Caedmon was a servant at the monastery of Whitby Abbey in the seventh century and is the first English poet whose name is known. Bede wrote of him:

Then he did this on a certain occasion, that he left the banquet-hall and he was going out to the animal stables, which herd had been assigned to him that night. When he there at a suitable time set his limbs at rest and fell asleep, then some man stood by him in his dream and hailed and greeted him and addressed him by his name: ‘Caedmon, sing me something.’ Then he answered and said: ‘I do not know how to sing and for that reason I went out from this feast and went hither, because I did not know how to sing at all.’ Again he said, he who was speaking with him: ‘Nevertheless, you must sing.’ Then he said: ‘What must I sing?’ Said he: ‘Sing to me of the first Creation.’ When he received this answer, then he began immediately to sing in praise of God the Creator verses and words which he had never heard, whose order is this:

Now [we] must honour the Guardian of Heaven,
the might of the Architect, and His purpose,
the work of the Father of Glory
— as He, the Eternal Lord, established the beginning of wonders.
He, the holy Creator,
first created heaven as a roof for the children of men.
Then the Guardian of mankind, the Eternal Lord,
the Lord Almighty, afterwards appointed the middle earth,
the lands, for men.

Saint Hilda of Whitby Anglo-Saxon Abbess Receiving a Visit from Caedmon

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This poem fragment (translated from Old English) is the only one of Caedmon’s poems extant. If you want to try your hand at reading seventh century English, you can find Bede’s account of Caedmon here.

Cloudscome has the Poetry Friday Roundup at A Wrung Sponge this week.