Foreword
Preface
Introduction
Guide to Reading Aloud
About the Old English Text

POEMS OF EXILES AND LONGING

The Seafarer / Mary Jo Salter
The Wife's Lament / Eavan Boland
Deor / Seamus Heaney
Wulf and Eadwacer / Paul Muldoon
The Husband's Message / Michael Schmidt
The Wanderer / Greg Delanty

FIRST RIDDLE HOARD

"Who Is So Smart, So Crafty Spirited" / Peter Campion
"Busy from Time to Time, in Rings" / Phillis Levin
"I am a Monad Gashed by Iron" / David Curzon
"All That Adorns Me Keeps Me" / Laqrence Raab
"I Can Chortle Away in Any Voice" / Patricia McCarthy
"Days before Birth I Was Left Here for Dead" / James McGonigal
"My Jacket Is Polished Gray" / Billy Collins
"I Crush and Compress, Ruin and Ravage and Raw" / Elizabeth Powell
"I saw Ten of Them Ramble across the Land" / Edna Wyler
"Armed and Deadly Those Were My Early Days"" / James McGonigal

POEMS ABOUT HISTORICAL BATTLES, PEOPLE, AND PLACES

The Battle of Maldron / David R. Slavitt
The Battle at Brunanburh / Robert Hass
The Death of Alfred / Robert Hass
The Death of Edgar / Paul McLoughlin
Durham / Derek Mahon
The Battle of Finnsburh: a fragment / X.J.Kennedy
Waldere: two fragments / Matthew Hollis
Widsith / Bernard O'Donoghue

SECOND RIDDLE-HOARD

"My Throat's a Torch, the Rest of Me Rust" / David Barber
"All My Life's a Struggle with Water and Wind" / Lawrence Raab
"Some Wonder Am I" / Dennis O'Driscoll
"My Tooth Is Long, My Work Even Longer" / Gary Soto
"Five Dozen Reached the Brink and Pulled" / Peter Farley
"Wob Is My Name Approximately" / James McGonigal
"I'm a Creature to Conjure With" / David Barber
"Call Me Fabulous" / Gerry Murphy
"Some Enemy Took My LIfe" / Jane Hirshfield
"From Groves and Green Hills Girdling the City" / Robert B. Shaw

POEMS ABOUT LIVING

Maxins I-A / David Curzon
Maxims I-B / Brigit Kelly
Maxims I-C / Mark Halliday
Vainglory / Alan Jenkins
The Riming Poem / A.E. Stallings
The Rune Poem / James Harpur
Maxims II / Rachel Hadas
The Gifts of Men / Major Jackson
Precepts / Jay Parini
A Song of the Cosmos / Daniel Tobin
Two passages from The Second Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn / Fiona Sampson

THIRD RIDDLE-HOARD

"A Part of Earth is Made Fairer" / Gail Holst-Warhaft
"I Watched a Wonder, a Bright Marauder" / Molly Peacock
"I Dance like Flames" / David Constantine
"Wondrous Is This World, Incomparable" / David Wojahn
"A Sea Monster Came Sailing" / James McGonigal
"At Rest, Laborers Lean on Me" / Gary Soto
"Dank Earth, Dealings Dumbfounding Chill" / Robert B. Shaw
"It Was a Creature Traveling with Pendulum Motion" / Jacqueline Jones LaMon
"I Saw This Creature, His Belly Arseways" / Paddy Bushe
"I Watched This Big Well-Hung Young Laddie" / Edwin Morgan

POEMS ABOUT DYING

Bede's Dying Words / Anthony Cronin
The Fortunes of Men / Kelly Cherry
The Damned Soul Addresses the Body / Maurice Riordan
The Ruin / Yusef Komunyakaa

FOURTH RIDDLE-HOARD

"It Is Written in Scriptures" / Saskia Hamilton
"Forever Is the Creator" / David Wojahn
"But When Renewal Comes" / David Constantine
"I Saw, at Foreplaying, Two Wondrous Ones" / Marcia Karp
"A Noble Guest of Brave Lineage" / David Cavanagh
"A King Who Keeps to Himself Dwells" / Elizabeth Spires
"A Curious Thing Dangles by Man's Thigh" / Peter Constantine
"I Saw in a Corner Something Swelling" / Richard Wilbur
"A Moth Ate Words" / Jane Hirshfield
"I Heard of a Circle that Spoke before Men" / Lia Hills

BIBLICAL STORIES AND LIVES OF SAINTS

from Genesis: The Fall of the Rebel Angels and the First Day / Harvey Shapiro
from Genesis: Offering Isaac / David Ferry
from Exodus: The Israelites Cross the Red Sea / David Curzon
from Judith: Beheading Holofernes / Peter Constantine
The Vision of the Cross / Ciaran Carson
The Descent into Hell / John F. Deane
from Andreas / Eamon Grennan

FIFTH RIDDLE-HOARD

"Fighter across the Earth" / Peter Campion
"I Saw Four Beings" / Jane Hirshfield
"I Saw the Captives Carried In" / Macdara Woods
"I Saw a Tree Tinseled with Light" / James Harpur
"A Boy Came Walking to Where He Knew" / Marcia Karp
"I Was in There Where I Saw a Turning" / Phillis Levin
"The Wind Sends Small Creatures" / Gary Soto
"I Stood Once by Sand, Near the Sea-Surge" / Jane Hirshfield
"She Has Me Under Lock and Key" / Neil Rollinson
"I Am the Hard, Headstrong Push and Pull" / Gail Holst-Warhaft

PRAYERS, ADMONITIONS, AND ALLEGORIES

Caedmon's Hymn / Harvey Shapiro
The Kentish Hymn / Derek Mahon
King Alfred's Epilogue to the Pastoral Care of Gregory the Great / Maurice Riordan
from The Phoenix / Robert Welch
The Panther / Brad Leithauser
Whale / Robert Pinsky

SIXTH RIDDLE-HOARD

"Alive I Was–I Didn't Speak a Bit" / Phillis Levin
"Up Beyond the Universe and Back" / Edwin Morgan
"I Saw That Creature Wander on the Way" / Jennifer Grotz
"For the Hearing Ear She Shapes Her Sound" / Gail Holst-Warhaft
"High on This Headland Day and Night I Stand" / Robert B. Shaw
"I Was Little (Little Did I Know)" / David Barber
"I Was a Girl, a Gray Queen" / Molly Peacock
"I Saw Her–Quick–She Slipped Behind" / Molly Peacock
"Sea Fed, Shore Sheltered" / Gail Holt-Warhaft
"I Am a Prince's Property and Joy" / Macdara Woods

REMEDIES AND CHARMS

Field Remedy / Nick Laird
The Nine Herbs Charm / Tom Sleigh
Against a Dwarf / Thomas McCarthy
Against a Sudden Stitch / Michael Collier
Charm for Bearing a Full-Term Baby / Carol Muske-Dukes
Against Water-Elf Disease / Michael Collier
Charm for a Swarm of Bees / David Barber
Charm for Stolen Cattle / Jennifer Grotz
For Loss of Cattle / Kathryn Maris
A Journey Charm / Peter Sirr
Against a Wen / Maurice Riordan

FINAL RIDDLE-HOARD

"I Stand at the Noble's Shoulder" / Jon Stallworthy
"Look At My Puffed-Up Breast" / Patricia McCarthy
"Old Was My Race, Steady and Gaining" / Jacqueline Jones LaMon
"On Earth There's a Creature Sprung from a Wonder" / David Constantine
"My Home Harps On as I Hold My Tongue" / David Barber
"Many Men Were Sitting" / Marcia Karp
"When I Was a Tree in the Wood the Creatures" / Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
"He Had His Way, His Pleasure" / Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
"Smoother, Than, Smoother Than……Where?" / Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin
"I Am Noble, Known to Earls" / Jane Hirshfield

On Translating Old English Poetry
Index of Riddle Numbers and Solutions
Index of Angle-Saxon Poetic Records Titles
For Further Reading in Old English
Acknowledgments
Editor's Biographies