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In yesterday’s Hymn of the Week, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” the poet Isaac Watts says that if he had all the wealth of the world in hand, to give it all up for Christ would be too little. And that consideration has made me think of an ancient poem I’ve read some time ago for our Poetry Aloud podcast, in my own translation from Anglo-Saxon, which you can read about and link to here, The Dream of the Rood. You can hear the whole of the poem if you click on the audio above. But what I’ve really got in mind to talk about today is the strange and powerful opening.
The dreamer — the speaker in the poem — says he wants to tell us of the “best of visions” he had in the night, when everyone else was asleep. There are a couple of things in these first few sentences that I found tremendously powerful from the first time I ever read them in Anglo-Saxon. One is the quality of the dream. I mean that when we dream, we often seem to enter a world that does and does not obey the laws of the world roundabout us. For example, I have a recurring dream that I have the power of leaving the ground as I am walking, and speeding on without needing to plant a foot on earth again until I want to. Of course, recurring dreams aren’t always so convenient: I also have a dream in which I have forgotten where I parked my truck several weeks ago, so that it is lost for good, probably stolen. And when you’re in a dream like that, you don’t say to yourself, “This isn’t realistic.” Both of those dreams feel true when I’m in them. I guess if you’re going to lose your truck, you’d better be able to fly, but that’s another story
The dream — it really is a vision granted to the speaker, and not the result of an overworked imagination — begins with the man’s sight of the Tree of Christ, and it seems to him to shift from one reality to another, though both of them are true simultaneously. That is, he looks at it one moment, and it is streaming with blood, especially from the right-hand side, where the lance entered Christ’s body, and out flowed blood and water. But almost in the same moment, that Cross is a jewel-studded relic, as if every drop of blood were transformed into a garnet or a ruby. Why does the poet do that? It is because in fact those drops of blood are of inestimable worth. One drop of Christ’s blood is rich enough to ransom all the world.
The other thing that struck me is what treasure meant to the people of the poet’s time, and that makes the opening even more intensely personal than it already does appear to be. You didn’t trade a jewel for money, then. Where could you go with money, in eighth century England? What could you buy? Great lords gave treasure to their most loyal thanes not for spending, but for the bond of love: the economy was founded upon gifts. So the Cross then isn’t just a symbol. It is a treasure. And as a treasure, it is meant to be given in love and received in gratitude: it is meant for the dreamer himself. Can I show even more clearly how personal it is? The Cross begins to speak! The Cross tells the story of the Crucifixion, of how “the young Hero ungirt himself — that was God Almighty,” strong and resolute, intending to set mankind free. The Cross is a living being in the scene: a loyal retainer, stalwartly with Christ, even when the apostles flee. It is a real embrace, when Jesus climbs upon that Tree; and now the Cross invites the Speaker, and that means all of us too, to treasure the Cross in our hearts, to be willing to suffer for Christ. The reward is infinite joy, in the presence of Christ and all his saints.
So by all means, listen to the poem — in translation, of course! The Dark Ages? Really, now!
The Dream of the Rood
Translated by Anthony Esolen © 2019
First Two Stanzas
Listen! When lapped in rest lay all who speak,
to me in a vision in the middle of the night
came the choicest of dreams, as I wish to recount.
Seemed to me that I saw one most splendid tree
arise into the air enwound with light,
beam-brightest, a beacon all beglazed with gold
showered upon it, with shimmering jewels
(like the five that shone up on the shoulder-span)
at its foot, on the earth -- no felon’s gallows, that,
but made lovely by the fore-shaping of the Lord of the hosts
who beheld it there, the hallowed, the angels,
with men the world over, and all this marvelous creation.
Wondrous was the victory-wood, and I, wounded with sins,
gashed, stained by guilt. I saw the tree of glory
robed in reverence and rays of joy,
garbed all in gold, with goodly gems
like the wrapping of lacework to honor the Ruler’s tree.
Yet through that gold I glimpsed the grievous strife
endured by doomed men of old, as drops of blood sweat
from the heart’s strong side. With sorrow was I stirred,
shook before that sight so fair, for I saw that shimmering sign
change color and cloth, now clotted with the wet,
drenched in the running blood; now decked out in treasure.
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