Excerpt
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....