Of great limbs gone to chaos,A great face turned to night–Why bend above a shapeless shroudSeeking in such archaic cloudSight of strong lords and light?
Where seven sunken EnglandsLie buried one by one,Why should one idle spade, I wonder,Shake up the dust of thanes like thunderTo smoke and choke the sun?
In cloud of clay so cast to heavenWhat shape shall man discern?These lords may light the mysteryOf mastery or victory,And these ride high in history,But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalonThe Golden Dragon died:We shall not wake with ballad stringsThe good time of the smaller things,We shall not see the holy kingsRide down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly colouredAs the broidery of BayeuxThe England of that dawn remains,And this of Alfred and the DanesSeems like the tales a whole tribe feignsToo English to be true.
Of a good king on an islandThat ruled once on a time;And as he walked by an apple treeThere came green devils out of the seaWith sea-plants trailing heavilyAnd tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;His days as our days ran,He also looked forth for an hourOn peopled plains and skies that lower,From those few windows in the towerThat is the head of a man.
But who shall look from Alfred’s hoodOr breathe his breath alive?His century like a small dark cloudDrifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,Where the tortured trumpets scream aloudAnd the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light onlyWe look from Alfred’s eyes,We know he saw athwart the wreckThe sign that hangs about your neck,Where One more than MelchizedekIs dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to youWho brought the cross to me,Since on you flaming without flawI saw the sign that Guthrum sawWhen he let break his ships of awe,And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we wentUnder a dragon moon,And mid volcanic tints of nightWalked where they fought the unknown fightAnd saw black trees on the battle-height,Black thorn on Ethandune?And I thought, “I will go with you,As man with God has gone,And wander with a wandering star,The wandering heart of things that are,The fiery cross of love and warThat like yourself, goes on.”
O go you onward; where you areShall honour and laughter be,Past purpled forest and pearled foam,God’s winged pavilion free to roam,Your face, that is a wandering home,A flying home for me.
Ride through the silent earthquake lands,Wide as a waste is wide,Across these days like deserts, whenPride and a little scratching penHave dried and split the hearts of men,Heart of the heroes, ride.
Up through an empty house of stars,Being what heart you are,Up the inhuman steeps of spaceAs on a staircase go in grace,Carrying the firelight on your faceBeyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hourWe strayed a space from homeAnd saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaintWith Westland king and Westland saint,And watched the western glory faintAlong the road to Frome.
BOOK I
THE VISION OF THE KING
Before the gods that made the godsHad seen their sunrise pass,The White Horse of the White Horse ValeWas cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the godsHad drunk at dawn their fill,The White Horse of the White Horse ValeWas hoary on the hill.
Age beyond age on British land,Aeons on aeons gone,Was peace and war in western hills,And the White Horse looked on.
For the White Horse knew EnglandWhen there was none to know;He saw the first oar break or bend,He saw heaven fall and the world end,O God, how long ago.
For the end of the world was long ago,And all we dwell to-dayAs children of some second birth,Like a strange people left on earthAfter a judgment day.
For the end of the world was long ago,When the ends of the world waxed free,When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,And the sun drowned in the sea.
When Caesar’s sun fell out of the skyAnd whoso hearkened rightCould only hear the plungingOf the nations in the night.
When the ends of the earth came marching inTo torch and cresset gleam.And the roads of the world that lead to RomeWere filled with faces that moved like foam,Like faces in a dream.
And men rode out of the eastern lands,Broad river and burning plain;Trees that are Titan flowers to see,And tiger skies, striped horribly,With tints of tropic rain.
Where Ind’s enamelled peaks ariseAround that inmost one,Where ancient eagles on its brink,Vast as archangels, gather and drinkThe sacrament of the sun.
And men brake out of the northern lands,Enormous lands alone,Where a spell is laid upon life and lustAnd the rain is changed to a silver dustAnd the sea to a great green stone.
And a Shape that moveth murkilyIn mirrors of ice and night,Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,As death and a shock of evil wordsBlast a man’s hair with white.
And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,Or the cry of the frost and foam,Swept ever around an inmost place,And the din of distant race on raceCried and replied round Rome.
And there was death on the EmperorAnd night upon the Pope:And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,Hardened his heart with hope.
A sea-folk blinder than the seaBroke all about his land,But Alfred up against them bareAnd gripped the ground and grasped the air,Staggered, and strove to stand.
He bent them back with spear and spade,With desperate dyke and wall,With foemen leaning on his shieldAnd roaring on him when he reeled;And no help came at all.
He broke them with a broken swordA little towards the sea,And for one hour of panting peace,Ringed with a roar that would not cease,With golden crown and girded fleeceMade laws under a tree.
The Northmen came about our landA Christless chivalry:Who knew not of the arch or pen,Great, beautiful half-witted menFrom the sunrise and the sea.
Misshapen ships stood on the deepFull of strange gold and fire,And hairy men, as huge as sinWith horned heads, came wading inThrough the long, low sea-mire.
Our towns were shaken of tall kingsWith scarlet beards like blood:The world turned empty where they trod,They took the kindly cross of GodAnd cut it up for wood.
Their souls were drifting as the sea,And all good towns and landsThey only saw with heavy eyes,And broke with heavy hands,
Their gods were sadder than the sea,Gods of a wandering will,Who cried for blood like beasts at night,Sadly, from hill to hill.
They seemed as trees walking the earth,As witless and as tall,Yet they took hold upon the heavensAnd no help came at all.
They bred like birds in English woods,They rooted like the rose,When Alfred came to AthelneyTo hide him from their bows
There was not English armour left,Nor any English thing,When Alfred came to AthelneyTo be an English king.
For earthquake swallowing earthquakeUprent the Wessex tree;The whirlpool of the pagan swayHad swirled his sires as sticks awayWhen a flood smites the sea.
And the great kings of WessexWearied and sank in gore,And even their ghosts in that great stressGrew greyer and greyer, less and less,With the lords that died in LyonesseAnd the king that comes no more.
And the God of the Golden DragonWas dumb upon his throne,And the lord of the Golden DragonRan in the woods alone.
And if ever he climbed the crest of luckAnd set the flag before,Returning as a wheel returns,Came ruin and the rain that burns,And all began once more.
And naught was left King AlfredBut shameful tears of rage,In the island in the riverIn the end of all his age.
In the island in the riverHe was broken to his knee:And he read, writ with an iron pen,That God had wearied of Wessex menAnd given their country, field and fen,To the devils of the sea.
And he saw in a little picture,Tiny and far away,His mother sitting in Egbert’s hall,And a book she showed him, very small,Where a sapphire Mary sat in stallWith a golden Christ at play.
It was wrought in the monk’s slow manner,From silver and sanguine shell,Where the scenes are little and terrible,Keyholes of heaven and hell.
In the river island of Athelney,With the river running past,In colours of such simple creedAll things sprang at him, sun and weed,Till the grass grew to be grass indeedAnd the tree was a tree at last.
Fearfully plain the flowers grew,Like the child’s book to read,Or like a friend’s face seen in a glass;He looked; and there Our Lady was,She stood and stroked the tall live grassAs a man strokes his steed.
Her face was like an open wordWhen brave men speak and choose,The very colours of her coatWere better than good news.
She spoke not, nor turned not,Nor any sign she cast,Only she stood up straight and free,Between the flowers in Athelney,And the river running past.
One dim ancestral jewel hungOn his ruined armour grey,He rent and cast it at her feet:Where, after centuries, with slow feet,Men came from hall and school and streetAnd found it where it lay.
“Mother of God,” the wanderer said,“I am but a common king,Nor will I ask what saints may ask,To see a secret thing.
“The gates of heaven are fearful gatesWorse than the gates of hell;Not I would break the splendours barredOr seek to know the thing they guard,Which is too good to tell.
“But for this earth most pitiful,This little land I know,If that which is for ever is,Or if our hearts shall break with bliss,Seeing the stranger go?
“When our last bow is broken, Queen,And our last javelin cast,Under some sad, green evening sky,Holding a ruined cross on high,Under warm westland grass to lie,Shall we come home at last?”
And a voice came human but high up,Like a cottage climbed amongThe clouds; or a serf of hut and croftThat sits by his hovel fire as oft,But hears on his old bare roof aloftA belfry burst in song.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,We do not guard our gain,The heaviest hind may easilyCome silently and suddenlyUpon me in a lane.
“And any little maid that walksIn good thoughts apart,May break the guard of the Three KingsAnd see the dear and dreadful thingsI hid within my heart.
“The meanest man in grey fields goneBehind the set of sun,Heareth between star and other star,Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,The council, eldest of things that are,The talk of the Three in One.
“The gates of heaven are lightly locked,We do not guard our gold,Men may uproot where worlds begin,Or read the name of the nameless sin;But if he fail or if he winTo no good man is told.
“The men of the East may spell the stars,And times and triumphs mark,But the men signed of the cross of ChristGo gaily in the dark.
“The men of the East may search the scrollsFor sure fates and fame,But the men that drink the blood of GodGo singing to their shame.
“The wise men know what wicked thingsAre written on the sky,They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,Hearing the heavy purple wings,Where the forgotten seraph kingsStill plot how God shall die.
“The wise men know all evil thingsUnder the twisted trees,Where the perverse in pleasure pineAnd men are weary of green wineAnd sick of crimson seas.
“But you and all the kind of ChristAre ignorant and brave,And you have wars you hardly winAnd souls you hardly save.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,Yea, naught for your desire,Save that the sky grows darker yetAnd the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,And heaven an iron cope.Do you have joy without a cause,Yea, faith without a hope?”
Even as she spoke she was not,Nor any word said he,He only heard, still as he stoodUnder the old night’s nodding hood,The sea-folk breaking down the woodLike a high tide from sea.
He only heard the heathen men,Whose eyes are blue and bleak,Singing about some cruel thingDone by a great and smiling kingIn daylight on a deck.
He only heard the heathen men,Whose eyes are blue and blind,Singing what shameful things are doneBetween the sunlit sea and the sunWhen the land is left behind.
BOOK II
THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS
Up across windy wastes and upWent Alfred over the shaws,Shaken of the joy of giants,The joy without a cause.
In the slopes away to the western bays,Where blows not ever a tree,He washed his soul in the west windAnd his body in the sea.
And he set to rhyme his ale-measures,And he sang aloud his laws,Because of the joy of the giants,The joy without a cause.
The King went gathering Wessex men,As grain out of the chaffThe few that were alive to die,Laughing, as littered skulls that lieAfter lost battles turn to the skyAn everlasting laugh.
The King went gathering Christian men,As wheat out of the husk;Eldred, the Franklin by the sea,And Mark, the man from Italy,And Colan of the Sacred Tree,From the old tribe on Usk.
The rook croaked homeward heavily,The west was clear and warm,The smoke of evening food and easeRose like a blue tree in the treesWhen he came to Eldred’s farm.
But Eldred’s farm was fallen awry,Like an old cripple’s bones,And Eldred’s tools were red with rust,And on his well was a green crust,And purple thistles upward thrust,Between the kitchen stones.
But smoke of some good feastingWent upwards evermore,And Eldred’s doors stood wide apartFor loitering foot or labouring cart,And Eldred’s great and foolish heartStood open like his door.
A mighty man was Eldred,A bulk for casks to fill,His face a dreaming furnace,His body a walking hill.
In the old wars of WessexHis sword had sunken deep,But all his friends, he signed and said,Were broken about Ethelred;And between the deep drink and the deadHe had fallen upon sleep.
“Come not to me, King Alfred, Save always for the ale:Why should my harmless hinds be slainBecause the chiefs cry once again,As in all fights, that we shall gain,And in all fights we fail?
“Your scalds still thunder and prophesyThat crown that never comes;Friend, I will watch the certain things,Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,And the ripening of the plums.”
And Alfred answered, drinking,And gravely, without blame,“Nor bear I boast of scald or king,The thing I bear is a lesser thing,But comes in a better name.
“Out of the mouth of the Mother of God,More than the doors of doom,I call the muster of Wessex menFrom grassy hamlet or ditch or den,To break and be broken, God knows when,But I have seen for whom.
Out of the mouth of the Mother of GodLike a little word come I;For I go gathering Christian menFrom sunken paving and ford and fen,To die in a battle, God knows when,By God, but I know why.
“And this is the word of Mary,The word of the world’s desireNo more of comfort shall ye get,Save that the sky grows darker yetAnd the sea rises higher.’ “
Then silence sank. And slowlyArose the sea-land lord,Like some vast beast for mystery,He filled the room and porch and sky,And from a cobwebbed nail on highUnhooked his heavy sword.
Up on the shrill sea-downs and upWent Alfred all alone,Turning but once e’er the door was shut,Shouting to Eldred over his butt,That he bring all spears to the woodman’s hutHewn under Egbert’s Stone.
And he turned his back and broke the fern,And fought the moths of dusk,And went on his way for other friendsFriends fallen of all the wide world’s ends,From Rome that wrath and pardon sendsAnd the grey tribes on Usk.
He saw gigantic tracks of deathAnd many a shape of doom,Good steadings to grey ashes goneAnd a monk’s house white like a skeletonIn the green crypt of the combe.
And in many a Roman villaEarth and her ivies eat,Saw coloured pavements sink and fadeIn flowers, and the windy colonnadeLike the spectre of a street.
But the cold stars clusteredAmong the cold pinesEre he was half on his pilgrimageOver the western lines.
And the white dawn widenedEre he came to the last pine,Where Mark, the man from Italy,Still made the Christian sign.
The long farm lay on the large hill-side,Flat like a painted plan,And by the side the low white house,Where dwelt the southland man.
A bronzed man, with a bird’s bright eye,And a strong bird’s beak and brow,His skin was brown like buried gold,And of certain of his sires was toldThat they came in the shining ship of old,With Caesar in the prow.
His fruit trees stood like soldiersDrilled in a straight line,His strange, stiff olives did not fail,And all the kings of the earth drank ale,But he drank wine.
Wide over wasted British plainsStood never an arch or dome,Only the trees to toss and reel,The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;But the eyes in his head were strong like steel,And his soul remembered Rome.
Then Alfred of the lonely spearLifted his lion head;And fronted with the Italian’s eye,Asking him of his whence and why,King Alfred stood and said:
“I am that oft-defeated KingWhose failure fills the land,Who fled before the Danes of old,Who chaffered with the Danes with gold,Who now upon the Wessex woldHardly has feet to stand.
“But out of the mouth of the Mother of GodI have seen the truth like fire,This–that the sky grows darker yetAnd the sea rises higher.”
Long looked the Roman on the land;The trees as golden crownsBlazed, drenched with dawn and dew-empearledWhile faintlier coloured, freshlier curled,The clouds from underneath the worldStood up over the downs.
“These vines be ropes that drag me hard,”He said. “I go not far;Where would you meet? For you must holdHalf Wiltshire and the White Horse wold,And the Thames bank to Owsenfold,If Wessex goes to war.
“Guthrum sits strong on either bankAnd you must press his linesInwards, and eastward drive him down;I doubt if you shall take the crownTill you have taken London town.For me, I have the vines.”
“If each man on the Judgment DayMeet God on a plain alone,”Said Alfred, “I will speak for youAs for myself, and call it trueThat you brought all fighting folk you knewLined under Egbert’s Stone.
“Though I be in the dust ere then,I know where you will be.”And shouldering suddenly his spearHe faded like some elfin fear,Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tierTree overtoppling tree.
He shouldered his spear at morningAnd laughed to lay it on,But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,With might and little mood to laugh,Or ever he sighted chick or calfOf Colan of Caerleon.
For the man dwelt in a lost landOf boulders and broken men,In a great grey cave far off to the southWhere a thick green forest stopped the mouth,Giving darkness in his den.
And the man was come like a shadow,From the shadow of Druid trees,Where Usk, with mighty murmurings,Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,Goes out to ghostly seas.
Last of a race in ruin–He spoke the speech of the Gaels;His kin were in holy Ireland,Or up in the crags of Wales.
But his soul stood with his mother’s folk,That were of the rain-wrapped isle,Where Patrick and Brandan westerlyLooked out at last on a landless seaAnd the sun’s last smile.
His harp was carved and cunning,As the Celtic craftsman makes,Graven all over with twisting shapesLike many headless snakes.
His harp was carved and cunning,His sword prompt and sharp,And he was gay when he held the sword,Sad when he held the harp.
For the great Gaels of IrelandAre the men that God made mad,For all their wars are merry,And all their songs are sad.
He kept the Roman order,He made the Christian sign;But his eyes grew often blind and bright,And the sea that rose in the rocks at nightRose to his head like wine.
He made the sign of the cross of God,He knew the Roman prayer,But he had unreason in his heartBecause of the gods that were.
Even they that walked on the high cliffs,High as the clouds were then,Gods of unbearable beauty,That broke the hearts of men.
And whether in seat or saddle,Whether with frown or smile,Whether at feast or fight was he,He heard the noise of a nameless seaOn an undiscovered isle.
Lifting the great green ivyAnd the great spear lowering,One said, “I am Alfred of Wessex,And I am a conquered king.”
And the man of the cave made answer,And his eyes were stars of scorn,“And better kings were conqueredOr ever your sires were born.
“What goddess was your mother,What fay your breed begot,That you should not die with UtherAnd Arthur and Lancelot?
“But when you win you brag and blow,And when you lose you rail,Army of eastland yokelsNot strong enough to fail.”
“I bring not boast or railing,”Spake Alfred not in ire,“I bring of Our Lady a lesson set,This–that the sky grows darker yetAnd the sea rises higher.”
Then Colan of the Sacred TreeTossed his black mane on high,And cried, as rigidly he rose,“And if the sea and sky be foes,We will tame the sea and sky.”
Smiled Alfred, “Seek ye a fableMore dizzy and more dreadThan all your mad barbarian talesWhere the sky stands on its head ?
“A tale where a man looks down on the skyThat has long looked down on him;A tale where a man can swallow a seaThat might swallow the seraphim.
“Bring to the hut by Egbert’s StoneAll bills and bows ye have.”And Alfred strode off rapidly,And Colan of the Sacred TreeWent slowly to his cave.
BOOK III
THE HARP OF ALFRED
In a tree that yawned and twisted
The King’s few goods were flung,
A mass-book mildewed, line by line,And weapons and a skin of wine,And an old harp unstrung.
By the yawning tree in the twilightThe King unbound his sword,Severed the harp of all his goods,And there in the cool and soundless woodsSounded a single chord.
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,The sullen flies in swarm,And went unarmed over the hills,With the harp upon his arm,
Until he came to the White Horse Vale
And saw across the plains,In the twilight high and far and fell,Like the fiery terraces of hell,The camp fires of the Danes–
The fires of the Great ArmyThat was made of iron men,Whose lights of sacrilege and scornRan around England red as morn,Fires over Glastonbury Thorn–Fires out on Ely Fen.
And as he went by White Horse ValeHe saw lie wan and wideThe old horse graven, God knows when,By gods or beasts or what things thenWalked a new world instead of menAnd scrawled on the hill-side.
And when he came to White Horse DownThe great White Horse was grey,For it was ill scoured of the weed,And lichen and thorn could crawl and feed,Since the foes of settled house and creedHad swept old works away.
King Alfred gazed all sorrowfulAt thistle and mosses grey,Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,Till a rally of Danes with shield and billRolled drunk over the dome of the hill,And, hearing of his harp and skill,They dragged him to their play.
And as they went through the high green grassThey roared like the great green sea;But when they came to the red camp fireThey were silent suddenly.
And as they went up the wastes awayThey went reeling to and fro;But when they came to the red camp fireThey stood all in a row.
For golden in the firelight,With a smile carved on his lips,And a beard curled right cunningly,Was Guthrum of the Northern Sea,The emperor of the ships–
With three great earls King GuthrumWent the rounds from fire to fire,With Harold, nephew of the King,And Ogier of the Stone and Sling,And Elf, whose gold lute had a stringThat sighed like all desire.
The Earls of the Great ArmyThat no men born could tire,Whose flames anear him or aloofTook hold of towers or walls of proof,Fire over Glastonbury roofAnd out on Ely, fire.
And Guthrum heard the soldiers’ taleAnd bade the stranger play;Not harshly, but as one on high,On a marble pillar in the sky,Who sees all folk that live and die–Pigmy and far away.
And Alfred, King of Wessex,Looked on his conqueror–And his hands hardened; but he played,And leaving all later hates unsaid,He sang of some old British raidOn the wild west march of yore.
He sang of war in the warm wet shires,Where rain nor fruitage fails,Where England of the motley statesDeepens like a garden to the gatesIn the purple walls of Wales.
He sang of the seas of savage headsAnd the seas and seas of spears,Boiling all over Offa’s Dyke,What time a Wessex club could strikeThe kings of the mountaineers.
Till Harold laughed and snatched the harp,The kinsman of the King,A big youth, beardless like a child,Whom the new wine of war sent wild,Smote, and began to sing–
And he cried of the ships as eaglesThat circle fiercely and fly,And sweep the seas and strike the townsFrom Cyprus round to Skye.
How swiftly and with perilThey gather all good things,The high horns of the forest beasts,Or the secret stones of kings.
“For Rome was given to rule the world,And gat of it little joy–But we, but we shall enjoy the world,The whole huge world a toy.
“Great wine like blood from Burgundy,Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre,And marble like solid moonlight,And gold like frozen fire.
“Smells that a man might swill in a cup,Stones that a man might eat,And the great smooth women like ivoryThat the Turks sell in the street.”
He sang the song of the thief of the world,And the gods that love the thief;And he yelled aloud at the cloister-yards,Where men go gathering grief.
“Well have you sung, O stranger,Of death on the dyke in Wales,Your chief was a bracelet-giver;But the red unbroken riverOf a race runs not for ever,But suddenly it fails.
“Doubtless your sires were sword-swingersWhen they waded fresh from foam,Before they were turned to womenBy the god of the nails from Rome;
“But since you bent to the shaven men,Who neither lust nor smite,Thunder of Thor, we hunt youA hare on the mountain height.”
King Guthrum smiled a little,And said, “It is enough,Nephew, let Elf retune the string;A boy must needs like bellowing,But the old ears of a careful kingAre glad of songs less rough.”
Blue-eyed was Elf the minstrel,With womanish hair and ring,Yet heavy was his hand on sword,Though light upon the string.
And as he stirred the strings of the harpTo notes but four or five,The heart of each man moved in himLike a babe buried alive.
And they felt the land of the folk-songsSpread southward of the Dane,And they heard the good Rhine flowingIn the heart of all Allemagne.
They felt the land of the folk-songs,Where the gifts hang on the tree,Where the girls give ale at morningAnd the tears come easily.
The mighty people, womanlike,That have pleasure in their painAs he sang of Balder beautiful,Whom the heavens loved in vain.
As he sang of Balder beautiful,Whom the heavens could not save,Till the world was like a sea of tearsAnd every soul a wave.
“There is always a thing forgottenWhen all the world goes well;A thing forgotten, as long ago,When the gods forgot the mistletoe,And soundless as an arrow of snowThe arrow of anguish fell.
“The thing on the blind side of the heart,On the wrong side of the door,The green plant groweth, menacingAlmighty lovers in the spring;There is always a forgotten thing,And love is not secure.”
And all that sat by the fire were sad,Save Ogier, who was stern,And his eyes hardened, even to stones,As he took the harp in turn;
Earl Ogier of the Stone and SlingWas odd to ear and sight,Old he was, but his locks were red,And jests were all the words he saidYet he was sad at board and bedAnd savage in the fight.
“You sing of the young gods easilyIn the days when you are young;But I go smelling yew and sods,And I know there are gods behind the gods,Gods that are best unsung.
“And a man grows ugly for women,And a man grows dull with ale,Well if he find in his soul at lastFury, that does not fail.
“The wrath of the gods behind the godsWho would rend all gods and men,Well if the old man’s heart hath stillWheels sped of rage and roaring will,Like cataracts to break down and kill,Well for the old man then–
“While there is one tall shrine to shake,Or one live man to rend;For the wrath of the gods behind the godsWho are weary to make an end.
“There lives one moment for a manWhen the door at his shoulder shakes,When the taut rope parts under the pull,And the barest branch is beautifulOne moment, while it breaks.
“So rides my soul upon the seaThat drinks the howling ships,Though in black jest it bows and nodsUnder the moons with silver rods,I know it is roaring at the gods,Waiting the last eclipse.
“And in the last eclipse the seaShall stand up like a tower,Above all moons made dark and riven,Hold up its foaming head in heaven,And laugh, knowing its hour.
“And the high ones in the happy townPropped of the planets seven,Shall know a new light in the mind,A noise about them and behind,Shall hear an awful voice, and findFoam in the courts of heaven.
“And you that sit by the fire are young,And true love waits for you;But the king and I grow old, grow old,And hate alone is true.”
And Guthrum shook his head but smiled,For he was a mighty clerk,And had read lines in the Latin booksWhen all the north was dark.
He said, “I am older than you, Ogier;Not all things would I rend,For whether life be bad or goodIt is best to abide the end.”
He took the great harp wearily,Even Guthrum of the Danes,With wide eyes bright as the one long dayOn the long polar plains.
For he sang of a wheel returning,And the mire trod back to mire,And how red hells and golden heavensAre castles in the fire.
“It is good to sit where the good tales go,To sit as our fathers sat;But the hour shall come after his youth,When a man shall know not tales but truth,And his heart fail thereat.
“When he shall read what is writtenSo plain in clouds and clods,When he shall hunger without hopeEven for evil gods.
“For this is a heavy matter,And the truth is cold to tell;Do we not know, have we not heard,The soul is like a lost bird,The body a broken shell.
“And a man hopes, being ignorant,Till in white woods apartHe finds at last the lost bird dead:And a man may still lift up his headBut never more his heart.
“There comes no noise but weepingOut of the ancient sky,And a tear is in the tiniest flowerBecause the gods must die.
“The little brooks are very sweet,Like a girl’s ribbons curled,But the great sea is bitterThat washes all the world.
“Strong are the Roman roses,Or the free flowers of the heath,But every flower, like a flower of the sea,Smelleth with the salt of death.
“And the heart of the locked battleIs the happiest place for men;When shrieking souls as shafts go byAnd many have died and all may die;Though this word be a mystery,Death is most distant then.
“Death blazes bright above the cup,And clear above the crown;But in that dream of battleWe seem to tread it down.
“Wherefore I am a great king,And waste the world in vain,Because man hath not other power,Save that in dealing death for dower,He may forget it for an hourTo remember it again.”
And slowly his hands and thoughtfullyFell from the lifted lyre,And the owls moaned from the mighty treesTill Alfred caught it to his kneesAnd smote it as in ire.
He heaved the head of the harp on highAnd swept the framework barred,And his stroke had all the rattle and sparkOf horses flying hard.
“When God put man in a gardenHe girt him with a sword,And sent him forth a free knightThat might betray his lord;
“He brake Him and betrayed Him,And fast and far he fell,Till you and I may stretch our necksAnd burn our beards in hell.
“But though I lie on the floor of the world,With the seven sins for rods,I would rather fall with AdamThan rise with all your gods.
“What have the strong gods given?Where have the glad gods led?When Guthrum sits on a hero’s throneAnd asks if he is dead?
“Sirs, I am but a nameless man,A rhymester without home,Yet since I come of the Wessex clayAnd carry the cross of Rome,
“I will even answer the mighty earlThat asked of Wessex menWhy they be meek and monkish folk,And bow to the White Lord’s broken yoke;What sign have we save blood and smoke?Here is my answer then.
“That on you is fallen the shadow,And not upon the Name;That though we scatter and though we fly,And you hang over us like the sky,You are more tired of victory,Than we are tired of shame.
“That though you hunt the Christian manLike a hare on the hill-side,The hare has still more heart to runThan you have heart to ride.
“That though all lances split on you,All swords be heaved in vain,We have more lust again to loseThan you to win again.
“Your lord sits high in the saddle,A broken-hearted king,But our king Alfred, lost from fame,Fallen among foes or bonds of shame,In I know not what mean trade or name,Has still some song to sing;
“Our monks go robed in rain and snow,But the heart of flame therein,But you go clothed in feasts and flames,When all is ice within;
“Nor shall all iron dooms make dumbMen wondering ceaselessly,If it be not better to fast for joyThan feast for misery.
“Nor monkish order onlySlides down, as field to fen,All things achieved and chosen pass,As the White Horse fades in the grass,No work of Christian men.
“Ere the sad gods that made your godsSaw their sad sunrise pass,The White Horse of the White Horse Vale,That you have left to darken and fail,Was cut out of the grass.
“Therefore your end is on you,Is on you and your kings,Not for a fire in Ely fen,Not that your gods are nine or ten,But because it is only Christian menGuard even heathen things.
“For our God hath blessed creation,Calling it good. I knowWhat spirit with whom you blindly bandHath blessed destruction with his hand;Yet by God’s death the stars shall standAnd the small apples grow.”
And the King, with harp on shoulder,Stood up and ceased his song;And the owls moaned from the mighty trees,And the Danes laughed loud and long.
BOOK IV
THE WOMAN IN THE FOREST
Thick thunder of the snorting swine,Enormous in the gloam,Rending among all roots that cling,And the wild horses whinnying,Were the night’s noises when the KingShouldering his harp, went home.
With eyes of owl and feet of fox,Full of all thoughts he went;He marked the tilt of the pagan camp,The paling of pine, the sentries’ tramp,And the one great stolen altar-lampOver Guthrum in his tent.
By scrub and thorn in EthanduneThat night the foe had lain;Whence ran across the heather greyThe old stones of a Roman way;And in a wood not far awayThe pale road split in twain.
He marked the wood and the cloven waysWith an old captain’s eyes,And he thought how many a time had heSought to see Doom he could not see;How ruin had come and victory,And both were a surprise.
Even so he had watched and wonderedUnder Ashdown from the plains;With Ethelred praying in his tent,Till the white hawthorn swung and bent,As Alfred rushed his spears and rentThe shield-wall of the Danes.
Even so he had watched and wondered,Knowing neither less nor more,Till all his lords lay dying,And axes on axes plying,Flung him, and drove him flyingLike a pirate to the shore.
Wise he had been before defeat,And wise before success;Wise in both hours and ignorant,Knowing neither more nor less.
As he went down to the river-hutHe knew a night-shade scent,Owls did as evil cherubs rise,With little wings and lantern eyes,As though he sank through the under-skies;But down and down he went.
As he went down to the river-hutHe went as one that fell;Seeing the high forest domes and spars.Dim green or torn with golden scars,As the proud look up at the evil stars,In the red heavens of hell.
For he must meet by the river-hutThem he had bidden to arm,Mark from the towers of Italy,And Colan of the Sacred Tree,And Eldred who beside the seaHeld heavily his farm.
The roof leaned gaping to the grass,As a monstrous mushroom lies;Echoing and empty seemed the place;But opened in a little spaceA great grey woman with scarred faceAnd strong and humbled eyes.
King Alfred was but a meagre man,Bright eyed, but lean and pale:And swordless, with his harp and rags,He seemed a beggar, such as lagsLooking for crusts and ale.
And the woman, with a woman’s eyesOf pity at once and ire,Said, when that she had glared a span,“There is a cake for any manIf he will watch the fire.”
And Alfred, bowing heavily,Sat down the fire to stir,And even as the woman pitied himSo did he pity her.
Saying, “O great heart in the night,O best cast forth for worst,Twilight shall melt and morning stir,And no kind thing shall come to her,Till God shall turn the world overAnd all the last are first.
“And well may God with the serving-folkCast in His dreadful lot;Is not He too a servant,And is not He forgot ?
“For was not God my gardenerAnd silent like a slave;That opened oaks on the uplandsOr thicket in graveyard gave?
“And was not God my armourer,All patient and unpaid,That sealed my skull as a helmet,And ribs for hauberk made?
“Did not a great grey servantOf all my sires and me,Build this pavilion of the pines,And herd the fowls and fill the vines,And labour and pass and leave no signsSave mercy and mystery?
“For God is a great servant,And rose before the day,From some primordial slumber torn;But all we living later bornSleep on, and rise after the morn,And the Lord has gone away.
“On things half sprung from sleeping,All sleepy suns have shone,They stretch stiff arms, the yawning trees,The beasts blink upon hands and knees,Man is awake and does and sees–But Heaven has done and gone.
For who shall guess the good riddleOr speak of the Holiest,Save in faint figures and failing words,Who loves, yet laughs among the swords,Labours, and is at rest?
“But some see God like Guthrum,Crowned, with a great beard curled,But I see God like a good giant,That, labouring, lifts the world.
“Wherefore was God in Golgotha,Slain as a serf is slain;And hate He had of prince and peer,And love He had and made good cheer,Of them that, like this woman here,Go powerfully in pain.
“But in this grey morn of man’s life,Cometh sometime to the mindA little light that leaps and flies,Like a star blown on the wind.
“A star of nowhere, a nameless star,A light that spins and swirls,And cries that even in hedge and hill,Even on earth, it may go illAt last with the evil earls.
“A dancing sparkle, a doubtful star,On the waste wind whirled and driven;But it seems to sing of a wilder worth,A time discrowned of doom and birth,And the kingdom of the poor on earthCome, as it is in heaven.
“But even though such days endure,How shall it profit her?Who shall go groaning to the grave,With many a meek and mighty slave,Field-breaker and fisher on the wave,And woodman and waggoner.
“Bake ye the big world all againA cake with kinder leaven;Yet these are sorry evermore–Unless there be a little door,A little door in heaven.”
And as he wept for the womanHe let her business be,And like his royal oath and rashThe good food fell upon the ashAnd blackened instantly.
Screaming, the woman caught a cakeYet burning from the bar,And struck him suddenly on the face,Leaving a scarlet scar.
King Alfred stood up wordless,A man dead with surprise,And torture stood and the evil thingsThat are in the childish hearts of kingsAn instant in his eyes.
And even as he stood and staredDrew round him in the duskThose friends creeping from far-off farms,Marcus with all his slaves in arms,And the strange spears hung with ancient charmsOf Colan of the Usk.
With one whole farm marching afootThe trampled road resounds,Farm-hands and farm-beasts blundering byAnd jars of mead and stores of rye,Where Eldred strode above his highAnd thunder-throated hounds.
And grey cattle and silver lowedAgainst the unlifted morn,And straw clung to the spear-shafts tall.And a boy went before them allBlowing a ram’s horn.
As mocking such rude revelry,The dim clan of the GaelCame like a bad king’s burial-end,With dismal robes that drop and rendAnd demon pipes that wail–
In long, outlandish garments,Torn, though of antique worth,With Druid beards and Druid spears,As a resurrected race appearsOut of an elder earth.
And though the King had called them forthAnd knew them for his own,So still each eye stood like a gem,So spectral hung each broidered hem,Grey carven men he fancied them,Hewn in an age of stone.
And the two wild peoples of the northStood fronting in the gloam,And heard and knew each in its mindThe third great thunder on the wind,The living walls that hedge mankind,The walking walls of Rome.
Mark’s were the mixed tribes of the west,Of many a hue and strain,Gurth, with rank hair like yellow grass,And the Cornish fisher, Gorlias,And Halmer, come from his first mass,Lately baptized, a Dane.
But like one man in armourThose hundreds trod the field,From red Arabia to the TyneThe earth had heard that marching-line,Since the cry on the hill Capitoline,And the fall of the golden shield.
And the earth shook and the King stood stillUnder the greenwood bough,And the smoking cake lay at his feetAnd the blow was on his brow.
Then Alfred laughed out suddenly,Like thunder in the spring,Till shook aloud the lintel-beams,And the squirrels stirred in dusty dreams,And the startled birds went up in streams,For the laughter of the King.
And the beasts of the earth and the birds looked down,In a wild solemnity,On a stranger sight than a sylph or elf,On one man laughing at himselfUnder the greenwood tree–
The giant laughter of Christian menThat roars through a thousand tales,Where greed is an ape and pride is an ass,And Jack’s away with his master’s lass,And the miser is banged with all his brass,The farmer with all his flails;
Tales that tumble and tales that trick,Yet end not all in scorning–Of kings and clowns in a merry plight,And the clock gone wrong and the world gone right,That the mummers sing upon Christmas nightAnd Christmas Day in the morning.
“Now here is a good warrant,”Cried Alfred, “by my sword;For he that is struck for an ill servantShould be a kind lord.
“He that has been a servantKnows more than priests and kings,But he that has been an ill servant,He knows all earthly things.
“Pride flings frail palaces at the sky,As a man flings up sand,But the firm feet of humilityTake hold of heavy land.
“Pride juggles with her toppling towers,They strike the sun and cease,But the firm feet of humilityThey grip the ground like trees.
“He that hath failed in a little thingHath a sign upon the brow;And the Earls of the Great ArmyHave no such seal to show.
“The red print on my forehead,Small flame for a red star,In the van of the violent marching, thenWhen the sky is torn of the trumpets ten,And the hands of the happy howling menFling wide the gates of war.
“This blow that I return notTen times will I returnOn kings and earls of all degree,And armies wide as empires beShall slide like landslips to the seaIf the red star burn.
“One man shall drive a hundred,As the dead kings drave;Before me rocking hosts be riven,And battering cohorts backwards driven,For I am the first king known of HeavenThat has been struck like a slave.
“Up on the old white road, brothers,Up on the Roman walls!For this is the night of the drawing of swords,And the tainted tower of the heathen hordesLeans to our hammers, fires and cords,Leans a little and falls.
“Follow the star that lives and leaps,Follow the sword that sings,For we go gathering heathen men,A terrible harvest, ten by ten,As the wrath of the last red autumn–thenWhen Christ reaps down the kings.
“Follow a light that leaps and spins,Follow the fire unfurled!For riseth up against realm and rod,A thing forgotten, a thing downtrod,The last lost giant, even God,Is risen against the world.”
Roaring they went o’er the Roman wall,And roaring up the lane,Their torches tossed a ladder of fire,Higher their hymn was heard and higher,More sweet for hate and for heart’s desire,And up in the northern scrub and brier,They fell upon the Dane.
BOOK V
ETHANDUNE: THE FIRST STROKE
King Guthrum was a dread king,Like death out of the north;Shrines without name or numberHe rent and rolled as lumber,From Chester to the HumberHe drove his foemen forth.
The Roman villas heard himIn the valley of the Thames,Come over the hills roaringAbove their roofs, and pouringOn spire and stair and flooringBrimstone and pitch and flames.
Sheer o’er the great chalk uplandsAnd the hill of the Horse went he,Till high on Hampshire beaconsHe saw the southern sea.
High on the heights of WessexHe saw the southern brine,And turned him to a conquered land,And where the northern thornwoods stand,And the road parts on either hand,There came to him a sign.
King Guthrum was a war-chief,A wise man in the field,And though he prospered well, and knewHow Alfred’s folk were sad and few,Not less with weighty care he drewLong lines for pike and shield.
King Guthrum lay on the upper land,On a single road at gaze,And his foe must come with lean array,Up the left arm of the cloven way,To the meeting of the ways.
And long ere the noise of armour,An hour ere the break of light,The woods awoke with crash and cry,And the birds sprang clamouring harsh and high,And the rabbits ran like an elves’ armyEre Alfred came in sight.
The live wood came at Guthrum,On foot and claw and wing,The nests were noisy overhead,For Alfred and the star of red,All life went forth, and the forest fledBefore the face of the King.
But halted in the woodwaysChrist’s few were grim and grey,And each with a small, far, bird-like sightSaw the high folly of the fight;And though strange joys had grown in the night,Despair grew with the day.
And when white dawn crawled through the wood,Like cold foam of a flood,Then weakened every warrior’s mood,In hope, though not in hardihood;And each man sorrowed as he stoodIn the fashion of his blood.
For the Saxon Franklin sorrowedFor the things that had been fair;For the dear dead woman, crimson-clad,And the great feasts and the friends he had;But the Celtic prince’s soul was sadFor the things that never were.
In the eyes Italian all thingsBut a black laughter died;And Alfred flung his shield to earthAnd smote his breast and cried–
“I wronged a man to his slaying,And a woman to her shame,And once I looked on a sworn maidThat was wed to the Holy Name.
“And once I took my neighbour’s wife,That was bound to an eastland man,In the starkness of my evil youth,Before my griefs began.
“People, if you have any prayers,Say prayers for me:And lay me under a Christian stoneIn that lost land I thought my own,To wait till the holy horn is blown,And all poor men are free.”
Then Eldred of the idle farmLeaned on his ancient sword,As fell his heavy words and few;And his eyes were of such alien blueAs gleams where the Northman saileth newInto an unknown fiord.
“I was a fool and wasted ale–My slaves found it sweet;I was a fool and wasted bread,And the birds had bread to eat.
“The kings go up and the kings go down,And who knows who shall rule;Next night a king may starve or sleep,But men and birds and beasts shall weepAt the burial of a fool.
“O, drunkards in my cellar,Boys in my apple tree,The world grows stern and strange and new,And wise men shall govern you,And you shall weep for me.
“But yoke me my own oxen,Down to my own farm;My own dog will whine for me,My own friends will bend the knee,And the foes I slew openlyHave never wished me harm.”
And all were moved a little,But Colan stood apart,Having first pity, and afterHearing, like rat in rafter,That little worm of laughterThat eats the Irish heart.
And his grey-green eyes were cruel,And the smile of his mouth waxed hard,And he said, “And when did BritainBecome your burying-yard?
“Before the Romans lit the land,When schools and monks were none,We reared such stones to the sun-godAs might put out the sun.
“The tall trees of BritainWe worshipped and were wise,But you shall raid the whole land throughAnd never a tree shall talk to you,Though every leaf is a tongue taught trueAnd the forest is full of eyes.
“On one round hill to the seawardThe trees grow tall and greyAnd the trees talk togetherWhen all men are away.
“O’er a few round hills forgottenThe trees grow tall in rings,And the trees talk togetherOf many pagan things.
“Yet I could lie and listenWith a cross upon my clay,And hear unhurt for everWhat the trees of Britain say.”
A proud man was the Roman,His speech a single one,But his eyes were like an eagle’s eyesThat is staring at the sun.
“Dig for me where I die,” he said,“If first or last I fall–Dead on the fell at the first charge,Or dead by Wantage wall;
“Lift not my head from bloody ground,Bear not my body home,For all the earth is Roman earthAnd I shall die in Rome.”
Then Alfred, King of England,Bade blow the horns of war,And fling the Golden Dragon out,With crackle and acclaim and shout,Scrolled and aflame and far.
And under the Golden DragonWent Wessex all along,Past the sharp point of the cloven ways,Out from the black wood into the blazeOf sun and steel and song.
And when they came to the open landThey wheeled, deployed and stood;Midmost were Marcus and the King,And Eldred on the right-hand wing,And leftwards Colan darkling,In the last shade of the wood.
But the Earls of the Great ArmyLay like a long half moon,Ten poles before their palisades,With wide-winged helms and runic bladesRed giants of an age of raids,In the thornland of Ethandune.
Midmost the saddles rose and swayed,And a stir of horses’ manes,Where Guthrum and a few rode highOn horses seized in victory;But Ogier went on foot to die,In the old way of the Danes.
Far to the King’s left Elf the bardLed on the eastern wingWith songs and spells that change the blood;And on the King’s right Harold stood,The kinsman of the King.
Young Harold, coarse, with colours gay,Smoking with oil and musk,And the pleasant violence of the young,Pushed through his people, giving tongueFoewards, where, grey as cobwebs hung,The banners of the Usk.
But as he came before his lineA little space along,His beardless face broke into mirth,And he cried: “What broken bits of earthAre here? For what their clothes are worthI would sell them for a song.”
For Colan was hung with raimentTattered like autumn leaves,And his men were all as thin as saints,And all as poor as thieves.
No bows nor slings nor bolts they bore,But bills and pikes ill-made;And none but Colan bore a sword,And rusty was its blade.
And Colan’s eyes with mysteryAnd iron laughter stirred,And he spoke aloud, but lightlyNot labouring to be heard.
“Oh, truly we be broken hearts,For that cause, it is said,We light our candles to that LordThat broke Himself for bread.
“But though we hold but bitterlyWhat land the Saxon leaves,Though Ireland be but a land of saints,And Wales a land of thieves,
“I say you yet shall wearyOf the working of your word,That stricken spirits never strikeNor lean hands hold a sword.
“And if ever ye ride in Ireland,The jest may yet be said,There is the land of broken hearts,And the land of broken heads.”
Not less barbarian laughterChoked Harold like a flood,“And shall I fight with scarecrowsThat am of Guthrum’s blood?
“Meeting may be of war-men,Where the best war-man wins;But all this carrion a man shootsBefore the fight begins.”
And stopping in his onward strides,He snatched a bow in scornFrom some mean slave, and bent it onColan, whose doom grew dark; and shoneStars evil over Caerleon,In the place where he was born.
For Colan had not bow nor sling,On a lonely sword leaned he,Like Arthur on ExcaliburIn the battle by the sea.
To his great gold ear-ring HaroldTugged back the feathered tail,And swift had sprung the arrow,But swifter sprang the Gael.
Whirling the one sword round his head,A great wheel in the sun,He sent it splendid through the sky,Flying before the shaft could fly–It smote Earl Harold over the eye,And blood began to run.
Colan stood bare and weaponless,Earl Harold, as in pain,Strove for a smile, put hand to head,Stumbled and suddenly fell dead;And the small white daisies all waxed redWith blood out of his brain.
And all at that marvel of the sword,Cast like a stone to slay,Cried out. Said Alfred: “Who would seeSigns, must give all things. VerilyMan shall not taste of victoryTill he throws his sword away.”
Then Alfred, prince of England,And all the Christian earls,Unhooked their swords and held them up,Each offered to Colan, like a cupOf chrysolite and pearls.
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