The Ballad of the White Horse. Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Over the western lines.

                And the white dawn widened

                Ere he came to the last pine,

                Where Mark, the man from Italy,

                Still made the Christian sign.

                The long farm lay on the large hill-side,

                Flat like a painted plan,

                And by the side the low white house,

                Where dwelt the southland man.

                A bronzed man, with a bird's bright eye,

                And a strong bird's beak and brow,

                His skin was brown like buried gold,

                And of certain of his sires was told

                That they came in the shining ship of old,

                With Caesar in the prow.

                His fruit trees stood like soldiers

                Drilled in a straight line,

                His strange, stiff olives did not fail,

                And all the kings of the earth drank ale,

                But he drank wine.

                Wide over wasted British plains

                Stood never an arch or dome,

                Only the trees to toss and reel,

                The tribes to bicker, the beasts to squeal;

                But the eyes in his head were strong like steel,

                And his soul remembered Rome.

                Then Alfred of the lonely spear

                Lifted his lion head;

                And fronted with the Italian's eye,

                Asking him of his whence and why,

                King Alfred stood and said:

                "I am that oft-defeated King

                Whose failure fills the land,

                Who fled before the Danes of old,

                Who chaffered with the Danes with gold,

                Who now upon the Wessex wold

                Hardly has feet to stand.

                "But out of the mouth of the Mother of God

                I have seen the truth like fire,

                This – that the sky grows darker yet

                And the sea rises higher."

                Long looked the Roman on the land;

                The trees as golden crowns

                Blazed, drenched with dawn and dew-empearled

                While faintlier coloured, freshlier curled,

                The clouds from underneath the world

                Stood up over the downs.

                "These vines be ropes that drag me hard,"

                He said. "I go not far;

                Where would you meet? For you must hold

                Half Wiltshire and the White Horse wold,

                And the Thames bank to Owsenfold,

                If Wessex goes to war.

                "Guthrum sits strong on either bank

                And you must press his lines

                Inwards, and eastward drive him down;

                I doubt if you shall take the crown

                Till you have taken London town.

                For me, I have the vines."

                "If each man on the Judgment Day

                Meet God on a plain alone,"

                Said Alfred, "I will speak for you

                As for myself, and call it true

                That you brought all fighting folk you knew

                Lined under Egbert's Stone.

                "Though I be in the dust ere then,

                I know where you will be."

                And shouldering suddenly his spear

                He faded like some elfin fear,

                Where the tall pines ran up, tier on tier

                Tree overtoppling tree.

                He shouldered his spear at morning

                And laughed to lay it on,

                But he leaned on his spear as on a staff,

                With might and little mood to laugh,

                Or ever he sighted chick or calf

                Of Colan of Caerleon.

                For the man dwelt in a lost land

                Of boulders and broken men,

                In a great grey cave far off to the south

                Where a thick green forest stopped the mouth,

                Giving darkness in his den.

                And the man was come like a shadow,

                From the shadow of Druid trees,

                Where Usk, with mighty murmurings,

                Past Caerleon of the fallen kings,

                Goes out to ghostly seas.

                Last of a race in ruin —

                He spoke the speech of the Gaels;

                His kin were in holy Ireland,

                Or up in the crags of Wales.

                But his soul stood with his mother's folk,

                That were of the rain-wrapped isle,