Here I am reading a fragment of the Anglo-Saxon poem “Beowulf” in the original Old English dialect. I’ll add stems. The passage describes how the fiend Grendel approached the hall of Heorot while the hero Beowulf waited to fight him. A rough translation:

then cloaked in night
came the shadow-stalker, stealthy and swift;
the hall-guards were slack, sleeping at their posts,
all except one; it was well known
that while God forbade it,
the fiend could not fetch them to his shadow-lair.
But one man was in fighting mood,
fresh and keen, keyed up for the contest …