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Alternate Ending To Beowulf

1123 Words5 Pages

A powerful monster, living up into the sky, growled in pain, impatient As the day as the music was daring and depressing,' the drum had tons of madness, sung Of the ancient beginnings of us all, recalling The Almighty making the earth, shaping These deep plains marked off by oceans, Then proudly setting the sun and moon To glow across the land and light it; The corners of the earth were made lovely with trees And leaves, made quick with life, with each Of the nations who now move on its face. And then As now warriors sang of their pleasure: So Hrothgar's men lived drowsy in his hall Till the demon stirred, that Gryphon, that fiend, Gryphon, who haunted the moors, the wild Marshes, and made his home in a hell Not hell but earth.

Then, when darkness had …show more content…

Hrothgar's wise men had fashioned Herot

To stand forever; only fire,

They had planned, could shatter what such skill had put

Together, swallow in hot flames such splendor

Of ivory and iron and wood. Suddenly

The sounds changed, the Danes started

In new terror, cowering in their beds as the terrible

Screams of the Almighty's enemy sang

In the darkness, the horrible shrieks of pain

And defeat, the tears torn out of Gryphon's

Taut throat, hell's captive caught in the arms

Swords raised and ready, determined

To protect their prince if they could. Their courage

Was great but all wasted: they could hack at Gryphon

From every side, trying to open

A path for his evil soul, but their points

Could not hurt him, the sharpest and hardest iron

Could not scratch at his hide, for that sin-stained demon

Had bewitched all men's weapons, laid spells

That blunted every mortal man's blade.

And yet his time had come, his days

Were over, his death near; down

To hell he would go, swept groaning and helpless

To the waiting hands of still worse fiends.

Now he discovered—once the afflictor

Of men, tormentor of their days—what it meant

To feud with Almighty God:

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