The Ballad of the White Horse | Page 9

the barest branch is beautiful?One moment, while it breaks.
"So rides my soul upon the sea?That drinks the howling ships,?Though in black jest it bows and nods?Under the moons with silver rods,?I know it is roaring at the gods,?Waiting the last eclipse.
"And in the last eclipse the sea?Shall 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 town?Propped of the planets seven,?Shall know a new light in the mind,?A noise about them and behind,?Shall hear an awful voice, and find?Foam 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 books?When 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 good?It 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 day?On the long polar plains.
For he sang of a wheel returning,?And the mire trod back to mire,?And how red hells and golden heavens?Are 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 written?So plain in clouds and clods,?When he shall hunger without hope?Even 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 apart?He finds at last the lost bird dead:?And a man may still lift up his head?But never more his heart.
"There comes no noise but weeping?Out of the ancient sky,?And a tear is in the tiniest flower?Because the gods must die.
"The little brooks are very sweet,?Like a girl's ribbons curled,?But the great sea is bitter?That 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 battle?Is the happiest place for men;?When shrieking souls as shafts go by?And 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 battle?We 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 hour?To remember it again."
And slowly his hands and thoughtfully?Fell from the lifted lyre,?And the owls moaned from the mighty trees?Till Alfred caught it to his knees?And smote it as in ire.
He heaved the head of the harp on high?And swept the framework barred,?And his stroke had all the rattle and spark?Of horses flying hard.
"When God put man in a garden?He girt him with a sword,?And sent him forth a free knight?That might betray his lord;
"He brake Him and betrayed Him,?And fast and far he fell,?Till you and I may stretch our necks?And 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 Adam?Than rise with all your gods.
"What have the strong gods given??Where have the glad gods led??When Guthrum sits on a hero's throne?And asks if he is dead?
"Sirs, I am but a nameless man,?A rhymester without home,?Yet since I come of the Wessex clay?And carry the cross of Rome,
"I will even answer the mighty earl?That asked of Wessex men?Why 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 man?Like a hare on the hill-side,?The hare has still more heart to run?Than you have heart to ride.
"That though all lances split on you,?All swords be heaved in vain,?We have more lust again to lose?Than 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