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<h2> BOOK I. THE VISION OF THE KING </h2>
<p>Before the gods that made the gods<br/>
Had seen their sunrise pass,<br/>
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale<br/>
Was cut out of the grass.<br/>
<br/>
Before the gods that made the gods<br/>
Had drunk at dawn their fill,<br/>
The White Horse of the White Horse Vale<br/>
Was hoary on the hill.<br/>
<br/>
Age beyond age on British land,<br/>
Aeons on aeons gone,<br/>
Was peace and war in western hills,<br/>
And the White Horse looked on.<br/>
<br/>
For the White Horse knew England<br/>
When there was none to know;<br/>
He saw the first oar break or bend,<br/>
He saw heaven fall and the world end,<br/>
O God, how long ago.<br/>
<br/>
For the end of the world was long ago,<br/>
And all we dwell to-day<br/>
As children of some second birth,<br/>
Like a strange people left on earth<br/>
After a judgment day.<br/>
<br/>
For the end of the world was long ago,<br/>
When the ends of the world waxed free,<br/>
When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,<br/>
And the sun drowned in the sea.<br/>
<br/>
When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky<br/>
And whoso hearkened right<br/>
Could only hear the plunging<br/>
Of the nations in the night.<br/>
<br/>
When the ends of the earth came marching in<br/>
To torch and cresset gleam.<br/>
And the roads of the world that lead to Rome<br/>
Were filled with faces that moved like foam,<br/>
Like faces in a dream.<br/>
<br/>
And men rode out of the eastern lands,<br/>
Broad river and burning plain;<br/>
Trees that are Titan flowers to see,<br/>
And tiger skies, striped horribly,<br/>
With tints of tropic rain.<br/>
<br/>
Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise<br/>
Around that inmost one,<br/>
Where ancient eagles on its brink,<br/>
Vast as archangels, gather and drink<br/>
The sacrament of the sun.<br/>
<br/>
And men brake out of the northern lands,<br/>
Enormous lands alone,<br/>
Where a spell is laid upon life and lust<br/>
And the rain is changed to a silver dust<br/>
And the sea to a great green stone.<br/>
<br/>
And a Shape that moveth murkily<br/>
In mirrors of ice and night,<br/>
Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,<br/>
As death and a shock of evil words<br/>
Blast a man's hair with white.<br/>
<br/>
And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,<br/>
Or the cry of the frost and foam,<br/>
Swept ever around an inmost place,<br/>
And the din of distant race on race<br/>
Cried and replied round Rome.<br/>
<br/>
And there was death on the Emperor<br/>
And night upon the Pope:<br/>
And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,<br/>
Hardened his heart with hope.<br/>
<br/>
A sea-folk blinder than the sea<br/>
Broke all about his land,<br/>
But Alfred up against them bare<br/>
And gripped the ground and grasped the air,<br/>
Staggered, and strove to stand.<br/>
<br/>
He bent them back with spear and spade,<br/>
With desperate dyke and wall,<br/>
With foemen leaning on his shield<br/>
And roaring on him when he reeled;<br/>
And no help came at all.<br/>
<br/>
He broke them with a broken sword<br/>
A little towards the sea,<br/>
And for one hour of panting peace,<br/>
Ringed with a roar that would not cease,<br/>
With golden crown and girded fleece<br/>
Made laws under a tree.<br/></p>
<p>The Northmen came about our land<br/>
A Christless chivalry:<br/>
Who knew not of the arch or pen,<br/>
Great, beautiful half-witted men<br/>
From the sunrise and the sea.<br/>
<br/>
Misshapen ships stood on the deep<br/>
Full of strange gold and fire,<br/>
And hairy men, as huge as sin<br/>
With horned heads, came wading in<br/>
Through the long, low sea-mire.<br/>
<br/>
Our towns were shaken of tall kings<br/>
With scarlet beards like blood:<br/>
The world turned empty where they trod,<br/>
They took the kindly cross of God<br/>
And cut it up for wood.<br/>
<br/>
Their souls were drifting as the sea,<br/>
And all good towns and lands<br/>
They only saw with heavy eyes,<br/>
And broke with heavy hands,<br/>
<br/>
Their gods were sadder than the sea,<br/>
Gods of a wandering will,<br/>
Who cried for blood like beasts at night,<br/>
Sadly, from hill to hill.<br/>
<br/>
They seemed as trees walking the earth,<br/>
As witless and as tall,<br/>
Yet they took hold upon the heavens<br/>
And no help came at all.<br/>
<br/>
They bred like birds in English woods,<br/>
They rooted like the rose,<br/>
When Alfred came to Athelney<br/>
To hide him from their bows<br/>
<br/>
There was not English armour left,<br/>
Nor any English thing,<br/>
When Alfred came to Athelney<br/>
To be an English king.<br/>
<br/>
For earthquake swallowing earthquake<br/>
Uprent the Wessex tree;<br/>
The whirlpool of the pagan sway<br/>
Had swirled his sires as sticks away<br/>
When a flood smites the sea.<br/>
<br/>
And the great kings of Wessex<br/>
Wearied and sank in gore,<br/>
And even their ghosts in that great stress<br/>
Grew greyer and greyer, less and less,<br/>
With the lords that died in Lyonesse<br/>
And the king that comes no more.<br/>
<br/>
And the God of the Golden Dragon<br/>
Was dumb upon his throne,<br/>
And the lord of the Golden Dragon<br/>
Ran in the woods alone.<br/>
<br/>
And if ever he climbed the crest of luck<br/>
And set the flag before,<br/>
Returning as a wheel returns,<br/>
Came ruin and the rain that burns,<br/>
And all began once more.<br/>
<br/>
And naught was left King Alfred<br/>
But shameful tears of rage,<br/>
In the island in the river<br/>
In the end of all his age.<br/>
<br/>
In the island in the river<br/>
He was broken to his knee:<br/>
And he read, writ with an iron pen,<br/>
That God had wearied of Wessex men<br/>
And given their country, field and fen,<br/>
To the devils of the sea.<br/>
<br/>
And he saw in a little picture,<br/>
Tiny and far away,<br/>
His mother sitting in Egbert's hall,<br/>
And a book she showed him, very small,<br/>
Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall<br/>
With a golden Christ at play.<br/>
<br/>
It was wrought in the monk's slow manner,<br/>
From silver and sanguine shell,<br/>
Where the scenes are little and terrible,<br/>
Keyholes of heaven and hell.<br/>
<br/>
In the river island of Athelney,<br/>
With the river running past,<br/>
In colours of such simple creed<br/>
All things sprang at him, sun and weed,<br/>
Till the grass grew to be grass indeed<br/>
And the tree was a tree at last.<br/>
<br/>
Fearfully plain the flowers grew,<br/>
Like the child's book to read,<br/>
Or like a friend's face seen in a glass;<br/>
He looked; and there Our Lady was,<br/>
She stood and stroked the tall live grass<br/>
As a man strokes his steed.<br/>
<br/>
Her face was like an open word<br/>
When brave men speak and choose,<br/>
The very colours of her coat<br/>
Were better than good news.<br/>
<br/>
She spoke not, nor turned not,<br/>
Nor any sign she cast,<br/>
Only she stood up straight and free,<br/>
Between the flowers in Athelney,<br/>
And the river running past.<br/>
<br/>
One dim ancestral jewel hung<br/>
On his ruined armour grey,<br/>
He rent and cast it at her feet:<br/>
Where, after centuries, with slow feet,<br/>
Men came from hall and school and street<br/>
And found it where it lay.<br/>
<br/>
"Mother of God," the wanderer said,<br/>
"I am but a common king,<br/>
Nor will I ask what saints may ask,<br/>
To see a secret thing.<br/>
<br/>
"The gates of heaven are fearful gates<br/>
Worse than the gates of hell;<br/>
Not I would break the splendours barred<br/>
Or seek to know the thing they guard,<br/>
Which is too good to tell.<br/>
<br/>
"But for this earth most pitiful,<br/>
This little land I know,<br/>
If that which is for ever is,<br/>
Or if our hearts shall break with bliss,<br/>
Seeing the stranger go?<br/>
<br/>
"When our last bow is broken, Queen,<br/>
And our last javelin cast,<br/>
Under some sad, green evening sky,<br/>
Holding a ruined cross on high,<br/>
Under warm westland grass to lie,<br/>
Shall we come home at last?"<br/>
<br/>
And a voice came human but high up,<br/>
Like a cottage climbed among<br/>
The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft<br/>
That sits by his hovel fire as oft,<br/>
But hears on his old bare roof aloft<br/>
A belfry burst in song.<br/>
<br/>
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,<br/>
We do not guard our gain,<br/>
The heaviest hind may easily<br/>
Come silently and suddenly<br/>
Upon me in a lane.<br/>
<br/>
"And any little maid that walks<br/>
In good thoughts apart,<br/>
May break the guard of the Three Kings<br/>
And see the dear and dreadful things<br/>
I hid within my heart.<br/>
<br/>
"The meanest man in grey fields gone<br/>
Behind the set of sun,<br/>
Heareth between star and other star,<br/>
Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,<br/>
The council, eldest of things that are,<br/>
The talk of the Three in One.<br/>
<br/>
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,<br/>
We do not guard our gold,<br/>
Men may uproot where worlds begin,<br/>
Or read the name of the nameless sin;<br/>
But if he fail or if he win<br/>
To no good man is told.<br/>
<br/>
"The men of the East may spell the stars,<br/>
And times and triumphs mark,<br/>
But the men signed of the cross of Christ<br/>
Go gaily in the dark.<br/>
<br/>
"The men of the East may search the scrolls<br/>
For sure fates and fame,<br/>
But the men that drink the blood of God<br/>
Go singing to their shame.<br/>
<br/>
"The wise men know what wicked things<br/>
Are written on the sky,<br/>
They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,<br/>
Hearing the heavy purple wings,<br/>
Where the forgotten seraph kings<br/>
Still plot how God shall die.<br/>
<br/>
"The wise men know all evil things<br/>
Under the twisted trees,<br/>
Where the perverse in pleasure pine<br/>
And men are weary of green wine<br/>
And sick of crimson seas.<br/>
<br/>
"But you and all the kind of Christ<br/>
Are ignorant and brave,<br/>
And you have wars you hardly win<br/>
And souls you hardly save.<br/>
<br/>
"I tell you naught for your comfort,<br/>
Yea, naught for your desire,<br/>
Save that the sky grows darker yet<br/>
And the sea rises higher.<br/>
<br/>
"Night shall be thrice night over you,<br/>
And heaven an iron cope.<br/>
Do you have joy without a cause,<br/>
Yea, faith without a hope?"<br/>
<br/>
Even as she spoke she was not,<br/>
Nor any word said he,<br/>
He only heard, still as he stood<br/>
Under the old night's nodding hood,<br/>
The sea-folk breaking down the wood<br/>
Like a high tide from sea.<br/>
<br/>
He only heard the heathen men,<br/>
Whose eyes are blue and bleak,<br/>
Singing about some cruel thing<br/>
Done by a great and smiling king<br/>
In daylight on a deck.<br/>
<br/>
He only heard the heathen men,<br/>
Whose eyes are blue and blind,<br/>
Singing what shameful things are done<br/>
Between the sunlit sea and the sun<br/>
When the land is left behind.<br/></p>
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