The Great King is lifted up, and the Rood dare not even stoop:  the dark nails pierce the Cross, and it stands, companion of its Maker’s agony and shame.

    Oh, many were the grievous things upon that hill I bare: 
    I saw the God of Hosts Himself stretched in His anguish there: 
    The darkness veiled its Maker’s corpse with clouds; the shades did weigh
    The bright light down with evil weight, wan under sky that day. 
    Then did the whole creation weep and the King’s death bemoan;
    Christ was upon the Rood.

How great is the poet’s insight!  How deeply must he have entered into the fellowship of that supreme suffering!  He knows that throughout creation that cup is being drunk from, as even yet it is in the groaning and travailing of every creature, waiting for the adoption of the sons of God, to wit, the redemption of the body (Romans viii, 22, 3).

The Descent from the Cross and the Burial come next.  Tenderly, after the telling of the anguish, comes the telling of the rest.

    They lifted down Almighty God, after that torment dread,
    They left me standing, drenched with blood, with arrows sore wounded;
    They laid Him down, limb-weary One, and stood about His head;
    Gazed on Heaven’s Lord, who, weary now, after that mighty fight,
    Rested Him there a little while.  Then in the murderer’s sight,
    The brave ones made a tomb for Him, of white stone carved it fair,
    And laid the Lord of Victory within the sepulchre.

The bitter weeping goes up.  The fair Body waxes chill.  Then, in a very few words the story told in “Elene” is condensed.

    Then did they fell us to the ground.... 
    In the deep pit they sank us down; yet the Lord’s servants, they,
    His friends did hear of me and seek, and find me on a day,
    And decked with silver and with gold, in beautiful array.

The glory comes after the shame, and we hear of the healing power of the Cross, and the honour given to it.  Even as Almighty God honoured His Mother above all womankind, the poet says, so this tree is set high above all trees of the forest.

The command is laid upon the poet to make known his vision.  There is a compulsion whereby a poet as it were has to send abroad the fair thought and knowledge wherewith he has been graced.  To this poet is the task assigned to tell of the Crucifixion, of the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and of the Second Coming to judge the world.

    Where is the man, the Lord will ask before that multitude,
    Would for His name taste bitter death, as He upon the Rood?

By the love of His name, by the love that means martyrdom in will if not in deed also, shall men be judged.

The comfort of his life has come to the poet.  The greatest of all great things is his.

    The Rood my trust shall be.