Book VII: Ethandune: The Last Charge

Away in the waste of White Horse DownAn idle child alonePlayed some small game through hours that pass,And patiently would pluck the grass,Patiently push the stone.

On the lean, green edge for ever,Where the blank chalk touched the turf,The child played on, alone, divine,As a child plays on the last lineThat sunders sand and surf.

For he dwelleth in high divisionsToo simple to understand,Seeing on what morn of mysteryThe Uncreated rent the seaWith roarings, from the land.

Through the long infant hours like daysHe built one tower in vain--Piled up small stones to make a town,And evermore the stones fell down,And he piled them up again.

And crimson kings on battle-towers,And saints on Gothic spires,And hermits on their peaks of snow,And heroes on their pyres,

And patriots riding royally,That rush the rocking town,Stretch hands, and hunger and aspire,Seeking to mount where high and higher,The child whom Time can never tire,Sings over White Horse Down.

And this was the might of Alfred,At the ending of the way;That of such smiters, wise or wild,He was least distant from the child,Piling the stones all day.

For Eldred fought like a frank hunterThat killeth and goeth home;And Mark had fought because all armsRang like the name of Rome.

And Colan fought with a double mind,Moody and madly gay;But Alfred fought as gravelyAs a good child at play.

He saw wheels break and work run backAnd all things as they were;And his heart was orbed like victoryAnd simple like despair.

Therefore is Mark forgotten,That was wise with his tongue and brave;And the cairn over Colan crumbled,And the cross on Eldred's grave.

Their great souls went on a wind away,And they have not tale or tomb;And Alfred born in WantageRules England till the doom.

Because in the forest of all fearsLike a strange fresh gust from sea,Struck him that ancient innocenceThat is more than mastery.

And as a child whose bricks fall downRe-piles them o'er and o'er,Came ruin and the rain that burns,Returning as a wheel returns,And crouching in the furze and fernsHe began his life once more.

He took his ivory horn unslungAnd smiled, but not in scorn:"Endeth the Battle of EthanduneWith the blowing of a horn."

On a dark horse at the double wayHe saw great Guthrum ride,Heard roar of brass and ring of steel,The laughter and the trumpet peal,The pagan in his pride.

And Ogier's red and hated headMoved in some talk or task;But the men seemed scattered in the brier,And some of them had lit a fire,And one had broached a cask.

And waggons one or two stood up,Like tall ships in sight,As if an outpost were encampedAt the cloven ways for night.

And joyous of the sudden stayOf Alfred's routed few,Sat one upon a stone to sigh,And some slipped up the road to fly,Till Alfred in the fern hard bySet horn to mouth and blew.

And they all abode like statues--One sitting on the stone,One half-way through the thorn hedge tall,One with a leg across a wall,And one looked backwards, very small,Far up the road, alone.

Grey twilight and a yellow starHung over thorn and hill;Two spears and a cloven war-shield layLoose on the road as cast away,The horn died faint in the forest grey,And the fleeing men stood still.

"Brothers at arms," said Alfred,"On this side lies the foe;Are slavery and starvation flowers,That you should pluck them so?

"For whether is it betterTo be prodded with Danish poles,Having hewn a chamber in a ditch,And hounded like a howling witch,Or smoked to death in holes?

"Or that before the red cock crowAll we, a thousand strong,Go down the dark road to God's house,Singing a Wessex song?

"To sweat a slave to a race of slaves,To drink up infamy?No, brothers, by your leave, I thinkDeath is a better ale to drink,And by all the stars of Christ that sink,The Danes shall drink with me.

"To grow old cowed in a conquered land,With the sun itself discrowned,To see trees crouch and cattle slink--Death is a better ale to drink,And by high Death on the fell brinkThat flagon shall go round.

"Though dead are all the paladinsWhom glory had in ken,Though all your thunder-sworded thanesWith proud hearts died among the Danes,While a man remains, great war remains:Now is a war of men.

"The men that tear the furrows,The men that fell the trees,When all their lords be lost and deadThe bondsmen of the earth shall treadThe tyrants of the seas.

"The wheel of the roaring stillnessOf all labours under the sun,Speed the wild work as well at leastAs the whole world's work is done.

"Let Hildred hack the shield-wallClean as he hacks the hedge;Let Gurth the fowler stand as coolAs he stands on the chasm's edge;

"Let Gorlias ride the sea-kingsAs Gorlias rides the sea,Then let all hell and Denmark drive,Yelling to all its fiends alive,And not a rag care we."

When Alfred's word was endedStood firm that feeble line,Each in his place with club or spear,And fury deeper than deep fear,And smiles as sour as brine.

And the King held up the horn and said,"See ye my father's horn,That Egbert blew in his empery,Once, when he rode out commonly,Twice when he rode for venery,And thrice on the battle-morn.

"But heavier fates have fallenThe horn of the Wessex kings,And I blew once, the riding sign,To call you to the fighting lineAnd glory and all good things.

"And now two blasts, the hunting sign,Because we turn to bay;But I will not blow the three blasts,Till we be lost or they.

"And now I blow the hunting sign,Charge some by rule and rod;But when I blow the battle sign,Charge all and go to God."

Wild stared the Danes at the double waysWhere they loitered, all at large,As that dark line for the last timeDoubled the knee to charge--

And caught their weapons clumsily,And marvelled how and why--In such degree, by rule and rod,The people of the peace of GodWent roaring down to die.

And when the last arrowWas fitted and was flown,When the broken shield hung on the breast,And the hopeless lance was laid in rest,And the hopeless horn blown,

The King looked up, and what he sawWas a great light like death,For Our Lady stood on the standards rent,As lonely and as innocentAs when between white walls she wentAnd the lilies of Nazareth.

One instant in a still lightHe saw Our Lady then,Her dress was soft as western sky,And she was a queen most womanly--But she was a queen of men.

Over the iron forestHe saw Our Lady stand,Her eyes were sad withouten art,And seven swords were in her heart--But one was in her hand.

Then the last charge went blindly,And all too lost for fear:The Danes closed round, a roaring ring,And twenty clubs rose o'er the King,Four Danes hewed at him, halloing,And Ogier of the Stone and SlingDrove at him with a spear.

But the Danes were wild with laughter,And the great spear swung wide,The point stuck to a straggling tree,And either host cried suddenly,As Alfred leapt aside.

Short time had shaggy OgierTo pull his lance in line--He knew King Alfred's axe on high,He heard it rushing through the sky,

He cowered beneath it with a cry--It split him to the spine:And Alfred sprang over him dead,And blew the battle sign.

Then bursting all and blastingCame Christendom like death,Kicked of such catapults of will,The staves shiver, the barrels spill,The waggons waver and crash and killThe waggoners beneath.

Barriers go backwards, banners rend,Great shields groan like a gong--Horses like horns of nightmareNeigh horribly and long.

Horses ramp high and rock and boilAnd break their golden reins,And slide on carnage clamorously,Down where the bitter blood doth lie,Where Ogier went on foot to die,In the old way of the Danes.

"The high tide!" King Alfred cried."The high tide and the turn!As a tide turns on the tall grey seas,See how they waver in the trees,How stray their spears, how knock their knees,How wild their watchfires burn!

"The Mother of God goes over them,Walking on wind and flame,And the storm-cloud drifts from city and dale,And the White Horse stamps in the White Horse Vale,And we all shall yet drink Christian aleIn the village of our name.

"The Mother of God goes over them,On dreadful cherubs borne;And the psalm is roaring above the rune,And the Cross goes over the sun and moon,Endeth the battle of EthanduneWith the blowing of a horn."

For back indeed disorderlyThe Danes went clamouring,Too worn to take anew the tale,Or dazed with insolence and ale,Or stunned of heaven, or stricken paleBefore the face of the King.

For dire was Alfred in his hourThe pale scribe witnesseth,More mighty in defeat was heThan all men else in victory,And behind, his men came murderously,Dry-throated, drinking death.

And Edgar of the Golden ShipHe slew with his own hand,Took Ludwig from his lady's bower,And smote down Harmar in his hour,And vain and lonely stood the tower--The tower in Guelderland.

And Torr out of his tiny boat,Whose eyes beheld the Nile,Wulf with his war-cry on his lips,And Harco born in the eclipse,Who blocked the Seine with battleshipsRound Paris on the Isle.

And Hacon of the Harvest-Song,And Dirck from the Elbe he slew,And Cnut that melted Durham bellAnd Fulk and fiery Oscar fell,And Goderic and Sigael,And Uriel of the Yew.

And highest sang the slaughter,And fastest fell the slain,When from the wood-road's blackening throatA crowning and crashing wonder smoteThe rear-guard of the Dane.

For the dregs of Colan's company--Lost down the other road--Had gathered and grown and heard the din,And with wild yells came pouring in,Naked as their old British kin,And bright with blood for woad.

And bare and bloody and aloftThey bore before their bandThe body of the mighty lord,Colan of Caerleon and its horde,That bore King Alfred's battle-swordBroken in his left hand.

And a strange music went with him,Loud and yet strangely far;The wild pipes of the western land,Too keen for the ear to understand,Sang high and deathly on each handWhen the dead man went to war.

Blocked between ghost and buccaneer,Brave men have dropped and died;And the wild sea-lords well might quailAs the ghastly war-pipes of the GaelCalled to the horns of White Horse Vale,And all the horns replied.

And Hildred the poor hedgerCut down four captains dead,And Halmar laid three others low,And the great earls wavered to and froFor the living and the dead.

And Gorlias grasped the great flag,The Raven of Odin, torn;And the eyes of Guthrum altered,For the first time since morn.

As a turn of the wheel of tempestTilts up the whole sky tall,And cliffs of wan cloud luminousLean out like great walls over us,As if the heavens might fall.

As such a tall and tilted skySends certain snow or light,So did the eyes of Guthrum change,And the turn was more certain and more strangeThan a thousand men in flight.

For not till the floor of the skies is split,And hell-fire shines through the sea,Or the stars look up through the rent earth's knees,Cometh such rending of certainties,As when one wise man truly seesWhat is more wise than he.

He set his horse in the battle-breechEven Guthrum of the Dane,And as ever had fallen fell his brand,A falling tower o'er many a land,But Gurth the fowler laid one handUpon this bridle rein.

King Guthrum was a great lord,And higher than his gods--He put the popes to laughter,He chid the saints with rods,

He took this hollow world of oursFor a cup to hold his wine;In the parting of the woodwaysThere came to him a sign.

In Wessex in the forest,In the breaking of the spears,We set a sign on GuthrumTo blaze a thousand years.

Where the high saddles jostleAnd the horse-tails toss,There rose to the birds flyingA roar of dead and dying;In deafness and strong cryingWe signed him with the cross.

Far out to the winding riverThe blood ran down for days,When we put the cross on GuthrumIn the parting of the ways.