Cædmon's hymn

Cædmon's hymn: the first English poem
Anglo-Saxon/Old English Poem
modern English translation by Michael R. Burch

Now let us honour          heaven-kingdom's Guardian,
the might of the Architect         and his mind-plans,
the work of the Glory-Father.          First he, the eternal Lord,
established          the foundation of wonders.
Then he, the first Scop,          created heaven as a roof
for the sons of men,          holy Creator,
Maker of mankind.          Then he, the eternal Lord, 
afterwards made men middle-earth:          Master almighty!

"Scop" means "poet." 

Inno di Caedmon

Onoriamo ora il Guardiano del regno dei cieli,

la potenza dell’Architetto e i piani della sua mente,

l’opera del glorioso Padre. Dapprima egli, eterno Signore,

stabilì il fondamento dei miracoli.

Poi egli, primo Poeta, creò il cielo come tetto

Per i figli degli uomini, santo Creatore,

Fattore degli umani. Poi egli, eterno Signore,

in seguito fece la mediaterra degli uomini: Maestro onnipotente!

"Caedmon's Hymn" may be the oldest known poem in the English language, or at least that seems to be the general consensus among scholars today. The poem was composed as an oral song sometime between 658 and 680 AD and survives in a Latin translation by the Venerable Bede and in vernacular versions written down in several manuscripts of Bede's Historia. According to Bede, Cædmon was an illiterate herdsman who was given the gift of poetic composition by an angel who appeared to him in a dream and instructed him to sing a song about the Creation.

The poem above is the only known work by England's first "name" poet. (Before Cædmon every English poet was Anonymous.) In the original Anglo-Saxon (Old English) poem, hardly a word is recognizable to the modern ear because Cædmon was writing in a somewhat Anglicized form of ancient German. The word "England" harkens back to Angle-land; the Angles were a Germanic tribe.

The HyperTexts