cædmon's time the foundations of English poetry were being laid, particularly in the areas of accentual meter and alliteration. At the time the poem was composed, poets were considered to be "Makers" (as in William Dunbar's poem "Lament for the Makaris"), and poetry was considered to have a divine origin, so the poem may express a sort of affinity between the poet and his God, with a mortal maker praising his immortal Maker―poet to Poet.