DEDICATION
Of great limbs gone to chaos, A great face turned to night--Why bend above a shapeless shroud Seeking in such archaic cloud Sight of strong lords and light?
Where seven sunken Englands Lie buried one by one, Why should one idle spade, I wonder, Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder To smoke and choke the sun?
In cloud of clay so cast to heaven What shape shall man discern?
These lords may light the mystery Of mastery or victory, And these ride high in history, But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon The Golden Dragon died:
We shall not wake with ballad strings The good time of the smaller things, We shall not see the holy kings Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured As the broidery of Bayeux The England of that dawn remains, And this of Alfred and the Danes Seems like the tales a whole tribe feigns Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island That ruled once on a time;And as he walked by an apple tree There came green devils out of the sea With sea-plants trailing heavily And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale;
His days as our days ran, He also looked forth for an hour On peopled plains and skies that lower, From those few windows in the tower That is the head of a man.
But who shall look from Alfred's hood Or breathe his breath alive?
His century like a small dark cloud Drifts far; it is an eyeless crowd, Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud And the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light only We look from Alfred's eyes, We know he saw athwart the wreck The sign that hangs about your neck, Where One more than Melchizedek Is dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you Who brought the cross to me, Since on you flaming without flaw I saw the sign that Guthrum saw When he let break his ships of awe, And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we went Under a dragon moon, And `mid volcanic tints of night Walked where they fought the unknown fight And 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 war That like yourself, goes on."O go you onward; where you are Shall 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, when Pride and a little scratching pen Have 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 space As on a staircase go in grace, Carrying the firelight on your face Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour We strayed a space from home And saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaint With Westland king and Westland saint, And watched the western glory faint Along the road to Frome.
BOOK I
THE VISION OF THE KING
Before the gods that made the gods Had seen their sunrise pass, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was cut out of the grass.
Before the gods that made the gods Had drunk at dawn their fill, The White Horse of the White Horse Vale Was 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 England When 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-day As children of some second birth, Like a strange people left on earth After 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 sky And whoso hearkened right Could only hear the plunging Of the nations in the night.
When the ends of the earth came marching in To torch and cresset gleam.
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome Were 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 arise Around that inmost one, Where ancient eagles on its brink, Vast as archangels, gather and drink The sacrament of the sun.
And men brake out of the northern lands, Enormous lands alone, Where a spell is laid upon life and lust And the rain is changed to a silver dust And the sea to a great green stone.
And a Shape that moveth murkily In mirrors of ice and night, Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds, As death and a shock of evil words Blast 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 race Cried and replied round Rome.
And there was death on the Emperor And night upon the Pope:
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass, Hardened his heart with hope.
A sea-folk blinder than the sea Broke all about his land, But Alfred up against them bare And 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 shield And roaring on him when he reeled;And no help came at all.
He broke them with a broken sword A little towards the sea, And for one hour of panting peace, Ringed with a roar that would not cease, With golden crown and girded fleece Made laws under a tree.
The Northmen came about our land A Christless chivalry:
Who knew not of the arch or pen, Great, beautiful half-witted men From the sunrise and the sea.
Misshapen ships stood on the deep Full of strange gold and fire, And hairy men, as huge as sin With horned heads, came wading in Through the long, low sea-mire.
Our towns were shaken of tall kings With scarlet beards like blood:
