The poem consists of 124 lines, followed by the single word "Amen". It is recorded only at folios 81 verso - 83 recto of the tenth-century Exeter Book, one of the four surviving manuscripts of Old English poetry. It has most often, though not always, been categorised as an elegy, a poetic genre commonly assigned to a particular group of Old English poems that reflect on spiritual and earthly melancholy.

    Kennedy. Oxford University Press, 1960. Fourth Printing version, 1965.