Caedmon is the first  Anglo-Saxon 7th BC poet whom date and name is given.What little is known of Caedmon ,the Anglo-Saxon Milton as he is popularly known is taken from Bede's account of the Abbes Hilda and of her monastery at whitby.
In the monastery of the Abbes Hilda , a brother distinguished by the grace of God for that he could make poems treating of goodness and religion.Whatever was translated to him(for he could not read) of sacred scriptures he shortly reproducved in  the poetic form of  great sweetness and beauty. None of all the English poets could equal him for he did not learn the art of song from men nor sang by the art of men.Rather , he received all his poetry as a gift from God and for this reason he never composed poetry of vain or of worldly kind.
Untill he became a mature adult ,he lived as a layman and never learnt any poetry.He was so ignorant of singing that in the places where singing by every guest was a custom for pleasure ,he used to escape his turn . Once at a certain festivity of the same custom ,he went out on his turn to the stable to take care of the horses,as this duty was assigned to him for that night.As he slept at the usual time, one stood by his side asking him,"Caedmon ,sing something." Caedmon replied that he could not and that was the reason he came from the feast.But that man insisted again and Caedmon asked,"What shall I sing?" Thereupon Caedmon began singing verses that he never heard before
:"Now should we praise the power and wisdom of the creator, the works of the Father"
This was the sense of the hymn that he sang while sleeping.
When he woke up ,Caedmon recalled the words of the hymn and added to them many moreIn the morning, he went to the Steward of the monastery and showed him the gift he had received in sleep.The Steward brought him to Hilda who made him repeat to the monks the hymn he had composed and agreed unanimously that the Almighty has bestowed His grace upon him.To test him ,they expounded to him a bit of scripture from the Latin and bade him if he could turn it into poetry.He went away humbly and returned in the morning with an excellent poem .Thereupon Hilda welcomed him and his family into the monastery as one of brethern and commanded that the whole course of Bible history be expounded to him.He in turn  reflecting upon what he had heard and transformed it into the most delightful poetry and echoing it back to the monks in more melodious sounds made his teachers his listeners.In this way, he turned men of wickedness into men of Love and practice of well doing purposely.
Then follows a brief record of Caedmon's life and exquisite picture of his death amidst the brethern. According to records as served God while living in purity of mind and serenity of spirit so by a peaceful death he left the world to be with that Super Power.
The greatest work attributed to Caedmon is Paraphrase. It is the story of Genesis,Exodus  and a part of Daniel,told in glowing ,poetic language insightful and full of imagination which often raises it from mere paraphrase into the realm of true poetry.Though we have Bede's assurance that Caedmon transformed the whole course of Bible history into most delightful poetry, no works known certainly to have been composed by him has come down to us. In the seventeenth century this Anglo -Saxon Paraphrase was discovered and attributed to Caedmon and still his name is associated with this paraphrase though now it is certain that the Paraphrase is the work of more than one person.  Bedides from the doubtful question of authorship even a casual reading of the poem brings us into the presence of a poet rude indeed but with a genius strongly suggestive at times of the matchless Milton.The book opens with a hymn of praise and then tells the fall of Satan and his rebel angels from heaven which is quite familiar to us in Milton's Paradise Lost. Then follows the creation of the world and the paraphrase begins to thrill with the old Anglo-Saxon love of nature.
   Here first the eternal Father, guard of all ,
Of heaven and earth , raised up the firmament,
The Almighty Lord set firm by his Strong power
This roomy land; grass greened not yet the plain ,
Ocean far spread hid the man ways in gloom.
After recounting the story of Paradise, the Fall and the Deluge ,THe Paraphrase is continued in Exodus of which the poet makes a noble epic, rushing on with the sweep of Saxon army to battle.Asingle selection is given here to show how the poet adapted the story of his hearers :
Then they saw,
Forth and forward faring ,Pharaoh's war array
Gilding on, a grove of spears ; -glittering the hosts!
Fluttered there the banners, there the folk the march trod. Besides the Paraphrase we have a few gragments of the same general character which are attributed to the School of Caedmon. The longest of these is Judith, in which the story of an apocryphal book of the Old Testament is done into vigorous poetry.

Cynewulf

Cynewulf -the greatest of the Anglo - Saxon poet of 8th or 9 th century - a very little is known about him.Till 1840 , that is more than a thousand years after his death that even his name became known. Though he is the only one of our early poets who signed his works ,the name was never plainly written, but woven into the  verse secretly suggesting a modern charade but difficult to interpret untill one has found a key to the poet's signature.
The only signed poems of Cynewulf are;
The Christ, Juliana, The Fates of the Apostles and Elene.
Unsigned poems attributed to him or his school are;
Andrews ,The Phoenix, The Descent into Hell, Guthlac, The Wanderer and some of the riddles.
The last are simply literary conundrums in which some well known objects like the bow or drinking horn are described in poetic language and the hearer must guess the name. Some of them like 'The Swan' and 'The   Storm Spirit' are unusually beautiful.
Of all these works, the most characterstic is undoubtedly is The Christ , a didactic poem in three parts: the first celebrating the nativity; the second Ascension ; and the third Doomsday telling the torments of the wicked and the unending joy of the redeemed.Cynewulf took his subject matter from the church liturgy but largely from the homilies of Gregory the great . Everything is well  woven and contains some hymns of great beauty and many passages of intense dramatic force. Throughout the poem a deep love for Christ and a reverence for the Virgin Mary are shown. More than any other poem in any language , the Christ reflects the spirit of early Latin Christanity.