Book is xxxv + 140 pp. A new edition of Alexander's collection of translations of several Old English poems or excerpts from poems, previously entitled The Earliest English Poems (1966, 1977, 1991). Revisions to the Beowulf excerpts are very light, apart from adjustments to their titles and the choice to precede each segment with its own headnote rather than having a single introductory headnote for the whole series. Five segments of Beowulf are included: "The Funeral of Scyld Scefing," "Beowulf's Voyage to Denmark," "To Grendlesmere and Back," "The Lament of the Last Survivor," and "Beowulf's Funeral."

From Alexander's Preface:

Most of the verse translations in The First Poems in English first appeared in book form in 1966, in a Penguin Classics edition entitled The Earliest English Poems. This anthology contained a selection of the shorter Old English poems, with four passages from Beowulf. These were prefaced by a general introduction, and each poem or group of poems also had an introduction, with notes at the end of the book and suggestions for further reading. The Earliest English Poems stayed in print, and subsequent editions in 1977 and 1991 included several new translations, various minor changes to the introductory sections, and an updated Further Reading. The time has now come to rewrite the book afresh. (ix)

The first segment, "The Funeral of Scyld Scefing," begins:

At the hour shaped for him Scyld departed,
the many-strengthed moved into his Master's keeping.

They carried him out to the current sea,
his sworn arms-fellows, as he himself had asked
while he wielded by his words, Warden of the Scyldings,
beloved folk-founder; long had he ruled.

A boat with a ringed neck rode in the haven,
icy, out-eager, the atheling's vessel,
and there they laid out their lord and master,
dealer of wound gold, in the waist of the ship,
in majesty by the mast.
                                   A mound of treasures
from far countries was fetched aboard her,
and it is said that no boat was ever more bravely fitted out
with the weapons of a warrior, war accoutrement,
bills and byrnies; on his breast were set
treasures and trappings to travel with him
on his far faring into the flood's sway. (75-76)

And the last segment, "Beowulf's Funeral," ends:

Then the warriors rode around the barrow,
twelve of them in all, athelings' sons.
They recited a dirge to declare their grief,
spoke of the man, mourned their king.
They praised his manhood and the prowess of his hands,
they raised his name; it is right a man
should be lavish in honouring his lord and friend,
should love him in his heart when the leading-forth
from the house of flesh befalls him at last.

This was the manner of the mourning of the men of the Geats,
sharers in the feast, at the fall of their lord:
they said that he was of all the world's kings
the gentlest of men, and the most gracious,
the kindest to his people, the keenest for fame. (83)

BAM.