The Ballad of the White Horse Part 10

And a strange music went with him, Loud and yet strangely far; The wild pipes of the western land, Too keen for the ear to understand, Sang high and deathly on each hand When the dead man went to war.

Blocked between ghost and buccaneer, Brave men have dropped and died; And the wild sea-lords well might quail As the ghastly war-pipes of the Gael Called to the horns of White Horse Vale, And all the horns replied.

And Hildred the poor hedger Cut down four captains dead, And Halmar laid three others low, And the great earls wavered to and fro For the living and the dead.

And Gorlias grasped the great flag, The Raven of Odin, torn; And the eyes of Guthrum altered, For the first time since morn.

As a turn of the wheel of tempest Tilts up the whole sky tall, And cliffs of wan cloud luminous Lean out like great walls over us, As if the heavens might fall.

As such a tall and tilted sky Sends certain snow or light, So did the eyes of Guthrum change, And the turn was more certain and more strange Than a thousand men in flight.

For not till the floor of the skies is split, And h.e.l.l-fire shines through the sea, Or the stars look up through the rent earth's knees, Cometh such rending of certainties, As when one wise man truly sees What is more wise than he.

He set his horse in the battle-breech Even Guthrum of the Dane, And as ever had fallen fell his brand, A falling tower o'er many a land, But Gurth the fowler laid one hand Upon this bridle rein.

King Guthrum was a great lord, And higher than his G.o.ds-- He put the popes to laughter, He chid the saints with rods,

He took this hollow world of ours For a cup to hold his wine; In the parting of the woodways There came to him a sign.

In Wess.e.x in the forest, In the breaking of the spears, We set a sign on Guthrum To blaze a thousand years.

Where the high saddles jostle And the horse-tails toss, There rose to the birds flying A roar of dead and dying; In deafness and strong crying We signed him with the cross.

Far out to the winding river The blood ran down for days, When we put the cross on Guthrum In the parting of the ways.

BOOK VIII. THE SCOURING OF THE HORSE

In the years of the peace of Wess.e.x, When the good King sat at home; Years following on that b.l.o.o.d.y boon When she that stands above the moon Stood above death at Ethandune And saw his kingdom come--

When the pagan people of the sea Fled to their palisades, Nailed there with javelins to cling And wonder smote the pirate king, And brought him to his christening And the end of all his raids.

(For not till the night's blue slate is wiped Of its last star utterly, And fierce new signs writ there to read, Shall eyes with such amazement heed, As when a great man knows indeed A greater thing than he.)

And there came to his chrism-loosing Lords of all lands afar, And a line was drawn north-westerly That set King Egbert's empire free, Giving all lands by the northern sea To the sons of the northern star.

In the days of the rest of Alfred, When all these things were done, And Wess.e.x lay in a patch of peace, Like a dog in a patch of sun--

The King sat in his orchard, Among apples green and red, With the little book in his bosom And the sunshine on his head.

And he gathered the songs of simple men That swing with helm and hod, And the alms he gave as a Christian Like a river alive with fishes ran; And he made gifts to a beggar man As to a wandering G.o.d.

And he gat good laws of the ancient kings, Like treasure out of the tombs; And many a thief in th.o.r.n.y nook, Or n.o.ble in sea-stained turret shook, For the opening of his iron book, And the gathering of the dooms.

Then men would come from the ends of the earth, Whom the King sat welcoming, And men would go to the ends of the earth Because of the word of the King.

For folk came in to Alfred's face Whose javelins had been hurled On monsters that make boil the sea, Crakens and coils of mystery.

Or thrust in ancient snows that be The white hair of the world.

And some had knocked at the northern gates Of the ultimate icy floor, Where the fish freeze and the foam turns black, And the wide world narrows to a track, And the other sea at the world's back Cries through a closed door.

And men went forth from Alfred's face, Even great gift-bearing lords, Not to Rome only, but more bold, Out to the high hot courts of old, Of negroes clad in cloth of gold, Silence, and crooked swords,

Scrawled screens and secret gardens And insect-laden skies-- Where fiery plains stretch on and on To the purple country of Prester John And the walls of Paradise.

And he knew the might of the Terre Majeure, Where kings began to reign; Where in a night-rout, without name, Of gloomy Goths and Gauls there came White, above candles all aflame, Like a vision, Charlemagne.

And men, seeing such emba.s.sies, Spake with the King and said: "The steel that sang so sweet a tune On Ashdown and on Ethandune, Why hangs it scabbarded so soon, All heavily like lead?

"Why dwell the Danes in North England, And up to the river ride?

Three more such marches like thine own Would end them; and the Pict should own Our sway; and our feet climb the throne In the mountains of Strathclyde."

And Alfred in the orchard, Among apples green and red, With the little book in his bosom, Looked at green leaves and said:

"When all philosophies shall fail, This word alone shall fit; That a sage feels too small for life, And a fool too large for it.

"Asia and all imperial plains Are too little for a fool; But for one man whose eyes can see The little island of Athelney Is too large a land to rule.

"Haply it had been better When I built my fortress there, Out in the reedy waters wide, I had stood on my mud wall and cried: 'Take England all, from tide to tide-- Be Athelney my share.'

"Those madmen of the throne-scramble-- Oppressors and oppressed-- Had lined the banks by Athelney, And waved and wailed unceasingly, Where the river turned to the broad sea, By an island of the blest.

"An island like a little book Full of a hundred tales, Like the gilt page the good monks pen, That is all smaller than a wren, Yet hath high towns, meteors, and men, And suns and spouting whales;

"A land having a light on it In the river dark and fast, An isle with utter clearness lit, Because a saint had stood in it; Where flowers are flowers indeed and fit, And trees are trees at last.

"So were the island of a saint; But I am a common king, And I will make my fences tough From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff, Because I am not wise enough To rule so small a thing."

And it fell in the days of Alfred, In the days of his repose, That as old customs in his sight Were a straight road and a steady light, He bade them keep the White Horse white As the first plume of the snows.

And right to the red torchlight, From the trouble of morning grey, They stripped the White Horse of the gra.s.s As they strip it to this day.

And under the red torchlight He went dreaming as though dull, Of his old companions slain like kings, And the rich irrevocable things Of a heart that hath not openings, But is shut fast, being full.

And the torchlight touched the pale hair Where silver clouded gold, And the frame of his face was made of cords, And a young lord turned among the lords And said: "The King is old."

And even as he said it A post ran in amain, Crying: "Arm, Lord King, the hamlets arm, In the horror and the shade of harm, They have burnt Brand of Aynger's farm-- The Danes are come again!

"Danes drive the white East Angles In six fights on the plains, Danes waste the world about the Thames, Danes to the eastward--Danes!"

And as he stumbled on one knee, The thanes broke out in ire, Crying: "Ill the watchmen watch, and ill The sheriffs keep the shire."

But the young earl said: "Ill the saints, The saints of England, guard The land wherein we pledge them gold; The d.y.k.es decay, the King grows old, And surely this is hard,

"That we be never quit of them; That when his head is h.o.a.r He cannot say to them he smote, And spared with a hand hard at the throat, 'Go, and return no more.'"