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.

Their souls were drifting as the sea,And all good towns and landsThey only saw with heavy eyes,And broke with heavy hands,

Their gods were sadder than the sea,Gods of a wandering will,Who cried for blood like beasts at night,Sadly, from hill to hill.

They seemed as trees walking the earth,As witless and as tall,Yet they took hold upon the heavensAnd no help came at all.

They bred like birds in English woods,They rooted like the rose,When Alfred came to AthelneyTo hide him from their bows

There was not English armour left,Nor any English thing,When Alfred came to AthelneyTo be an English king.

For earthquake swallowing earthquakeUprent the Wessex tree;The whirlpool of the pagan swayHad swirled his sires as sticks awayWhen a flood smites the sea.

And the great kings of WessexWearied and sank in gore,And even their ghosts in that great stressGrew greyer and greyer, less and less,With the lords that died in LyonesseAnd the king that comes no more.

And the God of the Golden DragonWas dumb upon his throne,And the lord of the Golden DragonRan in the woods alone.

And if ever he climbed the crest of luckAnd set the flag before,Returning as a wheel returns,Came ruin and the rain that burns,And all began once more.

And naught was left King AlfredBut shameful tears of rage,In the island in the riverIn the end of all his age.

In the island in the riverHe was broken to his knee:And he read, writ with an iron pen,That God had wearied of Wessex menAnd given their country, field and fen,To the devils of the sea.

And he saw in a little picture,Tiny and far away,His mother sitting in Egbert's hall,And a book she showed him, very small,Where a sapphire Mary sat in stallWith a golden Christ at play.

It was wrought in the monk's slow manner,From silver and sanguine shell,Where the scenes are little and terrible,Keyholes of heaven and hell.

In the river island of Athelney,With the river running past,In colours of such simple creedAll things sprang at him, sun and weed,Till the grass grew to be grass indeedAnd the tree was a tree at last.

Fearfully plain the flowers grew,Like the child's book to read,Or like a friend's face seen in a glass;He looked; and there Our Lady was,She stood and stroked the tall live grassAs a man strokes his steed.

Her face was like an open wordWhen brave men speak and choose,The very colours of her coatWere better than good news.

She spoke not, nor turned not,Nor any sign she cast,Only she stood up straight and free,Between the flowers in Athelney,And the river running past.

One dim ancestral jewel hungOn his ruined armour grey,He rent and cast it at her feet:Where, after centuries, with slow feet,Men came from hall and school and streetAnd found it where it lay.

"Mother of God," the wanderer said,"I am but a common king,Nor will I ask what saints may ask,To see a secret thing.

"The gates of heaven are fearful gatesWorse than the gates of hell;Not I would break the splendours barredOr seek to know the thing they guard,Which is too good to tell.

"But for this earth most pitiful,This little land I know,If that which is for ever is,Or if our hearts shall break with bliss,Seeing the stranger go?

"When our last bow is broken, Queen,And our last javelin cast,Under some sad, green evening sky,Holding a ruined cross on high,Under warm westland grass to lie,Shall we come home at last?"

And a voice came human but high up,Like a cottage climbed amongThe clouds; or a serf of hut and croftThat sits by his hovel fire as oft,But hears on his old bare roof aloftA belfry burst in song.

"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,We do not guard our gain,The heaviest hind may easilyCome silently and suddenlyUpon me in a lane.

"And any little maid that walksIn good thoughts apart,May break the guard of the Three KingsAnd see the dear and dreadful thingsI hid within my heart.

"The meanest man in grey fields goneBehind the set of sun,Heareth between star and other star,Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar,The council, eldest of things that are,The talk of the Three in One.

"The gates of heaven are lightly locked,We do not guard our gold,Men may uproot where worlds begin,Or read the name of the nameless sin;But if he fail or if he winTo no good man is told.

"The men of the East may spell the stars,And times and triumphs mark,But the men signed of the cross of ChristGo gaily in the dark.

"The men of the East may search the scrollsFor sure fates and fame,But the men that drink the blood of GodGo singing to their shame.

"The wise men know what wicked thingsAre written on the sky,They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings,Hearing the heavy purple wings,Where the forgotten seraph kingsStill plot how God shall die.

"The wise men know all evil thingsUnder the twisted trees,Where the perverse in pleasure pineAnd men are weary of green wineAnd sick of crimson seas.

"But you and all the kind of ChristAre ignorant and brave,And you have wars you hardly winAnd souls you hardly save.

"I tell you naught for your comfort,Yea, naught for your desire,Save that the sky grows darker yetAnd the sea rises higher.

"Night shall be thrice night over you,And heaven an iron cope.Do you have joy without a cause,Yea, faith without a hope?"

Even as she spoke she was not,Nor any word said he,He only heard, still as he stoodUnder the old night's nodding hood,The sea-folk breaking down the woodLike a high tide from sea.

He only heard the heathen men,Whose eyes are blue and bleak,Singing about some cruel thingDone by a great and smiling kingIn daylight on a deck.

He only heard the heathen men,Whose eyes are blue and blind,Singing what shameful things are doneBetween the sunlit sea and the sunWhen the land is left behind.