The Ballad of the White Horse | Page 9

a forgotten thing,
And love is not secure."
And all that sat by the fire were sad,
Save Ogier, who was stern,

And his eyes hardened, even to stones,
As he took the harp in turn;
Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling
Was odd to ear and sight,
Old he
was, but his locks were red,
And jests were all the words he said

Yet he was sad at board and bed
And savage in the fight.
"You sing of the young gods easily
In the days when you are young;

But I go smelling yew and sods,
And I know there are gods behind
the gods,
Gods that are best unsung.
"And a man grows ugly for women,
And a man grows dull with ale,

Well if he find in his soul at last
Fury, that does not fail.
"The wrath of the gods behind the gods
Who would rend all gods and
men,
Well if the old man's heart hath still
Wheels sped of rage and
roaring will,
Like cataracts to break down and kill,
Well for the old
man then--
"While there is one tall shrine to shake,
Or one live man to rend;

For the wrath of the gods behind the gods
Who are weary to make an

end.
"There lives one moment for a man
When the door at his shoulder
shakes,
When the taut rope parts under the pull,
And 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