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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ The Island _Date of first publication:_ 1944 _Author:_ Francis Brett Young (1884-1954) _Date first posted:_ May 23, 2023 _Date last updated:_ May 23, 2023 Faded Page eBook #20230548 This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net [Cover Illustration] THE ISLAND _THE WORKS OF_ _FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG_ UNDERGROWTH (with E. Brett Young) DEEP SEA THE DARK TOWER IRON AGE THE CRESCENT MOON THE YOUNG PHYSICIAN THE TRAGIC BRIDE THE BLACK DIAMOND THE RED KNIGHT PILGRIM’S REST WOODSMOKE COLD HARBOUR SEA HORSES PORTRAIT OF CLARE MY BROTHER JONATHAN BLACK ROSES JIM REDLAKE MR. AND MRS. PENNINGTON THE HOUSE UNDER THE WATER THIS LITTLE WORLD WHITE LADIES FAR FOREST THEY SEEK A COUNTRY DR. BRADLEY REMEMBERS THE CITY OF GOLD MR. LUCTON’S FREEDOM A MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE THE ISLAND FIVE DEGREES SOUTH POEMS: 1914-1918 MARCHING ON TANGA ROBERT BRIDGES PORTRAIT OF A VILLAGE IN SOUTH AFRICA THE ISLAND BY FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG _Vouchsafe to those that have not read the story,_ _That I may prompt them; and of such as have,_ _I humbly pray them to admit the excuse_ _Of time, of numbers, and due course of things_ _Which cannot in their huge and proper life_ _Be here presented . . ._ SHAKESPEARE. HENRY V. [Illustration] ‾_WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD_‾ MELBOURNE :: LONDON :: TORONTO FIRST PUBLISHED 1944 REPRINTED 1945 (twice) THIS EDITION 1955 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN AT THE WINDMILL PRESS KINGSWOOD, SURREY For JESSICA 1904—1944 Dearest, in all my life I have known but two Unwavering loves: for England, and for you: What then more just than that this tribute paid To one should at the other’s feet be laid? CONTENTS PAGE _Tribute by Professor Humphrey Humphreys_ ix I INVOCATION 1 II PANORAMA AND CHANTS OF THE AGES 7 III THE COAST OF GAUL AUGUST 25TH, 55 B.C. 23 IV SONG OF THE DEAD MEN ON BREDON A.D. 55 39 V EPISODE OF THE GARRULOUS CENTURION A.D. 78 43 VI HIC JACET ARTHURUS REX QUONDOM REXQUE FUTURUS. . . 56 VII NIGHTFALL BY WANSDYKE A.D. 878 58 VIII THE BALLAD OF ST. KENELM A.D. 821 71 IX THE TALE OF ÆDWULF THE DISPOSSESSED A.D. 1080 79 X FAREWELL TO ARMS 102 XI SONGS OF THE THREE RIVERS 105 XII THE TALE OF JOHN DE MATHON A.D. 1280 124 XIII SONG OF THE THIRD CRUSADE A.D. 1191 138 XIV RETURN OF THE NATIVE A.D. 1380 142 XV A BALLAD OF JOHN BALL A.D. 1381 156 XVI _Interlude_ THE WARS OF THE ROSES A.D. 1455-1485 163 XVII NORTH-WEST PASSAGE A.D. 1497 169 XVIII ADAM WOODWARD AND THE SHIPWRIGHT A.D. 1525 177 XIX _Interlude_ A SONG OF THE LONG GALLERY. HAMPTON COURT: A.D. 1587 190 XX DEUS FLAVIT ET DISSIPATI SUNT A.D. 1588 194 XXI _Interlude_ AN ENGLISH GARLAND 211 XXII THE TALE OF THE FAINT-HEARTED PILGRIM PLYMOUTH HOE A.D. 1620 216 XXIII _Interlude_ ATLANTIC CHARTER A.D. 1620-1942 228 XXIV THE TAVERNER’S TALE A.D. 1653 230 XXV ORDEAL BY FIRE A.D. 1666-1940 247 XXVI _Interlude_ THE ISLE OF VOICES 250 XXVII DIASPORA 257 XXVIII SONG OF THE BRITISH GRENADIERS A.D. 1713 263 XXIX PASTORAL SYMPHONY A.D. 1743 266 XXX AUGUSTAN INTERLUDE A.D. 1713-1743 278 XXXI FIRST EMPIRE A.D. 1753-1776 284 XXXII _Interlude_ BIRTH OF A MONSTER A.D. 1776 311 XXXIII ON WINDMILL DOWN A.D. 1789 319 XXXIV RED INTERLUDE A.D. 1789-1803 335 XXXV CONVERSATION PIECE A.D. 1804 344 XXXVI A BALLAD OF VICTORY OCTOBER 21ST, 1805 359 XXXVII LONG YEARS OF HAVOC A.D. 1805-1815 366 XXXVIII TALE OF THE NAVAL OFFICER A.D. 1815 370 XXXIX INTERLUDE: MANY-COLOURED ISLE 378 XL RURAL RIDE A.D. 1830 387 XLI PASSAGE TO AUSTRALIA A.D. 1834 398 XLII VICTORIAN REVERIE A.D. 1819-1901 401 XLIII THE TRENCH DIGGERS: SALISBURY PLAIN A.D. 1915 420 XLIV ELEGY IN WHITEHALL NOVEMBER 11, 1920 422 XLV FANTASTIC SYMPHONY A.D. 1918-1939 426 XLVI THE WINGED VICTORY A.D. 1940 446 _FRANCIS BRETT YOUNG_ M.B., CH.B., D.LITT., Physician, Poet, Novelist, 1884-1954 His ashes were interred within the Cathedral of Worcester on 3rd July, 1954 “And when they asked him where he would lie, he bethought him Of our church of St. Mary at Worcester, saying: ‘_I commend_ _My body and soul to God and to Saint Wulstan._’ So here we buried him. . . .” —_The Island._ During the Service the following tribute was made to the author and his achievement by Professor Humphrey Humphreys O.B.E., M.C., T.D., LL.D., etc. Formerly Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham A TRIBUTE “I have been asked,” said Professor Humphrey Humphreys, “to pay a tribute to Francis Brett Young on this occasion as one of his oldest friends. Although we were both Worcestershire born and bred, we first met as medical students fifty years ago and were drawn together by our common tastes and our passion for this pastoral heart of England, whose pulse we had both felt beating so strongly in our formative years. This is not the place to recall those far-away student days though naturally many of their incidents crowd my memory—rural rides and walks, widely ranging talks such as young men love, and—perhaps most vividly remembered of all—musical evenings. For though Francis had a strong urge to artistic creation of several kinds, music was his first medium—composing accompaniments to songs. It was a Worcestershire poet, A. E. Housman, who first attracted him in this way, and his settings of verses from ‘The Shropshire Lad’ still seem to me most happily married to the words. Others that he wrote for some poetry of Robert Bridges later found a publisher: but he had had no real musical training, and without training success in any art is difficult to achieve. His passion for music was lifelong, and he had a special fondness for Elgar, another Worcestershire artist, whose ‘Nimrod’ we have just heard: he would recall hearing the first performance of the ‘Dream of Gerontius’ in this cathedral. “Those student days provided material for one of his earliest novels _The Young Physician_, and brief experience as a locum tenens in the Black Country coupled with memories of the parental practice—his father was a doctor in this county—later flowered in _My Brother Jonathan_ and _Dr. Bradley Remembers_. As soon as possible after qualifying he married and lived happily ever after. For the first chapter in the new story he acquired a not too busy practice at Brixham in South Devon with the deliberate intention of devoting as much time as possible to writing. Now success in any art requires first original talent, next its improvement by training and practice, finally, of course, something which the artist wishes to express in the particular medium of his choice. Francis was richly gifted with the first but a number of years passed before his professional duties gave him enough leisure to improve it to a standard that satisfied a publisher. In poetry, where inspiration counts for more and practice for less, success came earlier and his verses appeared regularly in the later volumes of ‘Georgian Poetry’ that were published during, and just after the 1914-18 war. Indeed it was this war that really launched him on his new career. Joining the R.A.M.C. he was posted to East Africa and served as medical officer to a Rhodesian regiment under General Smuts. This experience produced _Marching on Tanga_, generally acclaimed by the critics as a war narrative of the highest class; a novel with a local setting; a book of verse; _Five Degrees South_; and friendships in Rhodesia and South Africa which resulted in visits there during the post-war years; also a number of novels with a South African background. By the end of the war he felt confident he could earn a modest living as a writer, and with the encouragement of his wife, to whose self-sacrifice, devotion and care he owed much of his success, he decided to migrate to Italy and took a villa on the island of Capri. He was attracted by the climate, since his health, never robust, had suffered from his campaign in the tropics and he no longer felt equal to the physical strain of medical practice. He felt drawn too by the prospective company of brother artists, Compton Mackenzie, D. H. Lawrence, Axel Munthe and others. In this stimulating atmosphere he produced a regular series of novels so successful that by 1930 he was prosperous enough to acquire a _pied-à-terre_ in England, first by Esthwaite Water in Westmorland and later at Craycombe House in his native Worcestershire. There followed some of the happiest years of an extremely happy life. He wrote regularly and diligently, took an interest in county cricket, attended the musical festivals in this cathedral and generally played a part in the life of the county. Then came the Second World War. Too old for service he devoted himself to writing his epic of English History published under the tide of _The Island_. It was dedicated to his wife in words which all his friends recognised as profoundly true: ‘Dearest, in all my life I have known but two Unwavering loves: for England and for you.’ The effort of writing this long sequence of poems, together with six war years in England, produced a serious deterioration in his health, and as soon as the war was over he migrated permanently to South Africa, though he paid occasional brief visits to this country. On one of these he received the Honorary Degree of D.Litt. from his old University. His health slowly failed but he bore this with courage and cheerfulness sustained by his characteristic _joie de vivre_, and by the tributes he constantly received expressing the pleasure his writings gave to unnumbered fellow countrymen and to a large reading public in America. “Every artist, whatever his medium, expresses primarily his own experiences, personal or imaginary, and Francis Brett Young’s picture of life was coloured from first to last by his native county, which he loved so well. We started this Service singing some verses by Milton. I will conclude by quoting Milton again:” ‘Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail, Or knock the breast . . . nothing but well and fair, And what may quiet us in a death so noble.’” I INVOCATION To you, dear brethren of the Seven Seas And the Five Continents, strong progeny Of one earth-girdling brood—to you, whose Hopes, Wills, Visions, Aspirations, are moved as ours By living memory or the more profound Surge of the unremembered; you, in whose ears Words of a common stem and heritage Waken the self-same echoes; you, from whose lips High-syllabled names of legendary scenes Fall neither more beloved nor less familiar Than those of shires, cities or villages, That gave your forbears birth and burial— To you, from her wave-battered, war-swept shore The Muse of Britain calls. First unto you, Wielders of axe and plough, who in midmost West Patiently watch your wheat-sown prairie quicken With fledgeling green, warm to red wealth of harvest (Before your phœnix maple flames in death), Then whiten with the powdery incandescence Of Arctic snowlights, till, at a milder waft, Their frozen sap shatters the living trees In loud reverberation, and ice-locked lumber, Loosened from glassy fetters, yields to the undertow Of snow-fed cataracts falling To lakes that swim like seas, and torrents lashed By shoals of spring-run salmon—till, once again, The axe rings in the sodden woods, the mould Turns from your cleaving share in corduroy Of tawny velvet, and Autumn’s ivory grain Once more is drilled or scattered on the fallows. Next you, whom that old sorceress Africa Bewitched with her hot potions of welling light And airs pellucid: you, twixt veld and sky, Long-stirruped, falcon-eyed, riding for ever Northward From pinnacled dolomite of stark Drakensberg Trembling against the inviolable blue To where Zambesi’s smoke Rolls from his thunderous chasm: you, that in galleries Torrid with neighbourhood of Earth’s radiant core Blast grains of gold from niggard quartz to slake The greed of cities; you that, saddle-propped Beneath your trinket cross and old Magellan’s Star-cloudy galaxies, hear in the breathless night The whine of fever’s wings; the leafy rustle Of stealthy-treading paws, or grosser wallowings Of monsters that once ruled the wild, but now Quail at the scent of man . . . Then you, my brothers, Who, ceiled by selfsame stars, but in a clime Less terrible for aught beside its silence, Deep in smooth-pillared eucalyptus, hear The brittle chatter of bark, like cobra-casts Sloughed from the living tree; Or startled scream of halcyon parakeets Splashing the blue-green twilight—you who, poised Between parched earth and salamander sky, Range the dun Austral sheepwalks, choked with dust Of myriad-pattering flocks and the hot reek Of burdened fleeces; you who, more venturous Through thickset tropical tangles penetrate The trackless Never-Never Land, or Northward By Carpentaria and the Coral Sea, Through hyaline glooms Watch the sleek Philipino grope for pearls: You, harlequin crowds, Who, on loud ocean-beaches, lazily View the Pacific gather in indigo deeps His cumulative surges, where, rank on rank, His shuddering rollers break, plunge, pound, and seethe Over the hissing sands to kiss your feet With warm, sun-dazzled fringes of faint foam . . . You, Eastward of the stormy Tasman housed, Youngest in heart and blood, Most distant yet most near; Islanders, like ourselves, braced by the breath Blown from another Pole—who hear, as we, Dawn-song of lark and ousel and homely rooks; Who, from your ferny mountain corries, see The red stag toss his antlers, and far beneath, Sheep-dappled downs and comfortable farms Where, when the South whitens your hills with snow, And timber-fires burn bright, The old songs are sung, the old tales re-told . . . To you, more lonely, Who, on blanched coral beaches, where man’s blood Grows thin with tropic languors, from Antilles To hot Malacca, see the identical fringe Of leaning palm-fronds seaward, landward, sway On tides of tepid air diurnally Ebbing and flowing; you, who by steamy estuaries Of mud and mangrove gloomed with melancholy Thickets that neither Spring nor Autumn know, Swelter and languish; you who in jungle-clearings Watch viscous rubber from the wounded bark Drip and congeal; You, who on orient uplands, holly-green With kempt plantation, raise flinching lids to meet The dazzle of heaped Himalaya’s glaciers Taunting dry lips; you, who in shuttered chambers Above the babel of murmurous bazaars, Lulled by the lazy punkah and the shuffle Of bare or sandalled feet, must chain your wits To tallies, files and ledgers, checking bales Of musky merchandise—yet often pause, Pen in mid-air, closing your eyes to see The king-cup watermeadows and dewy lawns Hushed in bird-haunted twilight . . . You, no less, Whom a crazed king and his crass minister With feeble mercenary arms provoked Affronted and estranged (but in a struggle Less bitter than the later feud that reft Your brotherhood) and thereby sealed those freedoms Of thought and speech ungrudged and unafraid Which are our common pride in kinship deeper Than that of blood or tongue—whose eager brains And tireless thews have wrested from the soil Of an unpeopled continent such wealth And power as never Empire yet on earth Has known, casting the mantle of your might In three short centuries from the frozen shores Of Massachusets and the pinnacles Of many-towered Manhattan to far sands Where the Pacific thunders—and from the ice Of our unguarded frontiers to the warm seas Where New Orleans swelters and the silt Of Mississippi clouds the steamy gulf Of Mexico—you, whose most noble spirit, Re-minting the rough ore of Runnymede At bloody Gettysburg, stamped on it the shape Of a new currency that rings as bright In our ears as in yours, for ever honoured By them that stand for liberty and prize The rights of the defenceless . . . Unto you all, Now, in this awful hour, when earth’s foundations Quaver as when, long since, her cooling crust Wrinkled in slow convulsions, overwhelming Oceans and lands—now, when the patient flesh Of frail, brief-sojourning man sustains anew Fate’s most barbaric insults, let us remember How that our heritage was ever rooted In stress and turmoil—nay, how the very soil We cherish, our sovereign isle, was born of tumult: Vexed by titanic forces, blasted, riven, Torn from her mother-continent, then moulded By mortal drift of long-forgotten seas; Her basalt core by frost and torrent fretted, Her mountains etched with ice. Let us remember What fierce and gentle strains war in our blood, Colour our eyes and hair; the innumerable richness Of entropy that gives our chequered race Its greatness. For Britain is not one, but many: She is Brython and Saxon and Norse; she is Brennus, twin son Of the Gaul Dunwallon, who cast His Celtic sword in the ransom-balance of Rome: She is Shakespeare and Burns, Jane Austen and Jonathan Swift; John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, Pitt and Washington; Gloriana, and Florence Nightingale—and Nell Gwynn. She is rude Stonehenge and ageless Avebury no less Than Hadrian’s rampart and Durham’s Norman Keep; Paul’s guardian dome and Lincoln’s aery Gothic. Hers are the Pennine scarps; the stormy summits Of Grampian and Cader Idris and helmed Blencathra; Smooth Sussex downs, dappled with shine and cloud; The patient central ploughlands; the cherry-blossom Of Teme and Medway. Hers are the silent rivers And singing streams we love: strong-flowing Severn, Spey’s snow-fed torrent; Test’s pellucid slides And emerald-weeded stickles; those dimpling rivulets That, born of Cotswold, feed the lordly flood Of many-masted Thames. All these are hers; Yet the core of her coasts is granite; the salt in her blood Is drawn from no mediterranean puddle, foul With the ordure and deliquescence of dead dynasties, But from ocean’s running surges, the fury that beats On iron-bound cliffs from Cornwall to Cape Wrath, Rimed with Atlantic spray: the seas that sever: The seas that make us one! Come then, my brothers, Hear, and behold! II PANORAMA AND CHANTS OF THE AGES _From an exalted station upon the confines of stellar space, the terrestrial globe is seen. The view-point is sufficiently low for certain general features of the planet’s surface to be vaguely discernible; yet so high that the curved outline of the Northern Hemisphere, immediately beneath our eyes, can be marked as it rolls over, within its enveloping atmosphere, against the background of space, through which it is travelling, and in which it revolves. The turning of the globe becomes appreciable not so much through any details in the variation of its surface (which indeed are but dimly seen) as through the manner in which it appears to heave its bulk out of darkness, and, as day succeeds night, into sunlight which suddenly quenches those volcanic coruscations that, like the glow from the flank of a smouldering pit-mound, or sparkles of ignited carbon amid the soot of a fire-back, break out in a series of quick pin-points and serpentine lines of flame. From this contemplation the voice of the First Age summons us._ Come then, and from this breathless height, Where, through the silent stratosphere Dead planets blaze with borrowed light And live suns sparkle doubly clear; Where the cold moon, but lately torn From her parent’s riven sides, Circling, captive and forlorn, Drags at the lava-tides; Where, in an incandescent dust, Meteorites, like Lucifer Falling, burst their iron hearts, Sputter, and disappear: See the lumbering Earth upthrust Out of darkness into day One segment of her cooling crust, Gleam for a while, then roll away From out the creeping sickle of light, To sink beneath night’s blinding veils, Flecked with spurts of flame and bright With red serpiginous trails; Where, piercing Earth’s integuments, The flux of molten magma spills Through fissures and red-throated vents Of domed volcanic hills: Till seas go up in plumes of steam, Threshed by the fiery flail Of spent lapilli, and ocean-beds Lie choked in pumice hail; Till new-formed plains are rent again By fiercer shocks and quakes, And sands are strewed with lava spewed From out the heaving lakes; Till the last cooling crater spends Its last Titanic ire, And a cold quietude descends On the First Age of Fire! _As the tempestuous chant of the Archæan Age dies away, the Earth is seen to be wrapped in vapours condensed from her seas during these phlegræan convulsions: a shroud of dangling whiteness defines and magnifies the invisible sphere. By degrees, the mist thins and dissipates, and through its vestiges, faintly at first, the calmer chant of the Second Age is heard._ No more, no more, tormented planet Suffer birth-pangs such as these! Earth’s cold heart shrinks; her limbs of granite Sprawl to embrace the Cambrian Seas. Bemused she sleeps; if she be shaken ’Tis by the swell of earth-storms spent That heave her bulk but cannot waken The new Atlantic continent. No sound her slumber breaks; naught changes Her form but fretting of the tides, Or polar winds that scour the ranges With grits from their dead crater-sides. Lifeless the lands, and deathlike-seeming The mask of ocean; yet beneath That crushing weight of water teeming, A myriad lives grapple with death: Dreamy Medusa trails her springes For floating prey, and Trilobite Gropes eyeless through the coral fringes Blanched by the deep sea’s timeless night; And carrion of that carnage, drifting With land-born debris swept from shore, Death’s silt, perpetually sifting, Settles in slime on the sea-floor, A new, dim continent devising— Till, a chained monster, ill at ease, Earth burst her granite bonds uprising, And shook the oceans from her knees; Till, mountain-high, the waters, helmed With emerald spindrift, surged and tossed; And, in white fury overwhelmed, Atlantis foundered and was lost . . . Was lost, for ever lost . . . And yet, See, where the patient corals built Their galleries, a domed island set On slimes of powdered shell and silt. That dome (whose brittle matrix shrank To bone of Malvern, yet to be,) Loomed for an age; then slowly sank In a tumultuous sea That seethed and simmered as when schools Of whales in polar waters sport, Or grey amphibians, in the pools Of green Limpopo wallowing, snort— Heaving their leaden sides to shake The river from their streaming flanks, And, sounding, spread a wave to wake The saurians basking on her banks. So, from that sea, emergent shapes Of mountain sent a great wave forth That lashed the Hebridean capes And woke the craters of the North To frenzies of a second birth In sheeted flame amid the roar Of waters. And bewildered Earth Is lost to sight once more. Birth and Destruction . . . So they run; Yet each is granted little room: The new theme, tenderly begun, Fades, silenced by the drums of doom; Buds, cheated of their blossoming, Fall to feed the common mould; And ever new creations spring From the dust of the old. So, recking neither toil nor waste, Creative Earth’s indifferent eye Sees each new chronicle erased Before the ink is dry— As when some eager poet, swayed By exaltations of fierce thought, Pores on the music he has made And knows it for a thing of nought, Then, challenged by that mocking gage, Crumples the paper, lifts his pen, And pondering on the vacant page Fashions his faulty dream again. _In this cataclysmic scene we have witnessed nothing less than the birth-pangs of Europe. Again and again the amphibian ranges lift their whale-backs and subside; until, at last, land and sea appear to have reached a state of equilibrium, and the monsters emerge as a series of mountain chains of an Alpine magnificence—resembling the fingers of a prone hand, in the intervals between which lie a number of diagonal firths and elongated lakes of fresh or brackish water: the obverse, as it were, of the Caledonian orograph. But though the ranges gather clouds from the sea, and torrents, born of these, eat into their flanks with deep erosions, draining into the Devonian lakes and friths, at their feet lie thirsty steppes swept by pillars of dust and veiled in sandstorms—the earth caked and cracked with heat, or pitted with infrequent rain; and though the bases on which this continent rests may seem to be built for eternity, the forces of subsidence and destruction are already at work; and lo, before the volcanic fires have flickered out, this new continent collapses—volcanoes and peaks, firths, lakes and inland seas commingled in what is neither wholly sea nor land: a vast swamp of black pools and crevasses, and one immense delta, where conterminous rivers, wider than Mississippi or Amazon, discharge the silt and debris of that destruction. Through warm, moisture-laden air, the chant of the Third Age is heard._ Yet mark how from this waste of fire and mud Steaming and seething with mephitic gases That break in bubbles from its black morasses, Wells, with incontinent haste, the living flood Of high, impetuous growth: how root with root, In subterranean struggle for survival, Wrestles to overwhelm its bitterest rival; How leaves with predatory leaves dispute The ambience of moist air, that, like a lens Gathers and concentrates upon the fens Rays fiercer than our planet’s denizens Have ever known. See, in this carnival Of lush proliferation, how the tall Lycopod drinks the light and steals the breath Of humbler creatures stifling underneath Her dome of shade; and how the gorgon hair Of Sigillaria with aerial tresses Sucks moisture from the sodden swamp’s recesses, Then droops to earth to find new foothold, where Fanwise the fern-frond sways, and epiphyte In crevice of bark or mossy fork entreed Drains the sap blindly creeping toward the light; How, in this world that knows nor flower nor seed, The sexless spores shed from green leaves and breed, Unravished by wantoning of breeze or beel Yet wingéd life there is: from tree to tree Bright Archeoptilus, like a dragon-fly Rustling his gauzy pinions, quivers and flits, And clouds of locusts darken pools of sky Reflected in the coal-swamp’s inky pits; While spider, roach and cricket grave their trails On the smooth mud-bank’s palimpsest, and scales Of armoured ganoids gleam as each pursues His prey of shrinking molluscs in the ooze. So, on that dreamlike world, deep silence broods For all its restless vehemence—save when floods Of swollen sea, bursting its bars of sand, Surge through the estuaries and drown the land, Through creek and channel curiously creeping, Brimming the lone lagoons with brine, and seeping To rot each rootlet with a salty kiss, Till the whole forest wilts and perishes! And see how, revelling on that poisonous tide, The plunging shapes of sea-born creatures ride; Shoals of lean sharks, with crushing pavement-teeth Explore their new-found pastures, and beneath Ridges of shell-bank delve with routing heads To crunch the blind crustaceans on their beds! Time and again, the inflowing salty tide Sickened those forests, and the green trees died And fell and rotted; in the age between, Time and again, they quicken with new green, And coldly by their chlorophyll, encage The sunlight that shall warm a distant age. _And now (it is almost as if the Earth herself grew intolerant of these endless alternations of growth and decay that seem to lead nowhere) a new cataclysm shakes those regions of drowned Atlantis from which the bastions of Armorica still tower unsubmerged. From their bases an earth-wave spreads Northward, rippling the ocean-floor, and breaking, at last, on the rudimentary ridge of the Malverns, which it overrides with so great a pressure that their basalt is buckled and curled over to enfold the verges of the coal-swamp. And now that this barrier has been lowered, torrential floods, charged with alluvium from the flanks of the quiescent Western volcanoes, pour into the swamp and seal it; and later, amid these flats of solidifying sand, which resemble those that surround the Dead Sea and the Caspian, there is born a pellucid lake; and the water sucked up from that lake in innumerable summers descends as rain, so that the basin, extending its margins by constant erosion, at length breaks its banks and lets in the Sea of the Oolite, warm from the tropics and rich with new forms of life. From the borders of that sea the Chant of the Fourth Age is heard._ Beneath my corals, locked in death Of ebony, the coal-swamps lie; And, for an age, no living breath Ruffles my tepid air or wakes The slumber of my silken sea— Till, sudden from the silence, breaks The Scherzo of Time’s Symphony! Now behold the labouring Earth Delivered of a monstrous birth, As from creative fancy swarms A welter of fantastic forms: See, where the fruitful sea impinges Upon my sands, the palmy fringes Of cycads thrust their clustered spears, And forests of flowered conifers In myrtle and magnolia mingle Honey and resin. On slopes of shingle The crocodile with languid eye Stares into a steamy sky, And wandering through cypress-groves Nightmare creatures of this age Make their gigantic pasturage Or celebrate their monstrous loves: Here, with deliberation, moves Bird-footed Iguanodon To curve his slender neck and slake His thirst within the Wealden Lake Or pools where Ichthyosaurs and lithe Water-serpents swarm and writhe, And through the blue-green opal gleams The moon-pale radiance of the chalk; Or sprawls where Pterodactyls stalk And, lighting, furl their bat-like wings To stamp upon the forming cliff Their footprints’ feeble hieroglyph. Inland, ravening forest plains, Hear the more formidable brood Of Dinosaurs crash through the wood, Rending their unsuspicious prey With sabred fangs and vulture claws, Or, if a rival bars their way, Engrappled with ferocious jaws; While, at the first loud challenge flung, Fleet marsupials pouch their young And scatter, like the animate spray Of flying-fish when dolphins play; And every beast that feels the ground Shudder with clash of armoured sides, And heaven shaken by the sound Of those tremendous battle-cries, Cowers in the trampled fern and hides Until the deadly work is done, As the vanquished roars and dies And the dazed victor stumbles on. So, in those resinous woods, and glades Of honey-sweet magnolia, fades This pageant of fantastic Time: The mailed reptiles sink to slime: Dinosaur, Iguanodon And Pterodactyl, all are gone, And o’er their unrecorded grave Shimmers again the lustral wave. _This is indeed the greatest deluge of all. Unceasingly the chalky seas pour out of the Asian tropics through the gulf of Greenland, until all that remains of the British lands, over which the great reptiles roamed, is an archipelago of islands—the greater of which are based on the Grampians, the Snowdon massif, the Brecon Beacons and the Carmarthen Vans. In the strait between these and the perdurable Armorican granite, the white dome of the Weald uprises, then sinks, and then reappears as part of a promontory jutting Northward from what is now the European mainland, presenting the profile of a human head in a peaked hood, and vaguely foreshadowing the shape of the British Isles._ _But this promise, too, fails of fulfilment. Fire’s last and most violent protest, launched from the volcanic chain that bounds the North from Antrim to Hecla, overwhelms this rudimentary Britain in a flow of lava—and all that can be seen is an inferno of fire and water fiercely contending. When the lava-flow cools and sets, rains furrow its slaggy surface, and, streaming Southward, carve out of the silt left by the last sea, the courses of two great rivers. One, impeded by Pennine, sweeps over the bed of the Irish Sea and flows into the Atlantic; the second shies from what remains of the Malvern ridge to break through the Southern Cotswold and join the Channel. Though it is still part of Europe, the shape of Britain begins to define itself and the Chant of the Fifth Age is heard._ From Ushant unto Orkney spread Green lies my land, new-forested With oak and ilex, birch and ash, Made musical by streams that splash To silence in their river-bed. Green lies my land: a temperate air Wavers and wanders everywhere Through wood and marsh and water-meadow. To dapple with a moving shadow Of cloud the downland bare. Green lies my land: from dusk to dawn Peace broods upon the forest lawn, And ever mistier starlight spills Its silver on sleep-folded hills, Till darkness be withdrawn, And my bird-nestling woodland wakes In tender tremolos and shakes And muted whimperings that fill Its leafy clerestories, until Morning’s full music breaks. Hear my woodlarks, tossed in bright Fountain-jets of sheer delight, From their palpitating throats Let fall a shower of limpid notes Like raindrops sprayed with light, And sinking on extended wings Bestir the thrush to murmurings Of sweet, reiterated phrases, While the bolder blackbird raises His orange bill, and flings Reveille through the echoing wood Waking the drowsy multitude That through the tapestry of leaves A web of tenderer music weaves Till noonday silence brood Unruffled on that leafy sea Save for the drone of honey-bee, Or doves that croon, or whispering Of branches where the squirrels spring Nimbly from tree to tree. Yet ever, from the whirling snows Of deserts where the ice-wind blows Cutting the tundras like a knife, A slow tide of warm-blooded life Into my pleasance flows: See the light-stepping reindeer nip Young lichens with a velvet lip, While herds of roes and dappled fallows Pause to drink from minnowed shallows, Where hare and marmot sip Dew from blades of springing grass, And in the bittern’s moist morass, Knee-deep, with antlers tossing high, The red stag roars his rutting-cry, And droves of lemmings pass: Like calm thoughts in a dream they roam, Seeking an unimagined home; And the brown bear’s inquiring snout Snuffles and sucks the sweetness out From the wild-bee’s honeycomb, Where, deep in sunless forests, grey Rhinoceros and mammoth stray, Brushing bent saplings from their knees, And through the wrack of shattered trees Forging their ruthless way. And when the pride of day is done, Creatures that in the friendly sun Browsed without terror, rise and slink To reedy waterpools and drink Timidly, one by one. Beneath the dark’s protective shield, In thicket, bush and brake concealed, They sink and cower out of sight, When the fierce hunters of the night Breathe fear upon the field; When, from her caverned resting-place, The tigress, with deliberate grace Steals, and the lion licks his jaw And yawns, or with a curving paw Washes his golden face, When startled on the darkening plain The wary aurochs shakes his mane, And stamps and snorts and sniffs the airs That eddy from the charnel lairs Wherein their cubs have lain. Through wood and weald and waving grass The hunters and the hunted pass; And mingling in this carnival, A shape more terrible than all, Deadliest that ever was, Man, with soft skin and brittle bone And puny sinew, hunts alone, In his brain’s many-shuttled looms Weaving more complicated dooms Than life had ever known; In his dim armoury of wit, By fear’s imaginations lit, Fashioning pikes of wood and bone, Flint-headed lance and throwing-stone, And thongs for axe-heads split: Man, who in loops of springe and snare Trammels the heron and the hare, And with stone axe or bludgeon clubs The litters of blind tiger-cubs Mewling within their lair: Whose mind, more swift, can overtake The fleetfoot reindeer herds, and break In sunken pits the mammoth’s pride, Laughing to see that shaggy hide Pierced by the pitfall stake. Man, whose inventive fingers crave Perpetual artifice, and grave The imaged victims of his sleight On ivory, or the stalagmite That glazes his dark cave; Ever, with cumulative skill Sharpening his wits and flints, until Hunters and hunted wince to hear His voice, and sniff his scent with fear, And perish at his will, Or, like the wild dog, cringe and cower To serve. Yet, even in this hour Of man’s first mastery, he and they Together quailed beneath the sway Of a more pitiless power, When flying flakes of owl-soft snow Whirled from the fields of Arctic floe Weighed on the forest’s sagging crown And sent the green vault crashing down On the warm life below; And, winging these, an icier breath, Foretaste of a crystal death, Sealed the lakes in sheeted glass And froze the lemmings to the grass They nibbled underneath; And crept into foul caverns where Man, with the tiger and the bear And cowed hyæna, huddles near Fires whose very flames appear To freeze upon the air, Till, mustering his numb wits, he sees How blue-green glaciers lap the knees Of mountains, and the glacial wave Sets on the threshold of his cave, And, cold with terror, flees. Southward, to where the blood-red sun Sickens at noon in vapours dun, He stumbles with the fear-tamed herds Of savage beasts, while homeless birds Waft over, one by one. So, in dumb fellowship of pain, Man, with his victims, limps the plain; And he that lags or falters feels Ice-cold fingers clip his heels, And staggers on again, Or falling, crushed beneath the tread Of starved hordes trampling overhead, Stiffens, and still for ever lies Under the glassy shroud of ice That ceres those frozen dead. Thrice the grey glaciers melted—thrice They clamped the mammoth in a vice, Moulded the fell and scoured the plain With boulder-drift and sharp moraine, While, lost beneath the ice, Their voiceless waters patiently Furrowed new river-bed and sea, And chiselled under moving floe The lineaments of the land we know, Peerless epitome Of all sweet shapes and tender hues; Land that the girdling sea imbues With misty radiance, clothing green Mountain and meadow with the sheen Of its pellucid dews. Yet, year on year, the greedy tide Swelled from the West, unsatisfied, And ever, with impatient fret, Gnawed at the bridge of land that yet Bound her to Europe’s side; And currents of the hungry Rhine Rifted that bridge with creek and chine, Crept to the base of every baulk That propped the flint ribs of the chalk And rotted it with brine; And undermined the chalky lea Till, in a foaming ecstasy The twin tides kiss—and, like a ship That shudders from the launching-slip, An Island takes the sea! III THE COAST OF GAUL AUGUST 25TH, 55 B.C. Through years unnumbered now the Western tide Boring and fretting has poured into the breach And scoured the crumbling funnel of the chalk. And now, behold, the Kentish cliffs, clear-cut Above their hissing beaches of chesil, frown Upon a sea that knows its continents. Mark, on the Gallic shore, Two bony promontories, Blancnez and Grisnez, Resistant remnants of that broken causeway, Gape to engulf a shallow crescent of sand And one precarious roadstead: _Portus Itius_, Where, rocking at their anchors, or careened Above the driftwood tidemark, see assembled Cæsar’s diverse armada: high-pooped carracks With leather lugsails and thonged rigging, reft From the vanquished Veneti; Gaulish coracles Of hide and wattle, that like water-spiders Skim between shore and ship; lean Roman galleys, Iron-rammed and beaked, fitter for tideless waters Than these capricious surges: an ominous throng Of eighty ships and more. Here, on the crown Of Grisnez’s thrifty turf, it is so calm, So still, this breathless evening, you can hear Voices of seamen in the anchored fleet Crying from ship to ship—and from inland dunes, Where the two legions lie, an undertone Like noise of babbling water or starling-flocks Roosted in reed-beds; see, from their bivouac-fires, A dove-grey smoke-film dim the harbour’s glass Like a breath-misted mirror; smell the pungency Of woodsmoke wavering where the breath of thyme Mingles with salt marsh savours . . . It is so clear That the silken channel, shot with the iridescence Of a pigeon’s throat or milky mother-of-pearl, Swims like a tide-brimmed estuary, and the downs Beyond the cliffs of Kent float unsubstantial As layered cloudbanks. Here, set upon the summit, A group of reed-thatched hutments, ragged by the wind, Shelter headquarters; and here, that evening, Three men bareheaded walk: First, Titus Labienus, Stocky and shaggy as a moor-fed colt, Gruff-voiced, short-spoken, with decisive gesture, And a skin tanned as leathery as his tunic By three years hard campaigning in the hungry Winters of Gaul. Next, Quintus Cicero, Thin-lipped, dark eyed, and elegantly-fashioned With more Greek subtlety than Roman iron, Mocks, with the indolent flicker of a smile, The old campaigner’s earnestness, interjecting The lancet of a finely-pointed phrase That makes the elder pause suspiciously, Knitting his brows in doubt whether the word Be bitter jest or earnest,—then laugh to hide His solemn mind’s perplexities. Last, Julius Cæsar, Triumvir and Proconsul of Transalpine Gaul, A spare man, taller than either of these, whose mien Combines both qualities—the literal pragmatism Of Labienus, and Quintus’ Attic subtlety: Master of word and deed, and yet the slave Of single-minded purpose; soldier and orator, Schemer and dreamer. His furrowed face betrays Anxieties unshared; the firm mouth, faintly drooping, Ruthless self-confidence; that width of brow From which fair curls retreat untimely, carries The vision of a widening world unguessed By lesser minds; and, though he seems to heed The chaffering of his legates, and sometimes smiles When Cicero’s lazy wit pricks at his humour, His eyes, chained to the master brain behind, Brood on the silken straits, and probe incessantly The darkening shores of Cantion. He speaks: “It seems so near,” he says . . . Labienus stiffens: “So near? The width of water has been computed At thirty thousand paces—or, by the reckoning Of the barbarians, eleven leagues.” Cicero laughs: “Too wide, too far, for me! If Balbus and his engineers could bridge it As once they bridged the Rhine, I’d like it better. Give me firm land! There’s width enough in Gaul To keep my legion tramping, and enough Booty to gild the spectacle of a triumph Would make Rome yell with rapture. Why go to Britain With Gaul but half subdued? This gentle sea Fawns like a leopardess, whose very velvet Sheathes iron talons. Listen how she purrs, And licks the shingles with a rasping tongue; But when she rises, your flat-bottomed craft May feel her teeth. Why, even her monstrous tides . . .” “The tides, too, have been measured,” snaps Labienus. “At Springs, with the full moon as now, they rise To twenty Roman feet, two palms, one digit, Varying, of course, with the wind’s strength and quarter; And now there is none.” Cicero spreads his hands In a gesture that is all Greek. “No wind to-night: But what of winds to-morrow? I’m neither augur Nor seaman, and Poseidon never smiled Upon my stomach. He may have dark designs In store for us, and, speaking with respect, Cæsar, your obstinate phantasy . . .” The black eyes burn. Then smile on him. “Phantasy, Quintus, phantasy? That word is Greek. Imagination Is better Latin; and, if Imagination Set my feet on a path, nothing but reason Will ever keep them there. It’s an old tale (Your brother knows it well)—how this one image, Britain, Has lured me like a marsh-fire, ever since, Flying from Sulla’s tyrannies, I sailed For Rhodes; how, leeward of Pharmacuse, the wind Failed us, and as we rocked with flapping canvas Becalmed, a pirate galley of Cilicia Swooped, like a famished falcon on a quail, And held our souls to ransom. In that hulk, Stinking with bitumen and sun-dried fish, There was one man (or monster) whom our captors Favoured as their familiar laughing-stock: A wizened bow-legged antic, that swarmed the mast With half-articulate cries and fierce grimaces. Naked he swung, but for a leather loin-cloth And torque of iron forged about his neck; And from that torque there hung an amulet, A disk of graven metal. A hundred times With scraps and blandishments I tempted him To let me touch his trinket; and, when at last I tamed him—lo, a coin of gold, resembling A stater of Philip of Macedon as rudely As he resembled Man. Oft and again (For the time hung heavy on my hands) I pressed him To tell me whence that relic came, until One day, unasked, he blurted out my answer In bastard Greek: “From the Pretanic Isles . . .” “The Pretanic Isles,” he said, “the Pretanic Isles . . .” A name and nothing more . . . Now mark the sequel: when, our ransom paid, I landed at Piræus and made my way To the house of your wife’s brother, Atticus, There, in his library, I found an inky slave Squatting among his parchments. The work he copied Was the geography of Posidonius: And, once again, the name of Britain flashed Into my mind and stirred it. Greedily I snatched the rolls, and read them to the end: They told of a great island, forested With green woods, under skies for ever veiled In ocean mists, whose ultimate cliffs divided The Frozen Sea; of painted men who wrought Weapons of curious bronze, and threshed their grain In barns, and brewed of it a honey-wine; Of a cragged promontory, Belerium, Where troglodytes on breathing embers smelted The tin they dredged from rivulets or delved With uncouth hands from crannies of the rocks; And there were grains of gold, and pearls . . .” Cicero started: “A pearl, a pearl,” he thought. “There is the simile For which I laboured. There it lies, an island Luminous as a pearl born from the nacre Of the sea’s iris. I must remember this.” Once more Cæsar’s eyes held him: “Gold and pearls . . When one is young, my friend, intangible treasure Dazzles our sight, our fingers itch to clutch it; Yet ageing eyes see not the thing itself But what it buys—the wills of other men, With power to bend or use them; and, in the play Of restless wits that, like corpse-candles, flickered Over dead Athens, that island-image faded— While Rome, the richer treasure, dazzled me, And might have led me, blinded, to calamity Had I not found that neither birth nor eloquence Nor wealth (as witness Crassus!) can tip the beam Against the naked sword. And I had none. Therefore I left the wine of young ambition To season; sailed for Spain, and nursed my legions, And learnt the weightier art of War. Yet even in Spain Reminders of that lost image came to me, In ships that nosed the wharves of Gabes, captained By slim Phœnicians (friends of our good Balbus) Men who had seen Belerium, and trafficked Made wares for British ingots. So the vision Grew nearer and more real. And when I marched My legions into Gaul and broke the Veneti, I found their fleets were fed and manned from Britain, And that their chiefs sought sanctuary in Britain To brew rebellion. I am no mystic, Quintus, Nor Platonist; Aristotle is my master: Yet I believe my destiny is linked With Britain’s; and, to purge my mind of Britain, I must subdue it—not pursuing any phantasy, Nor slaves nor gold nor commerce, but compelled By the cold logic of necessity. Listen: To-night I hold Gaul in my hands, But as a fluttering eaglet; if I unclasp My fingers she escapes me. Beyond the Rhine Enemies far more formidable and fiercer, The bloody German horde, shadow my flank, And know (for they are cunning) I cannot venture Beyond their marches and crush them in their forests With Gaul, unfettered, rising in the rear; And Gaul I cannot wholly break while Britain Remains her arsenal: my Gallic enemies Gather the threads and weave their plots unseen In that veiled island. Gaul can never know Peace, with those German savages untamed; Yet, if I turn to tame them, I must risk War on a double front . . . This is the strategy Of all Transalpine Europe, as I read it, Now and for ever: No power that hath not gained Mastery of Britain and her seas can hold Gaul and the frontier of the Rhine. No other power, Lacking the mastery of those narrow seas, Can long hold Gaul or Britain in subjection.” He smiled. “I think you have your answer, Quintus. The sea is calm; the land-breeze stirs. At midnight We sail for Britain. The Gallic cavalry, Embarking at the nether port, will join us Tomorrow. You, Cicero, will go with me; You, Labienus, stay.” And now, before late moonrise, see the dunes Flicker with marsh-fire lanterns. On the shore Two legions stand to arms, the Seventh and Tenth, With complement of swart Numidian bowmen And Balearic slingers. Hear, as they muster, The trumpet-calls and sharp words of command, And, as each cohort forms its ranks and marches, Methodical plod of hobnails pounding shingle Or shuffling through soft sands to plunge knee-deep And launch the galleys. Hear the metallic clink Of javelin and sword on iron-banded corselets; The creaking of taut halyards in the tackle; The shudder of rowlocks and the measured plash Of sweeps that dip as one. Now, as the full moon rises, See the whole fleet afloat, and all the roadstead Rippled with broken moon-flakes: galley and carrack Burnished alike with clustered helms and eagles. Then, as the land-breeze freshens, watch them steal Seaward, between the headlands—till the chuckling Waters are silent, and the moony wakes Lost in the outer channel. Labienus, Lonely on Grisnez, saw them out of sight; Then wrapped his cloak around him, and turned, and slept. And, as he slept, the foremost galleys, clearing The windward headland, led the fleet of sail West of the Lodestar’s bearing, like pilot-fish Guiding a shoal of sharks; but with the dawn (Dawn ominous for Britain) the land-breeze freshened, Veering into the sun, and held the transports Floundering a league astern. On the larboard bow Unscalable scarps of chalk loomed through the mist And drove the galleys northward to a breach Where the cliffs fell away, and running surges Crashed on a shore of shingle. It was a landfall To quell the most adventurous. But time pressed: Already watchful eyes, piercing the mist, Had spied the straggling flecks of sail. Already The brazen wail of war-horns drifted inland To wake the hornets’ nests; already the beaches Swarmed with blue-painted warriors and rang With battle-cries. Two galleys of the Tenth, Urged by swift strokes, shot forward, and shuddering Grounded in shelving sand. Swept by a hail Of slingstones and a whirling sleet of spears They stopped. A hoarse cry broke: “All overboard! Charge for the shore!” But not a soldier stirred. “What, would you shame your leader and your eagles, Men of the Tenth?” The legion’s signifer Clambered the bows and plunged in, shoulder-deep, His eagle held on high. Another followed And soon the shallows frothed with half a cohort Floundering and staggering shoreward up the shelf, Tripped as the undertow dragged back the shingles, Yet ever stumbling on, until firm foothold Gives purchase for the javelin-fling. And soon, Before that inexorable wave of iron Creeping from out the wave of sea, the British Quaver and break, leaving their dead awash In blood-stained foam—yet never lessening Their hail of taunts and missiles. See that drenched cohort Straggle ashore and stamp and shake themselves Like water-spaniels, laughing as they press Salt from their smarting lids and curse the plague Of gadfly missiles—yet each no sooner set Foot on firm sand than the iron habit of discipline Led him, unthinking, to his appointed place In the fixed battle-order. Now, with locked shields, The armoured tortoise crawled, when, suddenly Launched from the woods, a formidable host Fell on their flank: a charge of chariots, Fierce as a breaking coamer helmed with fury, Smote on them and surged over. Dazed and deafened By wild cries, thunderous hoofs, and the shrill whinnying Of horses maddened by lash and spearprick; blinded With clouds of javelins and spatters of sand And rattling chesil thrown from rapid wheels; Shorn from their severed feet by blades that flashed From every spinning felloe, the dwindled cohort Still held its ground—but, from the foremost rank, The maimed and dead lay strewn like corn in swathes Shed from the mowers’ scythes. And, even before The rearward files sprang forward, sword in hand, To mend the ranks and close the riven carapace Of shields, the charioteers had whirled away And wheeled behind them—and the bloody scythes Swung through the second cohort, straggling forward Knee-deep to aid its fellow! Thrice the wheeled fury swept On the linked lines of shields, and thrice it shore Through them and shredded them to particles Of stubborn valour, fighting back to back, Broken, but still unvanquished: till the British, Drunken with pride and blood, and over-eager To clinch their triumph, leapt from their running chariots And rushed, incontinent, to make an end Of the shorn fragments, battling, hand to hand, In single combat. Then the iron of Rome, Forged in the furnace of wild Gaul and tempered On battle’s anvils, proved its mastery O’er mere impetuous courage, stroke by stroke Hacking a pathway through the light-armed rabble Of Britain—till their Celtic fury spent Its vehemence, and the painted warriors Confused, ran for the chariots and scattered To shelter of their woods . . . It was a moment When, in the tilting balance, victory Lay for the taking, could but the fingers grasp it. “Pursue, pursue!” men cried: but what pursuit Of plodding foot could hope to overtake Wheeled chariots? “Where are our cursed cavalry?” The old centurions swore, straining their eyes For sight of nearing sails, but seeing only Blank waters lashed by ever-rising wind And not a sail in sight. That night, the legions Dug fosse and vallum, and entrenched a camp Foursquare above the beach, hauling their galleys High on the shingle, while the transports rode At anchor, where they had grounded. On the morrow There came an embassy from the chiefs of Kent Entreating Cæsar’s pardon for the hot-headedness Of their impetuous youth; offering hostages With full submission; humbly beseeching The grace of an alliance and protection Against more savage neighbours. Cæsar listened Gravely, and granted all. It was the story Of Gaul again: for every word betokened That malady of which the Celtic spirit Sickened—those jealousies of tribes and feuds Of princes which had lately rotted Gaul And, shrewdly fostered, might soon deliver Britain Into his hands with even scantier shedding Of Roman blood. Therefore he frowned, and bade them Bring in their hostages, fencing, with words, for time And kindlier winds, knowing (as they knew not) That, without cavalry, he could neither master Their chariots nor keep what land he held. But, on the third day, when the tardy convoy Dipped like a flock of kittiwakes in the troughs Of off-shore waves, he saw the reefed sails suddenly Gybe, put about, and scatter, till all were hidden In white spume shredded from the outer sea; And, that same night, the risen North Easter, stiffening To a full gale, drove the full moon’s spring-tide Over the roaring chesil, to brim the fosse, And breach the parapets, till the camp was drenched Knee-deep in icy brine—while wind and tide, Rioting together, snatched at the grounded galleys With fierce teeth, tossing them like windlestraws To crash on grinding shingle; and half the carracks Carried away their anchors and were spewed Out of the channel’s throat or, caught abeam, Flung through mid-air and cast above the tidemark. So, through the dusk Of stormy dawn and moonset, Cæsar saw Only grey desolation: half the fleet Vanished or stove or floundered, and, of the rest, Not a third seaworthy. Shivering in their camp, Amid salt-sodden victuals and quenched embers, The legions murmured: “Better we had stayed in Gaul Where, at the worst, an army can draw back Upon its bases, than have hazarded Starvation on this barren shelf of sand, The impassable sea behind us, and before The bloody chariot-scythes!” And others cried: “We are lost: the unpropitiated gods Of these barbarians scourge us. How should we Who are mortal match our valour against mysteries Of air and water? Ay, and where is the plunder With which we were lured: the vaunted gold and pearls Of Britain; the rich pastures, the sleek herds, The white-armed captives? There is more tangible loot In one square league of Gaul than in all Britain! Say what you will, our leader’s wits have erred, Tricked by the malice of some jealous god Who grudged his easy triumphs—and we, chained To the falling star, fall with it.” So the camp Seethed like an ant-nest, till the centurions Brought word to Cæsar’s tent: and he, straightway, Summoned the mutinous troops with trumpet-call To stand to arms, and held the murmurers clamped In rigid ranks of discipline. Some of the Tenth He set to salvage of the wrack, and gathering Of broken flotsam; shattered spars and timbers Tumbled in the waves’ wash, and floating sweeps And nests of tangled tackle. Others, more skilled In the shipwright’s craft, caulked bulging seams and botched The riven hulls with bolts of copper hammered Out of the driftwood—till the beaches rang With busy adze and matchet and the blithe voices Of men heartened by toil. The Seventh Legion, Screened by a single maniple, marched inland, Scouring the woods for fuel and seeking grain To eke their ruined rations; and now the sun, Which had withheld his blessing from that scene Of comfortless frustration, broke through and flooded The mournful land with light, and every heart Quickened to feel his warmth and see the fleets Of dazzling cumulus scud through a lightened sky And a sea no longer sullen-faced, but dancing With gay sapphire and crisped by wavelets capped With joyous foam. Even those sombre woodlands Of oak no longer boded ill, but showed Through sunlit glades the green of pastures, misted With ivory of meadowsweet, traversed by streams Winding through minty marsh-land, and the gleam Of cornfields ripe for harvest but unreaped That rippled like the sea. Then, as a flock Of noisy daws swoops on a stubble, the Seventh Broke ranks and scattered, and fell upon the corn With swords for sickles, boisterously calling And laughing as they reaped. Some, faint with hunger And lack of sleep, sprawled on the headlands, lazily Watching their comrades toil; others, who reaped, Stripped to their woollen tunics, shed their armour And piled their shields and javelins in the shade, Unwary, not unseen . . . For this fair day Had brought new hope to Britain. From the downs Above the ravaged cornfields, and from the cliffs That frowned upon the beaches, watchful eyes Marked the wrecked fleet of Rome, and saw their enemies, Disarmed and unsuspicious, pillage their harvest. And, swarming to their camps, the headier youth Called on their faint-heart elders to send no more Hostages, but rather, summoning strength and courage, Fall on the crippled foe and hurl him, broken, Into the sea. So, in the heat of noon, When broom-pods crackled and the slumbrous crooning Of stock-doves in the drowsy woodlands lulled The harvesters to stretch their limbs and sleep— Deep in those silent woods, their footfalls muted By felting of soft leaf-mould, horse and chariots And spearmen mustered; all the armed might of Kent Waiting upon a word; and, that word spoken, Whirled through the hapless reapers like the wind That wakes a thunderstorm. But that storm broke Before they knew it near . . . A mile and more away On the busy beaches, deafened by the sullen Pounding of the spent sea and the perpetual Brisk clatter of adze and hammer, Cæsar heard Naught of this sudden onslaught—yet, forearmed By that taut wariness which is the instinct Of the tried soldier, and ever glancing inland, Suddenly saw the dark woods topped with clouds Of turbulent dust churned from the chariot-wheels Of the invisible battle, and instantly Called out the guard, two cohorts of the Tenth, And bade the rest equip themselves and follow As swiftly as they could. Another moment, And he had been too late! Even as he reached The trampled corn, reft fragments of the Seventh, Like empty husks whirled from a threshing-floor, Streamed back to meet him—nor could he hope to stay The rout, but opened ranks to let them pass Through his advancing cohorts—then closed the ring Of iron shields behind them, and stubbornly Fighting a rearguard action, foot by foot, Withdrew within the camp. That night, two ships, The remnant of the storm-tossed fleet of transports, Made land, and disembarked a single squadron Of sick, bedraggled cavalry, but not a bale Of stores, and only scanty, salt-spoilt forage. And now, the long storm spent, motionless clouds Drank up the moonlight and, in darkness, drenched The huddled legions: two days, unceasingly, A pitiless rain came down, and fouled the camp With trampled quagmire—and still the tattered sky Hung black with unshed water . . . “Autumn has come,” The old men murmured. “Ay, and if this be Autumn, What danker misery faces us? What of Winter, When, as they tell, the sun is hardly seen And the rain never ceases, and the waves Are never still? If we must die,” they cried, “Then let us perish in Gaul among our comrades; Or, at the worst, go forth and fall like men, Fighting, rather than perish like clemmed rats Drowned in their holes!” Hearing these murmurs, Cæsar Held conference with his legates—more to test The legions’ dubious temper than to take Counsel—and, in cold judgement, struck a balance Of loss and profit: First, twelve ships destroyed Or wrecked beyond repair; of men,—two cohorts Lost or put out of action, and the rest Weakened by want of food; of booty—nothing; Of captives—but a handful of ragged hostages Unfit for sale or triumph. Against these Debts of misfortune, he set some solid gains: Much bitter knowledge of the island’s crags And hazardous landings; more of its evil tides And freakish climate; most, of its natives’ mettle, That breathless valour which gave the British chariot (A weapon old as Troy!) the mastery Of men who fought on foot; something, again, Of Britain’s weaknesses—her lack of leadership, Divided will, and dim-witted neglect To man her invulnerable moat and stem Invasion on her seas; enough, in all, To make the prospect of a second landing, With stronger force of cavalry and more propitious Season, secure of victory. This year He could not conquer Britain; but, lest his men Should carry back to Gaul the bitter aftertaste Of failure, and the enemy reap unmixed Glory from their retirement, he determined To offer battle. No bloodier day than this Had ever dawned on Britain. Hour after hour, Gigantic in white sea-mist, wave on wave Of British chivalry, their horses spattered With flakes of blood and foam and terrified By fierce cries, cast themselves on the locked shields Of Rome—to be tossed forth like broken water Spewed from a basalt cliff, and then sucked seaward To gather from the deep new spite and strength To charge and charge again. But still, at sunset, The iron wall held firm—and at its feet, Like a fringe of driftwood lodged upon a tidemark, Lay wrack of horse and horseman, broken chariots, Cleft helms and twisted weapons—all the bronze panoply Of Britain dashed to pieces! And in the night, While the bruised Britons licked their wounds and wrangled Over new means to breach the wall of shields Or sap its stubborn bases, the worn legions Hoisted full sail and manned the galley-sweeps; So, in the darkness fading like a ghost, The fleet set course for Gaul, leaving their fires To burn out, and their very dead unburied In the deserted camp. And when the sun Rose on the reddened beaches, all were gone. IV SONG OF THE DEAD MEN ON BREDON A.D. 55 On Bredon Cloud the starveling grass No echoes made To hooves in loose-reined canter threading The firwood’s needly shade To where an earthen rampart, ledged Like a peregrine’s nest High on the badger-scrabbled scarp, Brooded on the West. Statue-still at the falling brink My horse and I Paused, in an element that seemed Neither of Earth nor Sky; While downward-plunging sight, through glaze Of denser airs, Marked tower and steeple blossom-misted In Avon’s steely snares: All that dry firth where salty tides Once inward swirled, Breaking on basalt barrier-cliffs Of an old western world. So still that air, so mute that hour Rapt and sublime, The solitary mind must turn To thoughts of Life and Time; Yet, meditating, never guessed How near beneath The rabbit-nibbled sward lay strewn A hecatomb of Death; Herdsmen, who on that airy dome (Alas, in vain!) Sought refuge from the treacherous woods Of Severn’s firth and plain, Pastured their lank-ribbed beasts and wrought With pick and spade Rampart and fosse and guarded gate, And dwelt there, unafraid; Yet woke, one startled midnight, blinded By fire and blood; Swarmed to their broken gates in panic, And perished where they stood. Axe-cloven skull and splintered thigh, Those dead lay prone Till kites had pecked the marrow out And wolves gnawed flesh from bone; Till greedy beak and claw had stripped Their carrion prize, And wood-wolves sniffed in vain to sate The hunger in their eyes; Till blistering sun and icy wind Bleached the bones dry, And only brittle fragments crumbled Beneath the empty sky; Till wind-blown dust and sailing seed Silted between, And wove about the mortal wrack A soft shroud of green; Till, a palm’s depth new sward beneath, Those dead men lay Flattened, like shapes of Pleistosaurs Locked in the Lias Clay . . . Two thousand years the missel-thrush His challenge loud Flung in the teeth of Winter riding On banks of snow-black cloud; Two thousand Springs the risen lark In twittering flight Rained there on hand-clasped lovers’ ears His ripples of delight. Lirra, lirra, trills the lark, While lovers list, Finger to lip, that silvery shower Filtering through the mist . . . That day I rode on Bredon Cloud Loud sang the lark; Yet a shadow of undiscovered dooms Made my mind dark; My horse, too, trembled and snatched the rein, Restless to depart, And the shiver that spread from his body to mine Troubled my heart. So I turned his head from the hidden death And rode like the wind, Galloping back through the firwood shade, But dared not look behind. What was it plucked at my heart that day With fingers cold? I cannot tell . . . I only know That Man’s mind is old, And the memory of Man a mystery: That in my veins There may run, (who knows?) the blood of one Who fled that night to the plains; That, in my brain, some timeless cell May still be endowed With a dim dream of the massacre That reddened Bredon Cloud. V EPISODE OF THE GARRULOUS CENTURION _Middle England, A.D. 78. The Scene is on the Southern boundary of the country of the Cornavii, fifteen miles North of the settlement of Glevum (Gloucester). To modern eyes the landscape would be almost unrecognisable; for the shrinking Severn Sea still retains its estuarine character, and the Hams of Severn are huge mud-flats, submerged, at Spring-tides, by the Bore, and scattered at low water (as now) with flocks of waders and other water-fowl._ _On the left bank of the river, a dense bush of dwarf oak and ash and holly covers the triangle between Severn and Avon; but West of the greater river the woodland lies more open, with grassy slades, in which herds of roedeer are grazing, interspersed with vivid green patches of swamp. The only familiar features in this countryside are the summits of the hills that bound the plain: the wide dome of Bredon, with the ramparts of a deserted camp crowning its escarpment, and the serrated outline of the Malverns rising stark from a sea of forest which overflows their Northern prolongations, the Ankerdine and Abberley Hills._ _On the Southern slope of Bredon, in the midst of a considerable clearing, stands a solitary white habitation: a small, half-timbered villa, consisting of a long, low range of rooms facing South, with a covered terrace in front of it, an entrance in the middle of the façade, and two wings protruding at right-angles to enclose a courtyard (or farmyard), in the midst of which stands an ornamental well-head, with a wrought-iron pulley and tackle for hoisting water._ _On this terrace, enjoying the air of the early autumn evening, walks the owner: a small, spare, rustic figure, with a round head still covered by a close crop of white hair—a time-expired centurion, named Caius Petronius. He is shod with laced sandals of ox-hide, home-made, with the hairy side outward; and wears strips of wool wound round his legs like puttees, and, above these, a short-sleeved coarse woollen tunic, open at the neck and loosely girt about the waist by a belt of leather. As he walks to and fro, like a ship-master pacing his quarterdeck, his eyes rest idly on the moss of rank forest that clothes the plain at his feet; but, at the end of one turn, he stops and shades his eyes to focus a trail of dust which he has seen slowly rising and creeping forward above the treetops. After a moment he hurries to the door of the villa and shouts instructions in Latin to the slaves at the back of the building. Then he tucks up his tunic, tightens his belt, and sets off, with an agility remarkable in a man of his age, down a steep path which, judging from the direction of the dust-trail, seems likely to intercept its course at the foot of the hill. And indeed, as he reaches the level, well in front of the advancing dust, he steps out on to a rudimentary road, which has once been metalled but is now overgrown with grass. Here he stands waiting, slightly out of breath from his rapid descent, until he hears the sound he has been expecting, the rhythmical plodding of hobnails, and sees, in front of the dust, the head of a column of soldiers slowly advancing and led by a tall young man, more lightly and elegantly clothed: a subaltern commanding a vexillation of the Twentieth Legion. The young officer wears a plumed helmet of bronze and carries no shield; and his sword, longer than those of his detachment, is slung from his girdle. As he approaches, the old centurion hails him cheerily, and holds up his hand; and the optio, returning his salute, calls his men to a halt. Caius Petronius speaks._ Hail, comrade! Welcome, and welcome again! Do you know, When I saw your dust topping the woods by Severnside I said to myself: “By Hercules, there’s a draft Coming up from Glevum!” And that’s a rare thing nowadays— Though thirty years ago, when we made this road In the time of Caratacus, it wore out some shoe-leather And no grass ever grew on it! Why, not a day passed Without troops on the march; while now . . . But bless my soul, You don’t know who I am! My name’s Caius Petronius, Centurion of the Third Cohort of the Second Augusta, Time-expired these many years. And yours? Claudius Terentius? Terentius . . . Yes, I remember a man named Terentius; But he was a Thracian horseman, while you are Italian: That’s easily known from your speech, and damned good to hear In these days, when the legions are stiff with barbarians Who can’t speak articulate Latin. So you’re in the Twentieth, Valeria Victrix? Oh yes, _I_ know the Twentieth: They’re old comrades of ours: came over from Gaul with us And the Fourteenth Gemina in the year of the big invasion Under Aulus Plautius—but the Fourteenth Gemina, Or all that was left of them, were transferred to Armenia Soon after the trouble with Boudicca. That’s a long time ago, And you’ve probably never heard of it. Still, ours and the Twentieth And the poor old Ninth are regular British legions: And I always say, no man who hasn’t done service In Britain has any right to call himself soldier. Well now . . . We’d better step to it. The sun’s nearly down. The best thing you can do is tell your lads to fall out And bivouac here. They’ll find plenty of dry wood about For a fire to keep off the wolves, and excellent water. You, of course, will come up to my farm and drink something better. _Vile potabis modicis Sabinum cantharis._ What? Do young soldiers ever read Horace nowadays? I don’t suppose so. I’m not much of a reader myself; But it happens that I was born in the Sabine Hills, And the poet’s farm—the one Mæcenas gave him, To keep him out of the way as I always think,— Was near my grandad’s; and he used to drop in of an evening And spout verse by the hour, for lack of a better audience, Though the old man was deaf as a post. Flaccus must have been An odd fellow by all accounts; yet his verse has a way Of sticking in one’s head—not the odes in which he buttered Mæcenas and Augustus, but those that remind me Of the country I knew as a lad and haven’t set eyes on Since long before you were born. _Eheu fugaces_ . . . Yes, they shoved me into the army when I was eighteen, Being a younger son with a taste for women and gladiators, And because a neighbour of ours, Vespasian, Commanded the Second in those days, and promised my dad He’ld keep an eye on me. I can’t say I’ve ever regretted it, Nor yet that Fate took me to Britain. Let me tell you something For the good of your soul: When first I came here, I felt I’d slipped over the edge of the world. It was the light, or the lack of it, And the endless rain that made my heart sink to my boots; But after a while, when my eyes grew used to the change, I found this light kinder to them than the glare that beats back From Apennine rocks or the black dust of Campania; And the older I grow, the better I like it. You know, Many’s the time, when I was a lad, I used to think Summer was the only season worth living in: how good it was To wake in the cool of the morning and pick black mulberries Or figs when the dew was on them, and lie all day Under a pinetree, watching the lizards, and snaring them With a noose of grass—ay, and listening to the crickets Trilling in the ilex-woods or the wind-blanched olives Till the very sky seemed to simmer—and sometimes a serpent Swarmed over your legs and blinked with little flat eyes Before he dared put out his nickering tongue to sip At our fountain . . . Yes, yes, but when you are middle-aged And glad to loosen your belt, you begin to feel The sun a torment and Summer too long—while here It’s never too hot nor too cold. Of course there are things One can’t help missing at first. It’s no use pretending This clammy soil’s as fertile as the red Tuscan earth; And you haven’t the sense of space you feel when you see The foothills falling away from the knees of Soracte To the Tyrrhenian shore. And yet there are compensations And even likenesses . . . Do you mind if I halt a moment? Of late years I have found it wiser to take things easily Up a stiff pitch like this: the old bellows aren’t what they were. That’s better . . . What was I saying? Ah, yes, likenesses . . Observe how the land slopes downward from here to the ford By the fifteenth milestone from Glevum—in your itinerary They call it _Ad Antonam_. Now half-close your eyelids. Remark that undulant mountain-line in the West, And tell me, candidly, if it doesn’t resemble The Alban Hills where they bar the Appian Way? Now look half-left, where you see my vineyard reddened With Autumn (the vines change colour earlier here) And imagine those thorn-trees olives, which isn’t difficult In the fading light. Now doesn’t that remind you Of Latium as it did me when first I saw it? No? Well, you’re honest enough. Perhaps I’ve forgotten What Latium looks like—and I shan’t ever see it again; But that’s how it struck me, all those years ago, When my gang was at work on the road, and I built a hut Just where we’re standing now. I remember, that evening, I said to myself: “Why keep on hankering after Rome When you know very well, by the time your service is over There won’t be a living soul left there to remember you, And everything will have changed?” And not only that. During all those years of soldiering with the Second I’d seen a good bit of Britain, from Vectis, the island That guards the Great Port, to the moors of Belerium And then north again to Isca, where the legion was stationed To keep the Silures quiet; and during that time— Though it may seem odd to you—I’d taken a fancy to Britain. Why? That’s not so easy to answer; but I think the first thing That attracted me was its quietness. Of course we had fighting Now and again; but war is a soldier’s duty, And fighting’s what he’s paid for. Yet, here in Britain, Our life was secure and placid beyond measure Compared with life in Rome or even in Gaul. Consider a moment; during my forty years’ service There have been four Cæsars—and every jack man of them Has died by violence! Claudius, Caligula, Nero, And Galba. And every time an emperor’s died He’s dragged his friends to the grave with him, and left Our poor distracted Italy to be vexed By plots and jealousies, persecutions, portents And judgements of the gods: Rome burnt to ashes, Pompeii buried in pumice—while here—in Britain, Year stole on year unvexed by any violence But of our changing seasons, and not a ripple Of the storms that lashed the empire ever reached us Across the blessed sea. And, since man lives but once I think he may as well live peaceably, And no land is more peaceful than Britain to-day. Now here’s another thing that may surprise you: I like the Britons as much as I like their island. Of course you are bound to have heard a lot of nonsense About them at home, where nobody sees any farther Than Mons Albanus or Tibur; but when you’ve travelled As I have, you’ll find that (but for the Germans and Scythians, Who are utter barbarians) men are much of a muchness, And one people as good as the next. These Gauls and Britons Have ancient virtues that have grown old-fashioned in Rome, More’s the pity. As slaves they may not be so intelligent As the Greeks—but who wants to be a slave or a Greek? While as for calling them ‘bloody savages’ ‘Brutal barbarians’ and all the rest of it— That’s just the flattering writers’ way of saying What fine fellows we were for licking them—just as if We’d fought them on equal terms and with equal weapons; While, in fact, they faced us without any body-armour And with swords of untempered iron, ay, and gave us a run For our money too! If you could only have seen— As, thanks be, you probably never will now—a British host With their waving plumes and blue-painted chariots; Their rainbow-coloured kilts of saffron and emerald, Azure and Tyrian, and their helms of bronze, You’ld think you were back in the age of Troy, and wonder How anything so brilliant could have happened Under these Boreal skies. The shield of Achilles Was not more finely wrought than those which Caradoc And the Silurian chieftains bore in battle. They died like heroes too . . . No, Britons, take my word for it, Are neither better nor worse than you or me. They have their own way of life; their own dignities; Their own strait standards of honour; their own religion— Which is much like ours, by the way, though the names of their gods May be different. And when it comes to the arts of peace, Their craftsmen can teach us a lot. When we reach the farm, The wine you drink may be tart, but the cups you’ll drink from Are choicer in shape than Samian. Our greatest mistake Is our arrogance in forcing these Britons into the mould Of Rome, and sneering at all they do or make, Not because it’s worse than ours, but simply because It’s British and different . . . Suppose we quicken Our pace a little? I should like you to see The view from my terrace before we lose the sun And recline for supper. I’ve told you what I think Of the British men. But what of the British women? You’ve been warned against them, no doubt; but take no heed Of that, my boy. Should you go ramping round Like a randy young bull, it’s possible you will get More than you bargained for. If your hand is heavy You may find you are fondling a tigress. Boudicca was one; And Cartimandua, the Brigantine witch Who betrayed Caradoc another: and both were queens! But tell me: were there never such queens in Rome? Even we, in dim, benighted Britain, have heard Of Messalina’s poisons, and how she played With her poor cuckold Claudius—while Agrippina Was handy with the same medicine—as Claudius Found to his cost, and Nero might have found To his, had not another queen (and poisoner), His sweet Poppæa, taught him matricide! Yet I will tell you of one British woman Who was no queen, yet queenly in all graces And dignities. Her name was Placida, And placid was her spirit. We lived together For more than thirty years, and she is dead; (Gods of the Shades, be gracious!) but no woman Of any race could have been wiser, stronger, Or tenderer than she—ay, or more beautiful In her clean, swift youth—though beauty is a thing The memory cannot hold for long. My wife Bore me three sons. I wish they were here this evening. One is a signifier of the Fourteenth, Now on the Danube; the second a centurion In my sister legion, Adjutrix, stationed at Deva; The third, alas, had little taste for soldiering, But may go farther than either of his brothers In this long peace: he’s a decurion Of Verulamium—a coming man By all accounts, although I never see him, Being a rough old farmer. But all three Have half of Britain in their blood, and that Seems good to me. You think I’m talking treason? But then, an old man as lonely as myself, Browsing on memories, has much time for thought; And I have often wondered why this empire Of ours should have more permanence than those Which rose and fell before us: Athens, Macedon, Carthage and Egypt . . . Rome will not last for ever; And if she withers like a stricken oak, Maybe—who knows?—that which was best in her May live in lands where the acorns were scattered In her green prime—perhaps even in this Britain Which she despised. Sometimes I think I see This Island as the ultimate sanctuary Of ordered life—in which a new Deucalion Shall ground his Ark upon a new Parnassus To populate a world that has been drowned Beneath barbaric floods with the old stock Of homely, civil virtues. A new Parnassus . . . Why not? Who knows but that the Muses may find Foothold in Britain? Enough . . . This is sober talk For a lusty lad like you. Old minds are prone To meditate upon the past and probe A future they will never know—while Youth Has far too much to think of in its present, Too much to grasp, to worry about either. And here’s my villa! Note how I have placed it To catch the light from dawn to dusk. You may think The scale ambitious for a humble veteran; But old bones covet comfort. Let me tell you What fortune made me master of it. We will sit here A moment while we talk; this tawny stone Drinks in the sunlight and dispels its warmth Slowly . . . I left the legion, time-expired, Ten years ago. The Second had gone West To permanent quarters in Isca of the Silures; And we, its veterans, had been granted holdings In our old station, the new city of Glevum, To drag out our declining years—and many Were grateful. But not I. I’m a born countryman And hate the smell of towns: the city life Irked me unbearably. It was about the time Of Nero’s murder, when the Spanish legions Had lifted Galba on their shields. No sooner Had he assumed his honours than we, in Britain, To whom his name meant next to nothing, heard That he, too, had fallen: Otho and Vitellius Were scrabbling for the purple like a couple Of curs worrying a bone. We only shrugged Our shoulders—for it mattered little to us Who ruled in Rome so long as we enjoyed The peace of Rome in Britain. Then, of a sudden, Great news for me! My old friend and commander Vespasian had left Judæa to his son Titus, And marched on Rome. It seemed the time had come When quarrelsome rogues were silenced, and honest men Might get their dues. Next year he came to Britain, And halted at Glevum on his way to inspect His old command at Isca. That was a day Worth waiting for! Ha . . . I can see it now: The great brand-new forum densely lined With files of cheering veterans; the Prætorium Thick-set with spears and trumpeters—and, in the midst, That spare old figure in the faded purple Limping along the lines, his wrinkled eyes Bright as a bird’s, searching the ranks to find The face of an old comrade. When he came Abreast of me, he halted; and the old smile Lightened his leathery face: “What, you, Petronius, Old friend? I hardly knew you; for your head’s White as Soracte in Winter! Many snows Have fallen and melted there since last we met. So come this evening: we will sup together To talk of Tibur and the Sabine Hills, And make the lost years live again.” That night We talked and laughed till daybreak, happily Recalling the small things old men remember, And joking in the rough mountain dialect We spoke when we were boys—a saltier tongue Than your smooth Latin, which was the mean language Of plebs and plain-dwellers! And, in the end, He tempted me: “Petronius,” he said, “Why not come back with me to Rome? I shall have need Of men whom I can trust—and they are rare.” And when I shook my head, and told him frankly My roots were deep in Britain, he only laughed And wrinkled his bright eyes: “Perhaps you are right. My friendship may prove dangerous. But tell me, Before we part, if you are so determined To die in Britain, what can I do for you In token of our comradeship?” I had no shame In taking what he offered: I think I had earned it By solid years of service, better than many Who fawned on him like dogs begging for scraps. So, with the gold he gave me, I built this house And cleared the forest, and broke up the fields With a wheeled Gallic _caruca_ whose iron coulter Bites deeper than the share of the _aratrum_ With which we plough in Italy; and here I set my vineyard with soaked vine-shoots packed In moss that Cæsar sent me by his couriers From our old Sabine Hills, and trained and pruned them With my Calenian knife: no Britain knows The vine, or ever will. And here I have lived Eight lonely years since my wife Placida Left me. You see her tablet: DIIS MANIBUS PLACIDA ANNORUM QUINQUAGINTA CURAM AGENTE CONJUGE ANNORUM TRIGINTA. Yes, thirty years . . . The lettering Was chiselled by my foreman. So were these altars To our Lares and Penates and Mars, my patron. Nodens—that puzzles you?—is a British deity Of my wife’s country, the March of the Silures: She had great faith in Nodens . . . But sit you down. Let the dogs sniff your knees: you need have no fear of them For all their snarling looks—they know the difference Between master and slave without my telling them, And keep their fangs for wolves. These British hunting-dogs Are famous the world over. Ay, sit you down, While the girls light the lamps and cool your wine, The _vile Sabinum_ of which I spoke to you. It’s no choice vintage, but you’ll find it wholesomer And far less heady than the honey-wine The Britons brew, or even the barley-beer Which they call _Courmi_—not a headache in it! And now let your mouth water: we will dine On a fish more tasty than any bearded mullet That ever floundered in the porphyry fishponds Of the new-rich at Baiae: a noble monster, With succulent flakes as pink as rosebuds, netted By coracle-fishers in the foamy stickles Of clear Sabrina this very day. The salmon We call it. _Salmo_—the fish that leaps. You’ld know The reason for the name if once you’d seen them Hurling themselves in the air, again and again, With the curve of a Parthian bow. And after that You shall eat well-spiced venison, which that fine fellow Who licks your hand bowled over in the woods A week ago—and then a roasted pheasant Fattened in my pens. We do not fare so badly In our outlandish back-of-beyond. In Rome Such living as ours would cost a poor pensioner A mint of money; nor is my house so comfortless As the farm in which I was born. This pavement, bright With tesseræ of marble, is cool to the feet In Summer; but later in the year, when Boreas Howls in the thatch and snatches at the shutters, The hypocaust, fed with logs of seasoned oak And crackling brushwood, warms it so thoroughly That a man may walk bare-footed. I love our Winters As well as any season, though now, alas, My nights are long and lonely, and the days Seem shorter than they used to be. That is why I welcome visitors, and probably, Being old and prosy, bore them with a spate Of inconsequent garrulousness. I ask your pardon, Claudius Terentius, and will talk no more. I lift my cup to you! Dinner is served! VI HIC JACET ARTHURUS REX QUONDAM REXQUE FUTURUS . . . Arthur is gone . . . Tristram in Careol Sleeps, with a broken sword—and Yseult sleeps Beside him, where the westering waters roll Over drowned Lyonesse to the outer deeps. Lancelot is fallen . . . The ardent helms that shone So knightly and the splintered lances rust In the anonymous mould of Avalon: Gawain and Gareth and Galahad—all are dust! Where do the vanes and towers of Camelot And tall Tintagil crumble? where do those tragic Lovers and all their bright-eyed ladies rot? We cannot tell—for lost is Merlin’s magic. And Guinevere—call her not back again Lest she betray the loveliness Time lent A name that blends the rapture and the pain Linked in the lonely nightingale’s lament, Nor pry too deeply, lest you should discover The bower of Astolat a smoky hut Of mud and wattle—find the knightliest lover A braggart, and his Lily Maid a slut; And all that coloured tale a tapestry Woven by poets. As the spider’s skeins Are spun of its own substance, so have they Embroidered empty legend. What remains? This: That when Rome fell, like a writhen oak That age had sapped and cankered at the root, Resistant, from her topmost bough there broke The miracle of one unwithering shoot Which was the spirit of Britain—that certain men, Uncouth, untutored, of our island brood Loved freedom better than their lives; and when The tempest crashed about them, rose and stood And charged into the storm’s black heart, with sword Lifted, or lance in rest, and rode there, helmed With a strange majesty that the heathen horde Remembered after all were overwhelmed; And made of them a legend, to their chief, Arthur, Ambrosius—no man knows his name— Granting a gallantry beyond belief, And to his knights imperishable fame. They were so few . . . We know not in what manner Or where or when they fell—whether they went Riding into the dark under Christ’s banner Or died beneath the blood-red dragon of Gwent; But this we know: That, when the Saxon rout Swept over them, the sun no longer shone On Britain, and the last lights flickered out; And men in darkness murmured: Arthur is gone . . . VII NIGHTFALL BY WANSDYKE _Wessex, A.D. 878. The Scene is the western edge of the limestone escarpment of Mendip. It is a frosty winter evening, and the air is so dry that from this point of vantage the greater part of the swamp of Somerset can be seen outstretched from the foot of these hills to the muddy waters of the Severn Firth. At this season, indeed, the colour of the land is hardly distinguishable from that of the tidal flats; and the seaward prolongations of the Mendip range—Wavering Down, Brean and Bleadon, together with its detached outliers—Brent, Glastonbury Tor, the knoll of Athelny and the little hill of Nyland, appear as insular in character as the two veritable islands—the Steep Holme and the Flat Holme—whose dim shapes are seen in the distance of mid-channel. Apart from these elevations, the whole of the Somerset plain, from Mendip to Quantock, is an undrained morass—a vast sponge of land, over which the tributaries of Axe and Brue and Parret spread a network of stagnant water, made brackish at spring tides by the invasion of the Atlantic._ _For melancholy, this landscape would be hard to match in any part of Britain save the East Anglian fens or the mosses of Solway; and this sense of desolation is increased by the presence, in the middle distance, of the ruins of what must once have been a human habitation, now fallen to waste, which would have been covered long since by brushwood and weed had the site been less exposed to the violence of the South Wester, and, near this, a reed-thatched hovel shaped like a bee-skip, from the apex of which a thin spiral of pale blue smoke now rises into the still air filling it with the reek of smouldering turves. Outside this hovel there burns another fire of sticks, and two shaggy men are sitting by it, with thick woollen cloaks wrapped over their byrnies of chain-mail. They are, in fact, two of the King’s Thegns, or bodyguard, of Ælfred of Wessex. The elder is Ælfric, an atheling of the royal house and of the blood of Cerdic. The younger is Edred, son of the Ældorman of Wilsætan. Both are weary with their long flight from the defeat of the fyrd of Wessex at Chippenham at the hands of the Danes under Halfdene; but Edred, who sits huddled close to the fire; appears to feel the cold more keenly than his grizzled companion._ Edred: How far are we from Athelny? Ælfric: Another night Of stiff plodding over the hills, and then We drop to Glastonbury. Look . . . there it lies. The high tor marks it. If we took to the fen In these dank winter days we might well flounder Knee-deep another week before we reached Our bourne. Edred: Yet how I hate these hills: They smell Of death. See how those barrows on the down Brood over us! I have seen the like before Where I was bred, and heard the old men tell How, at midnight, dry bones that moulder in them Take flesh, and withered fingers clutch their weapons, And ghosts of dead men gibber at the doors Or sit in awful dumbness. And these stark walls That crumble behind us . . . Who knows what witchery Clings to their stones? There is a haunted chester Hard by my home at Wilton that has lain waste Years beyond reckoning—a wilderness Of dust and nettles. None of our churls dare dwell Beside it or draw near it, even in daylight; But when night falls in winter, and the wind Howls through its empty streets, the stones awaken To shrieks of woe and the loud clashing of shields, And panic clatter of hurrying feet that run This way and that in shiftless dread. . . . Ælfric: They hear The rattle of driven leaves, or pads of wolves Hunting for conies, and shrieks of night-owls harrying Their small game. Stones are speechless; and the dead That walk the night, sad souls, grow dim and falter If but you sign yourself. Edred: Yet these hills fright me. I think we must have come to the world’s end, And this bank be the brink of it. Have you ever seen A waste more threatening than this soaked marshland That lies beneath us—its net of waterways Brimmed by the red of sunset—as though they ran With the blood of an old slaughter, or foretold Slaughters to be? Why need our lord have chosen A halt unhallowed as this? Ælfric: The king was sick, And held till his strength dwindled. This is the ill That smote him first upon his wedding’s morrow And lies in wait—so that he never knows What time the blow may fall. You have seen the swiftness With which it sets on him. First his eyes dazzle; Then his head swims, and he must stagger, blind As Paul upon the road to Philippi; And eft an arrowy ache bores through his skull And splits it like an axe, and numbness wilts His thews to watery weakness, so that he halts Like a foot-rotted wether. It is a mischief That neither prayers nor leeches can allay; So lie he must until the evil lifteth, And we must tarry with him. It ill becomes A king’s thegn and thegn’s son to show such scant Forbearance. Asser, the Welch priest, will warn us When the pain’s fetters slacken. Better snatch What sleep you can, as I do; for when he rises We must plod on to Athelny. Edred: Forgive me, But I am overdone. This homeless faring Through the mired ways of Winter quenches all hope That ever was in me. It would not irk me, Ælfric, If we could see an end to it. Ælfric: It is not for us To plot the end or seek it. That is work For wits more cunning than yours or mine. Enough For us that Ælfred leads, and that we follow Our king. Edred: A landless king of waste and water! There are no kingdoms left in England now. See how the wave of heathenesse overflows And whelms them one by one! Bernicia, Northumbria, Mercia . . . Ælfric: Mercia has always played Loose with her neighbours. Mercia is English— Which is to say half-Dane, more than half-heathen. There’s not a Mercian but would gloat to see The doom of Wessex, and the Danish ravens Fattened on her torn flesh! Edred: There your teeth grit Upon the gall of truth. Our house is cleft Within itself; and how shall we of Wessex Tauten the sagging timbers—our king in flight, His fyrd dwindled and scattered? I may seem to you Redeless and callow; yet I see the years That stretch before us yawn as emptily As those drear marshlands. I think we have been born Beneath a creeping shadow, ruthless as that Which erstwhile swallowed up the morning sun And made noon midnight. We are the ill-begotten Brood of a thriftless fatherhead who, while we lay Like a litter of blind whelps, besotted with milk And sleep, gave up our birthright and let us wake To meet their reckoning. If they had stopped The first cracks in the dyke—if they had shown Their spunk and driven the first Danes from Sheppey, Or drowned them on the seas before they fastened Deep roots in Kentish earth, we might have hoped To stem the seepage. First they were only flighted Like woodcock on the North wind driven: now There is no tide nor airt that does not bring The winged helms and the red sails bearing on us From East or South or West: white Danes of Norway, Black Danes of Ireland—we are meat for all. And now it is too late . . . They have horsed themselves On the wild hengests of the Anglian woods, And sweep the land, swift as a swaling fire In a high wind. There is no inch of England From Lindisfarne to Exeter unreddened By fire and blood; there is no hidden creek But the oared dragons have thrust their greedy snouts Within it, snuffling for flesh and plunder. And God is blind or deaf . . . Minster and chantry Topple their spires together; the holy images Are hacked and hewn; Christ’s very roods now feed The fires that roast His ministers! How could this be If He had not forsaken and foredoomed us To utter loss? Why, there is nothing fair Or seemly but these heathen run to wreck it; No learning that they loathe not, and no law But they must trample on. Within their pack No man has any rights but what he can wrest Wolflike from weaker wolves than he. What boots it That our king, or another, and his wise men Have set down dooms to bind us, if the writ runs Unheeded? There is neither law nor learning Alive in England now—nor ever will be, From what I see of it. This is the end Of all our civility: Egyptian night Smothers the land; no spark will wink in it But one thin taper flickering like a marsh-light In Athelny so long as Ælfred lives, And, after that, the darkness . . . Ælfric: I am neither learned Nor over godly—but if my eyes were as yours I would liever have left them on the field at Chippenham In the last folk-fight to be pecked from their sockets By Thor’s ravens! This is a nithing’s talk. I’ll hear no more of it. If we must die, What then? Do we not know that God still whets The keen sword of vengeance on the behalf Of those who bleed for Christendom, and for a king Whom Christ’s own vicar has aneled? Our meed Is bliss in heaven or freedom on British earth. I ask none other. Whist . . . I hear footsteps. Hand to your hilt! _From the ruins of the waste villa a gnomish figure emerges furtively. It is that of a small, dark man, with a bristling grey beard. He is clothed in a leather smock, and his bow-legs are clumsily strapped with bands of the same material. Over his shoulder he carries a bundle of nets. At the sight of the two Saxons he hesitates and halts, looking around him nervously for a way of escape. The loud laugh with which_ Ælfric _greets his appearance seems to reassure him. He changes his mind and comes nearer. There is a look of shy curiosity in the black, humorous eyes that shine through his unkempt thickets of hair._ Edred, _too, laughs uneasily, and releases the sword-hilt he has grasped_. Ælfric: Who are you, churl? What do you here? The Man: What do I here? So said the cuckoo’s brat To the wagtail that hatched him! This is my own toft— Or so I thought it. I am a groovier, And delve for lead in Mendip; and now I go To snare my morrow’s meat. Ælfric: Who is your lord? The Man: The first that feeds me. We have no lords in Mendip But cold and toil and hunger. We fend for ourselves, And ask no leave of any man for the right To bide where we were born. Ælfric: Tell me your name, then. The Man: My name is Maccus, son of Rum of the Holloway. Ælfric: That is no Christian name! You are a Welchman, Or kin of Welch. The Man: I am a man of Mendip: We have no kinship with any other folk, And need none. Have you done with me? Ælfric: Wait a while! Tell me: have any Danes been seen of late About your hills? The Man: Danes? Danes? You mean Redshanks? Ay, there was a deal of that fair-headed devilry Came to the marshes back of Parret-mouth Last harvest, filching corn. You could see their fires Specking all Somerset to the fords of Severn; But none set foot on Mendip, and we took No heed of them. Ælfric: You would heed them sore enough If once you met with them! The Man: What should we fear? There is naught for them to take and naught for us To lose but our lank bones—and them they would never Set teeth on, for the hills are riddled with dens And grooves and swallet-holes where we could lurk As our fathers hid before us till they were gone. No outland folk ever abode in Mendip Longer than snow on Mayday—though, in old time, Many have come and gone again. Once, they say, Came web-foot men who propped their nests like dabchicks On eyots in the meres, and lived like herns On fish they jagged—but these were over-nesh For Mendip winters, and soon trickled back Starved to their fens. They were a sorry folk, And baneless. Next, out of the sunrise, came An angrier breed, red-maned and horsed in war-wains, Who bore the grinning heads of boars and wolves And dyed their bodies with woad. These men were tall As gods that ride on clouds above a field Of slaughter; but when our fathers hid, they fell To fighting with one another, and so dwindled Till the Romans drove them westward. These same Romans Were a cunning folk, of our own hue and kidney, Who knew the groovier’s craft, and cast the ore Our fathers found in shapes of sand and stamped it With their king’s runes. They brought their gods with them And built stone housen, and a shallow pit Where cocks and men were set to fight. Long ages They dwelt with us; then, like the swallows, packed And flew from Mendip, leaving their gods to crumble In the waste Chester; and a guileless brood, Skirted like women, with close-shaven heads, Sailed over Severn from Gwent and broke their altars, Bidding us worship a man the Romans slew, Yet found us and our hills too cold, and took Their god to Glastonbury. Next came King Ceawlin, With a wild host flaxen-haired, who swung the axe And guzzled ale like swine . . . Ælfric: Now heed your words! This Ceawlin was a Saxon, and those stout drinkers Were our forefathers! The Man: Time has ripened their sons And made them milder. It has been so with all Who ever dwelt in Mendip but us, whose roots Are tough as those of hews bird-sown in clefts And cracks of thirsty stone, and have no pride Of branch but the brine burns and the wind lops it, Keeping us hard and lowly. Your folk will last No longer than the Roman. Now come these Redshanks. They, too, will bide their while and go their ways As Merlin’s rede foretold. Ælfric: Who was this Merlin? The Man: What? Know you not Merlin? He was the wisest druid That ever wont in Britain, and this his weird: “_Woe to the Red Dragon_,” he said—and that was Rome— “_The White Dragon shall seize his lurking holes_”— That was the Saxon—“_and Britain shall lie wet_ _With night tears. Then shall the Danish wood be stirred._ _And cry, on a man’s speech: ‘Come, Cambria!_ _Bind Cornwall to thy side; tell Winchester_ _The earth shall swallow her!’ Usk shall burn seven months_ _And Badon’s baths grow cold. The bones of Kings_ _Shall bleach upon the waste. The floors of harvest_ _Shall turn again to forest, and evil weeds_ _Riot within the City of the Legions_ _And all men starve—till, out of Winchester,_ _Three streams shall break, and these three sunder Britain_ _Into three shares, and the twelfth Bretwalda_ _Shall build a fleet of ships . . ._” Ælfric: Enough, enough Of this rambling. I see no wisdom in it. The Man: It has this wisdom: that, when you are gone And those that follow you, Britain will still be Britain And Mendip ours . . . till the King come again. Ælfric: Your king is come. The Man: What? Arthur? Ælfric: He is named Alfred Of the West Saxons. The Man: I never heard that name. Ælfric: Nor yet I Arthur’s. Who is this king of yours? The Man: Arthur is gone . . . But he will come again Riding to Camelot on a May morning When hawthorn-buds are swollen, and the dykes Golden with water-blobs and fringed with spears Of yellow marsh-flags; and a glittering host Will ride behind him—Tristram and Lancelot And Gawain—to give back freedom to the earth And Britain to her own . . . Ælfric: Quick! On your knees! Here comes the King! (_Two figures emerge from the hut. The first is a cleric_, Asser, _the Welchman, newly appointed bishop of Sherborne. He is a dark little man, hardly taller than the groovier, with eager, intelligent features and a Roman tonsure. The second is_ Ælfred _himself: a fair man of slender build and middle height. His face, clean-shaven but for a reddish moustache, is still pale and pinched with pain, and his blue eyes are narrowed, as if they still feared the light, though it is now dusk. When he sees the two thegns he raises his hands and smiles._) Ælfred: I have kept you a long while; but now it is over And I am myself again. Who is this knave? Ælfric: A man of the hills. He has whiled away our waiting With his silly talk. Ælfred: Better let him be gone. I have much to tell you of what ran through my mind While I lay gripped with anguish: At such times, Though outwardly I be blinded, the inward eye Sees sharper in grief’s night, than in health’s noon; And, when pain dims the sight, that which was clouded Takes hopeful shape. And even as the burdock That soothes the nettle’s sting grows next the nettle, So, next the mischief of to-day, I have seen The healing of tomorrow. Britain is broken Beyond mending—there’s not one kingdom can boast Strength greater than another’s: therefore should those Who grudged their neighbours’ might take heart from it, Old wrongs forgotten, and clasp hands to stay The ill that threatens all. This is the time When one strong will may weld all broken folk Who share our blood in Britain—from Hadrian’s dyke— Ay, and beyond it—to the Exe, to stand By their lost brotherhood. One land, one folk Forged in war’s smithy . . . Ælfric: None will ever bring Mercia to stand by Wessex, or Northumbria To stand by either—and the East English love us As little as the West Welch. Ælfric: Your eyes are bleared By an old, backward-looking bitterness. What say you, Edred? Edred: Mayhap mine are too young To see beyond to-morrow. I can say nothing But that the King’s sight flies too far for me To follow. Ælfred: Yet you may be young enough To see the end I have dreamed of. Here’s a vision For shorter-sighted eyes. Your fathers and mine Were erst sea-faring folk who sailed to Britain Over salt water, but found so fat a living That they forgot their seacraft. Now we are tied To the plough’s tail, and dread to dab our feet In the brine that we were born to; while these Danes Fare where they will and flick at us like gadflies From every wind. Therefore, if we would thwart them, We must turn seamen. Our flat-bottomed hoys Of Frisian build can never match their longships In speed or handling—but there’s no lack of oak Nor yet of shipwright’s cunning in the coves And creeks of Britain. Our first need is ships More speedy and more heavily-oared than theirs And loftier in the bulwark, so that they loom Above their benches and they cannot board us. Such is the work that I have set myself While we lie lost in Athelny, gathering Our dwindled strength. I will build such a fleet Of ships . . . Ælfric: Hearken, Edred! This is the weird Of Merlin. Do you mind it? _The twelfth Bretwalda_ _Shall build a fleet of ships_ . . . Ælfred: Who is this Merlin? Asser: That I can tell you. He was a devilish wizard Of Gwent, who cast so many haphazard prophecies Into the winnowing wind that some few grains Of sooth still settle from his clouds of chaff And make the credulous gape. I would have burned him And all his prophecies! Ælfred: Yet he spoke truth: For I am Bretwalda—and, by the Grace of God, I will build my fleet. So, on to Athelny! VIII THE BALLAD OF ST. KENELM A.D. 821 In our sweet shires of Mercia Five blessed Saints we had; Four were proud Princes of the Church, And one was a little lad. Wistan, Wulstan, Oswald, Chad: Each hallowed Mercia’s realm; But the saint we love all others above Is little Saint Kenelm. Kenelm was but a child of seven And his father seven weeks dead, When in Lichfield town they set the crown Of kingship on his head, And hailed him as their anointed king, While all the Mercian lords Took oath to stand at Kenelm’s hand On the cross-hilts of their swords; And the bronze bells of Lichfield clanged And rocked their towers of stone, That God had sent an innocent To sit on Offa’s throne; While folk that laboured in the fields Heard the bells clang with joy, And thronged the ways to cheer and gaze On the beauty of the boy. But his sister Quendryth in her bower Brooding stayed apart; Alone she sate, with naught but hate And black gall in her heart, And a sour face thrawn with bitterness That this weak child should own The shining prize for which her eyes Most lusted: Mercia’s crown. So sent she for her paramour— Lord Escebert was his name— And whispered near his willing ear These words of dark shame: “We twain are one in will and flesh, And but for one small thing I should have been thy crowned queen And thou my wedded king; “And that small thing is but the breath Of my father’s brat, Kenelm. Give me his life, and wed me wife, And we will share this realm!” Then Escebert, her paramour, Pondered Quendrytha’s rede, And searched his mind some way to find To compass that dark deed. And as it chanced, that very month, The Lords of Mercia went To hunt the wolf in Offa’s Wood That shags the hills of Clent: A deep wood and a dark wood, For black deeds meet, where grew A brambled brash of oak and ash, Hazel and holly and yew. And when into the wood’s green heart He saw the hunters ride, Then Escebert slipped behind, and clipped Himself to Kenelm’s side. “Good Escebert, they ride too fast: Forsake me not, I pray, When through the thorns the wail of horns Shivers and dies away!” “Let them ride on, my little king: No matter how far they go, You need have no fear of wolf or bear With me at your saddle-bow.” “Good Escebert, a thorn has hurt My pony’s hoof, I fear: The dusk now broods on these wild woods And the black of night draws near.” “Content thyself, my little king, Nor dread the fading light: Full well I wot of a woodward’s cot Where we may bide this night.” “Good Escebert, I am athirst, And my tongue cleaves to my mouth.” “I know of a spring, my little king, To slake and quench thy drouth.” But when they came to a woodland brook, And the child, unaware, Knelt by the brink and bent to drink, A sword flashed in the air; And the shorn head of little Kenelm Reddened the brook with blood, While Escebert leapt to his saddle and crept Like a wolf from Offa’s Wood. Loose-reined he rode through the dark night Till he came to the hall of a thane Where the huntsmen rolled with ale and told Of the fierce wolves they had slain. “Ho, Escebert, good lord,” they cried, “Come join our wassailing! For you have missed our drinking-tryst To ride with the little king.” Then Escebert’s false cheek grew wan: “God witness what I say! I have not seen Kenelm, I ween, Since noon of yesterday, “Nor can I guess what ways he strayed: So quit your wassail-board, That all may search oak ash and birch To find our little lord!” A weary week those woods they searched By holt and holm and glade; But neither eye nor foot drew nigh The place where he was laid; And never a single whisper woke Those brambly solitudes But the rustle that spreads from the wind-stirred heads Of wild trees in the woods. (Hazel, hazel, bend your boughs Over the streamlet’s bed, And with your primrose pollen gild A halo for his head! Holly, holly, shake your branch Till the brittle leaves rain down, And weave about the dead child’s brow A martyr’s thorny crown! Cherry, cherry, shed your snow Of petals in a cloud, And on the little limbs below Spread a soft shroud! Yew tree, yew tree, over him Your funeral pennons wave; But let not your bright berries drip Their blood upon his grave, To fleck the whiteness of the shroud That the wild cherry strewed On the gentlest fawn that ever was torn By wolf in Offa’s Wood!) So home the hunt to Lichfield rode And the bronze bells clanged again A muffled toll for the innocent soul Of the child that had been slain; And folk who heard the tolling wept, For they knew what it must mean; And the Mercian Lords swore on their swords To hold Quendrytha queen. Now far away in Italy, Under Peter’s dome, Frail and old on his throne of gold Slept Paschal, Pope of Rome. A weary man, an aged man Of four score years and seven; And in his listless hands he held The Crossed Keys of Heaven. _Holy, Holy, Holy!_ The children’s voices swell, While sweet and loud, through the incense-cloud Shivers the Sanctus Bell; And as they heard the silvery chime, From the clouded vault above Like a falling flake of cherry-bloom Fluttered a milk-white dove That held a quill in his golden bill And laid it on the Host, And all the people rose and cried: “See, see: the Holy Ghost!” “A miracle . . . A miracle!” So loud a cry there broke That the old Pope rubbed his rheumy eyes And dropt his keys, and woke! And he called three scarlet cardinals To read out what was writ On the parchment folded within the quill, But they could not fathom it. “These words are writ in rhyme,” they said, “And the tongue of a far land That none in Rome or Christendom Is like to understand. “Yet all strange peoples come to Rome, So let the rhyme be heard; Some ear may catch the sound and match The sense to fit the word”: _In Clent coubethe Kenelm Kynebear lith_ _Under thorne hævedes bereaft._ Then up spoke an old Saxon clerk: “Sirs, you have given news Of the bloodiest deed that ever was done Since Christ was slain by the Jews: “That in Cowbeath, which is by Clent, Midmost in Mercia’s realm, Beneath a thorn, his head off-shorn, Lieth our king, Kenelm.” So the Pope blessed that screed, and with The ring of Peter sealed, And bade that Saxon carry it To his Bishop, in Lichfield. Then, once again, from Lichfield towers, The bells boomed overhead; And the Mercian thanes rode out again To search for Kenelm’s head; And when they came to the woods of Clent And rode into the shade, Behold—a shaft of blinding light Fell where the child was laid! So, tenderly, they lifted him And bore him to his tomb In Winchcombe, where our Mercian kings Lie till the Day of Doom; But as through Winchcombe’s mourning street They passed by slow degrees, Quendrytha at her window sate With the Bible on her knees. She read of false Queen Jezebel, And when they spied the hearse That carried Kenelm, her wicked eyes Spat blood upon the verse. And the common folk, who saw this thing, Knew what it meant full well, And flung her down into the street To lie like Jezebel; And Escebert, her foul paramour, They slew him where he stood; And those twain lay for a week and a day, And the dogs lapped their blood. But the king’s lords buried little Kenelm With pomp in Winchcombe’s fane, And built a chantry for pilgrim-folk By the brook where he was slain; And the waters that well from where he fell All mortal ills assuage— Not even Saint Thomas of Canterbury Hath greater pilgrimage Than the innocent king of Mercia That his sister’s leman slew And hid in the brash of oak and ash, Hazel and holly and yew! Wistan, Wulstan, Oswald, Chad: All pray for Mercia’s realm; But our loveliest saint was a little lad; King Kynewulf’s son, Kenelm. IX THE TALE OF ÆDWULF THE DISPOSSESSED A.D. 1080 It was the black year when King Edward died, And the Octave of Easter in April, that Wulfgeat, my father, Dragged me forth from deep sleep and flung wide the window-shutters Bidding me gaze at the heavens, and, therein hanging Bright over Bredon, the star men called the Comet Trailing its horrid tresses with such fierceness That lesser lights grew wan, as when the moon Quenches their shine. And my father said to me: “Son, this is no mean portent, but one that foreshadoweth Dooms that we dream not. No living eye hath seen The like of it since the time when Swegen and Olaf Reddened the reign of Ethelred the Redeless; And let none doubt but that God’s sword is unsheathed To flash and fall on England. Wherefore, at daybreak, We will ride to Evesham and make our peace with heaven Ere worse befall. Our kinsman, Ælfwine the Abbot, Shall shrive our souls; and I will give his Abbey The lands by the Whitsun brook and the watermill Which was your brother’s portion before he turned monk And left us.” So I, Ædwulf, arose, sore in heart, And rode with him sullenly—for, being the eldest, I grudged to see those fair fields and the watermill By the pools where I had fished for perch as a lad Go to feed the fat Abbey of Evesham. Yet was I dutiful As became my father’s son—and in aftertime Have had cause to bless the cold hand that robbed me then Of my rights; since now I would rather see them sealed In the Abbey’s honour than wrung from me like the rest By the Norman Urse and his bear-cubs! A full week The comet shone in the sky; and many were driven By dread to shiftless penitence; yet the doom Betokened fell not on them—though many rumours Ran through the shires: how that Duke William, the Bastard, False kinsman of our new King, Harold Godwineson, Denied his right, boasting he had sworn away That heritage in his favour; how William stayed Gathering sails in Normandy to swoop On England unawares, and had suborned Pope Alexander to hallow his enterprise; How that King Harold, stedfast in the certainty Of his chrismed kingship and the inheritance King Edward, dying, gave him, now swept the channel With such a well-found fleet as had not furrowed The waves since Alfred died, and his weak heirs Left half his ships to lie with rotting ribs In the Cornish creeks. Neither did these tales fright us (Mayhap King Edward’s peace had sapped our wits) Nor had we dread of foreigners: many such Had dwelt long time among us: some thanes of Denmark, Old servants of King Cnut, and some few Normans— Earl Ralph of Hereford, Richard son of Scrob, Who, riding from their towers on Offa’s Dyke (That now sprang up like mushrooms in an orchard Grazed by a stallion,) and keeping the March of Powys, Clipped the Welsh dragon’s claws and stayed his ravaging Of Severnside. Nor had we any fear Of William and his barons; since we knew Harold a proven warrior, and his housecarls Unmatched in battle. So, shriven, we slept sound While the doom-star flared beneath a waxing moon And waned to a snuffed candle-wick, and went out, And the mild, familiar stars stole over Bredon Once more from dusk to dawn. That was a season Of kindliest showers and warm sun, promising A plenteous harvest; but, when the bearded grain Bent its ripe ears for reaping, there came word That Harold Hardrada had broken forth from Norway And fallen on Northumbria, while Harold of England Now rode loose-reined to meet him. And my father, Being a king’s thane, and bounden by that honour, Took down his rusty mail and whetted the bite Of his double-handed battle-axe. Hotly I pleaded To ride with him; but he denied me, saying: “This is no stripling’s play. You are over-young For such stern service. See, I have but two sons, And one vowed to the cloister. Should you fare with me And we two fall together, who would fend For your mother and sisters? Nay, if I take the sword, Take you the sickle and tend the fields and see Our harvest reaped and garnered. If I should die In the King’s battle, then will he care for you As the son of one who served him. But if fortune Turn against Harold, remember: you are his man, And owe him a thane’s fealty till your death.” Then he spoke darkly: “These are but the first-fruits Of the dooms that star foretold. Let no man doubt That our fyrd can crack the Northmen; for we are swift In movement, and our Saxon battle-axes Bite deeper than theirs, I reckon. But if news travel By any traitorous tongue to Normandy Whispering Duke William that the English fleet Keeps not the southern sea, and that our King Speeds to the North to grapple with Hardrada A hundred leagues away, then may he catch His moment, and hurl his host on the naked shores Of Kent and Sussex—and, if that befall, Then God help England!—for no lesser hand Can save our necks from the dominion Of a foreign yoke. Such ills could never have been Were we but one in spirit; but the King’s realm Is riven by bitter jealousies and sapped By treasons that have burrowed underground Like oonts since Edward’s faltering hand forsook The sceptre for the breviary, and, fumbling For a heavenly diadem, left the crown of England Fallen in the dust while subtle foreign priests Battened on English bishoprics: Robert of Jumièges Sat throned in Canterbury, and William, the king’s chaplain, Still holds the see of London; and other strangers Have Wells and Hereford. Nor can the sons Of Godwine, the King’s blood-brothers, be fully trusted To take his part: Tostig has ranged himself With Harold Hardrada; and the Northern Earls, Edwin and Morcar, sit lightly in their saddles, Unstirrupped, to leap which side they list should Harold Falter or fall. Now all our loyalties Lie in God’s hand; and you, lad, should be grateful— Though you looked crabbed about it!—that I gave The Whitsun lands to Evesham.” So he blessed me, And spake no more, but smiled, and bade me follow him To the Manor, where my sisters Eadhild and Eadgyth Scrubbed his chain-shirt and burnished it with sand From the Whitsun brook’s bright shallows, laughing, child-like, And vying with one another for the prize Of polishing his head-piece. And my mother Laughed with her lips to see them; but her eyes Though tearless had no brightness, and I guessed Her heart was emptier than mine. And once I saw my father look at her, and her lips Trembled, yet smiled again; and she turned away Hurriedly, calling on the maids to bring Meats from her store to stuff his saddlebags With provender for the journey. Then little Eadhild Chirped like a wren: “Father! Come, father! See How silver-bright your helm is burnished. Look! You must put it on and see yourself in the mirror!” But Eadgyth sulked: “It is no better burnished Than the ugly shirt I scrubbed. See how the rust Reddens my finger-nails!” And he, to please them, With a grave mien armed himself, cap-à-pie, As the Normans say, turning this way and that To show his glory—while our great hound Bran Gazed at him with anxious eyes and thrashed his tail, Not knowing what mood could have moved so grave a man As his master to play; and the two children danced About him, boasting of their handiwork, Crying: “Rode there ever a king’s thane out of Mercia More knightly than our father? When the King sees him His eyes will dazzle! Ay, and father will tell How two small maidens in Worcestershire, Eadgyth and Eadhild, Thus preened him for the fight. But now,” they said, “We must burnish sword and axe.” And when she heard them My mother’s brows were knitted, as though her eyes Were hurt by the fancy that such gentle fingers Should handle such grim tools. So she forbade them. And now came Cerdic—he who first taught me to ride, And was our staller, a halting, bright-eyed old man With a slant mouth and a shrewd face as warty As a notched crook cut from a blackthorn thicket, leading Two saddled horses: one was my father’s grey, A Picard stallion with hot blood of Aragon Lightening his bone to fleetness, and the other Our plodding thill-horse, Grim, that was twelve year old, Slow-paced and patient-natured, having been wont To plough in the yoke with oxen—yet wise enow To guide the furrow straight if the ploughman nodded; And Cerdic held both of them dearer than his wife (Who was a shrewish body) and they, in return, Loved him as rarely, though when the grey was younger And mettlesome in mating, it had cracked a leg for him And made him limp for life! I reckon my father Was loth to tarry longer; for he kissed the two maids And swung himself to the saddle nimbly, for all The weight of his harness. But when my mother drew near He stooped, and took her face in his hands, and kissed her, But spoke no word; and she kissed him again, with closed eyes. Now I knew naught of love, being but a boy And simple in all such ways; yet I think no kiss Spoke ever deeper of love than theirs, being given Not in the heat of desire but in pure tenderness To a woman whose beauty had waned long since in the bearing Of children and homely labours. And she laid her fingers, That were roughened by toil, on his hand that held the rein, Till the tall grey tossed his head and moved on, And her hand fell limp to her side, and she turned and went With downbent eyes to her bower . . . But the great hound, Bran, who had stood With head on one side, in doubt of what was afoot, When he saw the two riders move to the verge of the woods Threw back his jowl and bayed for joy, for he thought They were going a-hunting wolves, and leapt after them eagerly With his long loping stride, till my father swerved in his saddle Halloaing ‘Home, Bran! Home!’; and the hound, for a moment, Stood still with one paw uplifted, gazing after them, Then trotted back, cowed and puzzled; nor would he heed me Howsoever I petted and called him. . . So they rode Northward; And I, with a dreary heart, betook myself To the fields of harvest and toiled there, thinking thereby To lighten my load of gloom—but all in vain. Now this was the twentieth day of September, the feast Of Saint Matthew Evangelist, and a week and a day to go To Michaelmas. Never in all my life have I seen An Autumn more richly dight; for early frost Had touched the elms, and the corn-lands of Avon Lay floored with golden stubbles. The apple-orchards Drooped with their bounteous burdens, and the wild pears Robed with vermilion flared in pyramids Of flame against the darkening woods. By night The brown owls swooped across the stars and filled The sky with whinnyings and hag-like scratches, Hunting for shrews and flittermice, so that none Could sleep for their shrill carnival. One such night When Bran was couched beside me—for since the hour That my father went he had moped all day in the hall Miserable of mute bereavement, more like a Christian Than a dumb brute, for ever cherishing A cast clout of his master’s that still kept The smell of him—on one such night, I say, In the dark of the moon, Bran started to his feet And opened his fanged throat in such a bellow As made the rafters shake; nor could I calm him, For the dog was distraught, and panted and paced the hall Like a sad soul in purgatory, dismally howling As one that bays the moon. But there was no moon . . . So at dawn my mother stole to my side and said: “What was amiss with Bran?” And I lied to her, Saying he was angered by the pattering feet Of rats in the thatch, and that bats had flown into the hall, Chased by the owls, and fluttering in aimless circles Had maddened him. Whereat the maidens, hearing My tongue stammer of bats, screamed out in fear Of the foul mice tangling their unbraided tresses; But my mother sighed and gazed and shook her head; And I ran afield rather than face her, knowing, as she did That my father had fallen . . . There were partridges in the stubble Pecking for ungleaned grain; but I never thought To set a springe for them; and the grey fisherman That pored on the minnowed shallow flapped his wings And flew unscathed to his heronry—for I had no heart To fly my falcons, though the young peregrine Was a fierce hearner. And a week passed. It was Michaelmas When the ill word came by old Cerdic, limping home With the lamed thiller, and, slung from his saddle-bow, My father’s sword and helm and the shirt of mail They had stripped, at my father’s behest, from his warm body Before they buried him. “Take these,” he had said, “To my son Ædwulf. Tell him that Harold Godwinson Hath utterly broken the host of Harold Hardrada At Stamfordbridge on Derwent, and his king Now hastens southward to uphold his rights Against his cousin of Normandy, disembarked At Pevensey. And tell Ædwulf that his hand Must grasp this sword that has dropped from mine, and wield it In Harold’s service and in the honour of England Unto his death. And so God help him!” Then I Took the sword from him, kissing the hilt, and swore To serve as my father had bidden me, and put on My father’s helm and byrnie, and strode to the bower To tell my mother; and she, first seeing me Loom in the doorway with the light behind, Thought it had been my father, and stretched out her hands To clasp me, crying: “Dear love, art thou come indeed? I had thought thee lost for ever and my heart was broken.” Then little Ædhild laughed: “This is not my father, But brother Ædwulf. I know him by the brown mole At the side of his nosepiece.” And I cried: “Mother, It is I . . .” But she thrust me from her in anger. I think She never forgave me the trick I played that day, Though indeed it was no trick, but the thoughtless vanity Of a youngster pranked in armour. She was a strange woman, Kin to that lady Godiva, wife of Earl Leofric, Who rode stark-stripped through Coventry; and I never knew her As a son should know his mother; for all her love Had been given to my father, and none left for her sons, And I never saw tears in her eyes but on that one day. Thus, on the morrow, I went from my home, ill-mounted For a thane and a thane’s son, on the halting thill-horse, And Cerdic behind me, riding on a shaggy pony That was half-Welchman and barely broke. Old Bran Watched me go listless; for his spirit was gone, and the ribs Stared through his brindled hide. One look he gave me Of neither joy nor pain; then dropped his head On his paws and blinked his eyes. Four days we rode Clean over Cotswold to the cold clay stubbles Of Essex, where Harold lay gathering his powers At Waltham Holy Cross. And though doom still darkened My mind, yet must I grant that this sudden journey, With the glory of battle before it, quickened the blood Of a youth who had never ranged farther than Worcester, and now Beheld the world opened wide, and had come to manhood And the pride of arms in a single hour, and for copper Bore gold in his purse. So, when I rode through the city Of Oxford, it seemed to me gowned merchants gaped To see so gallant a warrior, and maidens stared At my tall helm, smiling kindly—though, like as not, They were wondering in what outlandish wood or waste Of uttermost Mercia this uncouth stripling-in-arms Had gotten his horse from the tail of the plough and dragged His shaggy hind to follow him! On the fifth day we came To the new Abbey of Waltham, where I did homage To Harold of England; and the King, in requital For my father’s blood, gave me, by writ and seal, Seizin of all his lands, free of redemption; Yet he hardly looked at me—and I who had yearned To see him royally robed in ermine with a gold crown On a high throne, saw a plain man, no taller than myself, Wan-featured, haggard-eyed, and garbed not in gold But in a woollen shirt, such as my mother wove, Bearing no token of kingship: and I felt I was cheated, Like a child, when minstrel and mummer come not at Christmas, Being mired in mud or snowdrift. But two things I saw there Bide with me yet: how, first, in the hush of evening I saw the King walk with a woman in the closed garth Of the Abbey cloisters. Never had I dreamt such rareness In shape or hue as hers—for her hair, unbraided Shone like wind-rippled barley, and her throat Showed moonpale in the dusk as doth the wild cherry Or March windflower in Werewood; and when she bent Her lissom body toward him she swayed like a birch-tree Or aspen puffed by a gust of April, that curtseys But to recover; and when they walked more swiftly She seemed to feather the earth rather than tread it, As doth the lightfoot plover that skims to her landing And runs before she lights. So, when I stood ravished By her beauty, and asked her name of a man-at-arms Who stared beside me, he laughed: “What? Have you not heard Of Eadgyth Swan-neck, the King’s paramour? It is she— And a tastier morsel, I reckon, than the Welch King’s widow, Who is his lawful wife! See what it is To be a king, and gobble the first dainty That whets your fancy!” And I, having been nursed In the rustic modesty of my mother’s ways, Felt shamed by the King’s lightness, yet, no less, stirred By the warmth of his dalliance. Next, I remember How, on the morrow, Harold, with kingly pomp And lordly company, paid his last penance, Laying upon the high altar a rich oblation Of treasure, and holy relics reft from the shrine Of King Edward in Westminster. Humbly he prayed For the grace of victory, vowing, if that were granted, To be God’s ransomed servant all his days. Then turned he to depart; and the black-robed canons Slow-footed followed him under the new-cut ashlar Of their pillared nave. But when he came to the galilee Where the Holy Rood of Montacute fronts the West, He flung himself down in the dust, and lay abased, Flat on his face; and the thorn-crowned head of Christ Bowed sorrowfully above him and bent downward, As though the carved lips murmured: “It is finished . . .” But this omen the King saw not, though Thurkill, the Sacrist, Marked and remembered it; and Harold, for sure, Thought that his prayer had been granted; for now his face shone Like that of a saint in glory, and the splendour Of its majesty overbore me through all that day While we rode to the city of London, and crossed the bridge Where grim heads of traitors grinned from the parapet Of the gatehouse, and a gay throng babbled about us, Noisy as crows at Craycombe in their nesting When the twigged trivets are tossed, and the March wind Roars through the naked wood. Six days we tarried In London, undetermined; for Gyrth, the King’s brother, Earl of East Anglia, withstood his purpose To fall on William with that dwindled host, Hard-ridden and battle-weary. “Rather,” he said, “Let me ride forth short-handed, and call the Norman To single combat, seeing I am not bounden By any oath of homage, however given, So risk no charge of perjury; and if he disdain To lift my gage, then let me harry the shires From London to the sea, and burn the harvest So that he starve in the waste!” And the court cried This was good counsel; but Harold would have none of it. “Never,” he swore, “will I burn an English village Or an English house! Never will I hurt the lands Or goods of any Englishman! How should I plunder The folk who ate put under me to govern As their just King?” Thus, on the seventh day, He led us forth from London over the marshes To the white-scarred Kentish downland, pied with cloud And crisped with crinkling hoar-frost—a rare field For falconry; but by sunset we were swallowed By the forest of the Weald, where the shy roebuck Scattered like ghosts (and I wished old Bran were with me!) Till night fell, and the charcoal-burner’s fires And gleed of smelting-hearths winked through dim glades Wreathed in sweet-smelling woodsmoke. Darkling we rode Till we came at dawn to the Andrædasweald, Where a waste Chester crumbles, that was once A city of the Romans, and from the verge Of smooth downs stared upon the glassy sea Where the fleet of Normandy bobbed like a flight of mallard Floating upon a mere, and their sprinkled sails Scudded this way and that as when the breast-feathers Are plucked from a goose at Michaelmas. It was the Eve Of Saint Calixtus (though who Calixtus was Or why Rome hallowed him I know not) when, On the long ridge called Senlac we pitched our camp By the hoar apple-tree. Many have asked me What force we had at Hastings; and the Normans, To gild their own glory, have magnified our number Beyond belief or measure. Yet this I know: There were nigh three thousand housecarls, sorely-tried In the battle with Harold Hardrada, and besides Eight or nine thousand more, free men, such as I, Who had ridden from far shires alone, and many Who brought their followers: Breme of East Anglia; Esegar the Staller, Sheriff of Middlesex, Who led the fyrd of London; Ælfric of Huntingdon; Godric of Fifhide; Thurkill, the Dane, a Lord Of Berkshire; two mitred Abbots—Ælfwig of Winchester, Who was the King’s own uncle, Earl Godwine’s brother, With twelve monks from his Abbey, and Leofric Abbot of Peterborough, with his own chaplain Easric the Deacon—ay, and a dozen more Whose names I disremember. But there was none Rode from Northumbria, where the earls Edwin and Morcar Still waited on the issue. It was the East And the South that fed us with a multitude Of homespun folk who had dropped their sickles and flocked From Wessex and East Anglia, armed with few weapons But the tools of their husbandry—pikels and flails, Hayforks and blackthorn staves hacked from the hedge— And had no body-armour and no buckler But their lust for freedom and their fixed intent To rid their land of strangers. On that night Few slept, for all their weariness. I have been told The Normans kept vigil on their knees and were shriven By the fierce Bishop of Bayeux—who had better Repented his own deeds of blood than pardoned The sins of others—but we were a merry folk By nature—and the merrier that our consciences Were lighter than theirs; so, while the watchfires flared And the harps twanged, we gathered round them, roaring The battle-song of Brunanburh, and sang Of the three who kept the bridge against the Dane When Byrhtnoth fell at Maldon; and every heart Waxed great with courage of our right. So dawned The day of Saint Calixtus . . . Harold had set Our line of battle cunningly. Behind us Lay the woods of Anderida; on our right We were girdled by a sluggard stream that wound Through a sogged marsh, while on the other flank And the full front, the slope fell to the plain So steep, no charge of cavalry could breast it With wind unspent. On our right, where the brook guarded them, He had ranged his right-armed levies; in the centre Set the main battle—the iron of his housecarls Locked in three ranks of shields so densely knit There was bare room to sweep and swing the axe That had cracked Hardrada’s pride; and at their feet We had dug a fosse to cast the floundering cavalry Into confusion. Behind this triple barrier Of iron, where the thrawn crabtree stood, he raised His banners: first, the ancient Dragon of Wessex That Ælfred bore to victory at Ethandun And Æthelstan at Brunanburh, and beside it Flaunted the standard of the Fighting Man, A gonfanon of gold, broidered with gems, That drooped of its own richness. There, between them, With axe slung from the shoulder and spear in hand, Stood Harold the King, and his own kinsmen: Hakon, Son of his brother Swegen, Gyrth and Leofwine, And his uncle Æthelwig, Abbot of Winchester, The monk’s cowl tucked within his helm—the pride Of the great house of Godwine. This was the charge The King laid on us: that all should hold their ground And let the horsed Norman fury spend itself On spear and shield, until the terrible axe Had tamed it; and that none, however tempted By triumph or wrath of battle, should break his ranks, Or we were lost; for, if the shield-wall held, He knew there was no earthly power could break us, And Heaven fought on our side. It was the hour Of Prime, three before noonday, when the battle First broke. Well I remember how we had waited Gazing across the valley to Telham Hill Where they had trenched their camp, with a tower of wood In the midst; how, in the steely light of morn, Their lifted lances glinted like icicles Dripped from a thatch; how the sea-breeze, arising Wafted the smoke of camp-fires and the hoarse challenge Of their battle-cry ‘Dex aie!’, and we roared back Our own cries: ‘Holy Rood!’ and ‘God Almighty!’; How next the glinting lance-icicles melted Into an iron-grey wave that slowly crept Across the sere grass of Autumn; and how there passed Suddenly a sleet of arrows, whispering Like the wing-beats of packed starlings when they wheel Over a reed-bed—but these wings whispered Death, And one glanced from my father’s byrnie, splintering The shaft to fragments; yet I felt the blow As though a mailed fist had smitten me: an inch higher, And I had not lived to tell this tale! But now My heart, that had been drunk with the fumy wine Of war’s adventure, halted, and grew cold As that of a partridge flattened in the stubble When my falcon stooped; and I knew I was afraid Of a sport in which I was quarry; the next I knew That the grey wave I had watched was made of men Ready to slay me, who had done them no wrong, And there was kindled in me a hot anger Against these men I knew not; and its flame, rising, Consumed both fear and anger in one desire— To have at him who would hurt me; and this, I reckon Was what most men call Courage, though I was a boy And did not stop to question, only knowing I would liever slay than be slain. So I grit my teeth, That were chattering of themselves like knuckle-bones, And laughed at the splintered arrow-shaft—though verily My laugh had no mirth in it, and my lips bivered Like a child’s when the trumpet blared, and under the sleet Of bolts and arrows the Norman foot rolled forward To fall on us. Now a strange thing befell: For, through their opened ranks full-tilt, there rode An antic horseman, who threw his sword in the air And caught it like a juggler when it flashed Before him. This was the minstrel Taillefer; And, as he charged, he stood in the stirrups, singing The high song of Charlemagne, Roland and Oliver And the vassals that died at Roncesvalles. When we saw him Hurl himself single-handed on all our host, We laughed—but the fool was bolder than we reckoned, For ere the axes felled him in the fosse He had spitted one housecarl on his lance, and cleft A second with his sword. And the heavy footmen, Spurred by this crazy valour, cast themselves Reckless upon the shield-wall. Then I saw A sight of terror: the line of great axes rising, Flashing, and falling as one, and the mortal wrack Mown down before them till the fosse was cluttered With maimed and dead—and I heard the housecarls roaring “Out! Out!!” with every stroke; and the axe-heads clanged On cloven helms like hammers in a smithy Smiting on anvils; but the shield-wall, unbreached, Still fronted the broken remnant, and they fled. Then were we itching to pursue, but minded The King’s strict counsel that we should not swerve But hold our ground: and it was well we heeded him; For now, through the rout of flying foot, Duke William Launched the full pride of Normandy, lance in rest, To crash through the iron barrier by sheer weight Of metal and maddened horseflesh. Four thousand knights, Choicest of Europe’s chivalry, hurled themselves Upon us like a thunder-wind; and the dust Was churned from their thudding hooves, so that they rode Wrapped in the heart of a storm-cloud. And before them Came William and his brother, the black-hearted Prelate of Satan, bloodier than he, Odo of Bayeux, armed not with sword or lance But with maces of iron, heavier than the battle-axes The housecarls swung two-handed, yet these men whirled them With one. And round his bull-neck William wore The relics on which King Harold had sworn away (As he said) the crown of England; and behind them Billowed the banner of the Apostle, blessed By their pander, the Pope of Rome. Now in the clash Of the main battle I could see naught but a mellay Of helms that rose and fell and arms that flashed Through the dust the wind blew over them. Yet I saw That the Dragon of Wessex still flew, and the Fighting Man, Which had drooped of its weight of gems and gold, now streamed On the wind; and though there were times when the wall of shields Seemed bent or buckled, it straightened itself, and the knights Of Normandy were rolled backward down the long slope To form and charge again till their spent steeds panted For lack of breath. And once I heard a great cry Rising above the tumult, that William was down, And the shaken cavalry snatched at their reins to turn Their horses and flee; but out of the fosse’s carnage I saw a tall man arise and tear the helm From his fiery face. “Madmen,” he cried, “Why flee ye? There is death behind you, and victory before. I am living—and by the grace of God I will conquer!” So he snatched a spear from a fallen hand to rally The fugitives, and they turned; and once again His tall bare head and flushed face were lost in the dust Of battle. No doubt but the Bastard bore himself well; For, now the black destrier that the Spanish King Had sent him was fallen, he called on a knight of Maine To give him his horse, and when this knight refused it He felled him with one fierce blow of the mace and leapt To the empty saddle; and when this horse, too, fell pierced By the thrust of an English spear, he called on Eustace, Count of Boulogne, for his. Three times in all Was William unhorsed, and twice mounted; and with his own hand He slew Gyrth, the King’s brother; and Odo the Bishop slew Leofwine: So that now, of the sons of Godwine, was only one left, And that Harold of England; but him the Duke could not reach, For the King was hedged by the shield-wall of his housecarls And the swinging axes that none could pass; and the flag Of the Fighting Man still flew. So, at last, the Normans, Having had more than a bellyful, thundered back to their camp And gave us breathing-space. God knows we needed it: For the fight had been joined at the hour of Prime, and now The hour of Vespers drew nigh, and the sun that had crept Westward over the sea, now slowly sank, Staining the bloody field with a baleful light. Six hours had we fought, and the battle hung still in the balance Though the beam seemed to tilt in our favour. Sol drew breath And gulped a mouthful of muddy water old Cerdic Had cupped from the brook in the helm of some dead Breton; And as I moistened my throat, I became aware That blood dripped in the cup from my brow where a bolt had grazed it, And my tunic-skirt was stiff with caked blood that had run From a wound that ripped my flank, but I had not heeded it In the heat of battle. And I thought how strange it was That I, Ædwulf, a country lad with no care For aught but my hawks and hounds and the simple ways Of husbandry, should be sitting there on the brow Of Senlac, weary and bleeding, with the wide sea Before me, and the dark woods behind, and never a soul I knew, save Cerdic, near me. Yet before I had wiped The blood from my cheek, I heard men crying: “Ware. Ware! They are on us again!” So I dragged myself to my feet And gripped my father’s sword, though its weight seemed the double Of what it had been when the fight began, and my fingers Felt numb and nerveless. Now this, though I knew it not, Was the turning-point of the fray; for when William saw That no spite could breach the shield-wall, he contrived A subtler stratagem, and sent forth the levies Of Maine and Poitou, with the Welch of Brittany Led by Count Alan, and flung them on that flank Where the low sun beat in the eyes of the light-armed fyrd Of Wessex—but bade them let their onslaught seem Half-hearted. And when these simple country-folk Saw the French falter, they straight forgot the charge Harold had laid on them, and broke their ranks To rush upon them with their pikes, pursuing The feigned flight in a rabble. And now the Bastard, Having gotten his end and cracked the line that held The hilltop, launched his lances in a wedge That split the scattered fyrd of Wessex, and gained The vantage of ground to smite us on the side Their reckless zeal had breached. Then, then indeed Were we hard beset: for though the shield-wall swung Westward to meet them, now we faced two fronts; And the horse that swerved between us and the woods, Drove in upon our rear—so that the housecarls, Girdling the standard of the Fighting Man With steel, rose like a spray-stripped island crag Or an eyot in a mill-race; and though they wielded Their axes in the same awful unison, The shield-wall shrank and the narrowing ranks were pressed Inward upon the standards, where Harold towered Above his two slain brethren. One desperate knight, Robert Fitz-Erneis, kin to Ralph of Tesson, Shore through three ranks of housecarls, only to fall As his hand clutched the standard, and the wave Of the heaving mellay broke on him and covered him With swathes of newly-slain, and the breach he had made Was healed anew with flesh and steel, and rivetted By the valour of Harold’s housecarls, and held fast By the grace of a miracle. So we fought on; but ever, Above that changing battle, I saw two faces: The Bastard’s fiery jowl, grown black with rage, And the fair head of Harold, streaked with blood And sweat, yet ever kingly. And once again, Foiled of their purpose, the Norman horse fell back, While a crimson sunset, barred with black cloud, dyed That dreadful hill with the hue of blood and dazzled Our blinking eyes—and I prayed it would set soon And twilight bring us respite. William no less Saw how the dark might save us, and summoning His knights to a last onslaught, bade the archers Shoot to the sky, so that their arrowy sleet Beat on us from above, unseen, and centre This falling terror on that one small space Where Harold and the remnant of the housecarls Ringed the two standards. Thus, when the trumpets wailed And his knights charged on us, the air was threshed By a winged storm that smote us unawares, Soundless and shadowless, falling ere we knew That death was on us. Many a helm was pierced By shafts that dropped as plumb as a falcon stooping To kill his quarry. Many lifted their shields For shelter, and so laid their bodies bare To thrust of lance or sword-stroke. Some, dismayed, Threw back their heads to see whence the winged fury Fell, and were smitten as they stared. Three times I plucked away three glancing arrows caught In the chain-links on my shoulder; and as I turned To pluck the last I saw King Harold topple Like a tree struck by lightning, and he fell At the standard’s foot with an arrow in his eye, Pierced to the brain. And a cry came to my lips, But I could not utter it; for, as I gazed at him With eyes distraught, a lance-point ripped my ribs And flung me flat and senseless, where I lay Sprawling amid the dead. . . . Full night had fallen, When a whisper woke me, and the hoarse voice of Cerdic Bade me lie still and stir not, but feign death For fear of it; telling me the fight was over And lost, and that my life hung upon silence. At first I knew not what he said, or where I was lying—though it seemed to me for a while I was stretched in the hall at home, and that old Bran Tugged at a jingling chain, and I was racked By a fierce pain in my side. But soon my senses Fought back to clearness, and I knew that sound Was the clink of mailed men, walking in their armour, Who laughed, and swore in French. And when I winced To blink my narrowed eyelids, I saw the light Of lurid torches flaring, and lit by these A great man with a fiery face, who sat Unhelmed upon a mound of dead, and hungrily Munched bread, sliced with his bloody dagger, and swilled From a flagon of dark wine. Beneath his spurs They had spread the proud Dragon of Wessex, daggled With dirt and blood; and when he had filled his belly He clapped his brother Odo on the shoulder And the twain rolled off together . . . Then I slept For a while; and when next I woke it was daylight, And the wives of the dead came to bear their bodies away, Though the King’s wife came not. Yet two good canons of Waltham, Old Osgod and Æthelric the Childmaster, Who had followed the host, but fought not, being better Christians Than the Bishop of Bayeux, sought for the King’s body Amid the mounds of slain—yet found it not Till the lady Eadgyth Swansneck, who searched with them, Marked on his mangled groin a mole that none But she had known; and they covered his mauled limbs And the marred kingly head, with a purple cloak, And bore him to the shore and buried him Beneath a cairn of stones. Thus ended Harold Of England—and England with him. . . . And what more can I tell—but that I lay Athirst, and still as Christ upon his cross, In feigned death all that day, and how, at eve, When the field was emptied, leaning on old Cerdic, I limped into the Weald; how, for a month, We lurked in the woods of Wessex and woodwards’ huts, And crossed Cotswold by Fairford, and came at last To Evesham, plodding through snow, and I was healed Of my jagged lance-wound? But these were but the start Of the woes that fell upon me; for my mother, Who might have loved me better, feared to house me By my own hearth; and my kinsman, Abbot Ælfwine, Disowned me for a traitor—though he and Wulstan Bishop of Worcester had treacherously ridden On the morrow of Hastings fight to Berkhampstead And truckled to the Norman, and for this I scorned them ever after, though some have called Wulstan a saint. Therefore (though none but he Knew I had fought at Hastings) I hid myself For prudence in Cerdic’s hovel, ever hopeful That the storm would blow over. But soon the Normans, That smooth-faced seed of Sodom, with their greedy Womanish cruelties, lapped up all the shires; And soon the Bishop and Abbots were contending With the king’s sheriff, Urse d’Abitot, who should snatch The choicest lands our Saxon thanes had held Since Alfred ruled—and mine were reft, with the rest, To swell the roll of Urse, save only my house And a few lean fields beside it, that were left, As the King’s alms, to my mother, who had claimed them As her morning-gift with which she was endowed On the morrow of her marriage. So I went landless And dispossessed, being neither churl nor thane, But a wanderer in the waste—and the very woods Where I had hawked and hunted for meat were closed By Urse’s foresters, so that we should have starven But that my monkish brother, who had become Prior of the Abbey of Evesham, in grudging charity Granted me lease of the lands my father had given His Abbey on the morn the Comet shone, To hold them at his pleasure and for the payment Of some three pound a year—which are hard to come by In these bare days! Here, since my mother died, And the old hall fell to ruin for lack of money To mend it, and my two sisters married, I have dwelt In bitter idleness at the little watermill (That is no longer mine) by the Whitsun Brook And the pools where I fished for perch when I was a lad; Though I have no heart to angle now, but live Listless, and ever dreaming of that sweet time That wilted when the Comet came, and was lost For ever when King Harold fell at Hastings. _Cold heart and bloody hand_ _Now rule fair England._ X FAREWELL TO ARMS In the mid-watches of night Ruthe spake to me Reproachfully: “See, you have smudged another page Of your island-annals red; and I foresee No respite from this cruel heritage Of bloody deeds that tragic Man calls Glory, Quaffing the dreadful cup to quell his fears Or lull his conscience. Yet must all your story Be written in the ink of blood and tears?” Then said I: “Mistress, though your plaint be guided By Reason, you reck not how Man’s nature is riven Twixt that same Reason and Instinct, thus divided Between the opposing sways of hell and heaven; How, in his blood, cell with invasive cell Struggles to keep its territory whole, And guard within that fleshly citadel The seed of Self that flowers in Man’s soul; How, thus, each nascent brood, by instinct tied To hold Self’s heritage holy, must maintain The pattern breed has given, and the pride Of its discrete integrity—nay, is fain To court destruction rather than forsake Its tribal virtues, fearing neither strife Nor peril should another dare to shake The freedom it loves dearer than its life; How tribes that saw this nearing doom and feared To lose their oneness, wan for lack of strength, Clung to their kindlier neighbours and cohered Like globules of bright quicksilver—and at length Out of such fusion rose new nations, bound By blood and tongue and custom to defend All that they held in common and the ground Their common forbears tilled. So, in the end, An ampler Self was born; and in the roll Of heroes those are held in honour most Who gave their lives to save their nation’s soul And, losing all else, counted nothing lost. Nor is such faith the special heritage Of Man, but grounded in the marrow and pith Of humbler creatures that know not the gage Of glory, yet will die to fend their kith Against aggression. See with what valiant might The nesting stickleback defies the rival That fans his favoured waters, and will fight Till one be vanquished, reckless of survival! See how the fiery robin-redbreast stakes His chosen territories, and sounds the clarion Of shrill defiance to challenge him who breaks His marches or disputes his gauzy carrion! See how the sexless droves of emmets band Themselves in black-mailed legions; and honey-bees Cluster them round their queenship to withstand The death-moth’s fingers on the sill; yet these Feeble and small-brained folk will yield their stings, And with their stings their lives, that they may see Their threshold undefiled by alien wings! There is no Ruthe in Nature, nor will be. And Man, imperfect Man, as her prime heir, Bears that red birthmark yet—nor had he risen So high, nor fallen so low, did he not wear Stamped on his brow the brand of Nature’s prison; Yet, since its hue affrights you, I will set A song of rivers—Severn, with her mild daughters Avon and Teme—and you shall thus forget The noise of War in the running of sweet waters.” XI SONGS OF THE THREE RIVERS (1) Severn is born of the sodden mosses Where smooth Plynlimmon’s dome is bowed Under the rain the West Wind tosses From tattered fleeces of sea-born cloud; Where the sour-grass moors lie wet and wan, And the mawn-pool’s mirror is misted glass, And the skirts of the sky’s pavilion Daggle the lint-white cotton-grass; Where wild the curlew whinnies and cries And whimbrels wheel in windy weather And buzzards peck at the glazing eyes Of sick lambs lost in the rain-lodged heather. Only the carrion wings rejoice Screaming above the smell of slaughter; For the mountain’s voice is but the voice Of wind-stripped grasses and welling water: Of water that whispers as it seeps And water that tinkles as it drips In a cup of stone before it creeps To the moss where the meadow-pipit sips; Of water that gurgles underground To gush anew in the bubbling spring Of brooks that run with the ripply sound Of dimpling pebbles—and streams that sing Such innocent strains as have their birth In the joy of morning and maidenhood And ambience of the April earth, When the primrose blooms are pale, and the bud Of the blackthorn breaketh snowy-cool. Such songs they sing, so laughs their light From glancing stickle to amber pool; And their bubbled foam, it danceth white From the waterfall as lambs that leap In meadows on April evenings When the fledgeling woods are stirred from sleep And first the willow-warbler sings; Till the wet wild moorlands fall behind And the murmur of brooks and streams is blent In the roar of a river that hath no mind Of its mountain birth, but turbulent As an untamed colt with foam-flecked shoulders And fiery eyes and streaming mane, Thunders over its bed of boulders And falls in tumult to the plain. So swollen Severn rolleth proud Under the domed green hills of Wales Dappled with flocks like shadows of cloud In Summer; and all the Powys vales Grow loud where the tumultuous floods Of Vyrnwy, brimmed with Berwyn’s snows, Pour from their craggy solitudes To stain her torrent. But Severn flows With the graveness of a deepening stream, Till her waters part—and high in air The steeple vanes of Shrewsbury dream Caught within her silver snare, And her voice is stilled; for now she hath Forgotten the madrigals that she sung In the dalliance of her downward path And the lilt of the valleys where she was young, But hath put away such childish things With the merriment of light-heart youth; And the memory of her mountain springs Is all forgotten—for now in sooth She floweth mantled in sober state, Laced with the fire of the rising sun, And the turbid sully of Vyrnwy’s spate— Where the silver-sided salmon run To their gravelly redds—doth not abate The majesty of her tawny tide Solemnly flowing towards the gate Where the dark woods of Wenlock hide Their brambled scarp, and Wrekin’s dome Shaggy with forest broodeth on That crumbled city of Old Rome Which dead men once called Uricon— That white-walled City of the Woods Whose stark, fire-blackened ruin guards The mortal ashes of multitudes Scattered amid their broken shards. Yet the river recks not of the doom Of the hapless folk who throve and died And saw the white wild cherry-bloom Lighten and rust on Severnside, Who lived and loved and fell to dust As the cherry-blow that whitens and wanes; For her waters are timeless, and the lust Of the salt stirs ever in her veins— So the broom and the cherries of Wenlock Edge Spend gold and snow for her in vain As she roars through the cleft of Ironbridge And veereth Southward to the plain Where the blood-red rock of Bridgenorth frowns On shoals of sand where the ravening Danes Beached their dragons and burnt the towns And lashed the land like Lammas rains And spread afield like a Lammas flood, Stripping the ripened cornlands bare. Yet Severn recks not of fire or blood, For she is timeless—nor tarryeth there, But rolleth past on her seaward road By villages that know not Time: Alveley and Arley and Hampton Loade, Whose gentle names together chime Sweet as their Sunday church-bells ringing For evensong in the month of June When the lazy throstle mutes his singing And the cuckoo flattens his April tune, When the clang of their bells is wafted over The moving water, to mingle and meet In dim airs drenched with the honey of clover And drowsy scents of meadowsweet . . . But see! The river livens her pace As she tugs at the ties of Arley ferry And plunges headlong into the race Of the Folly Rapids, and maketh merry, And racing under the woods of Wyre Like a two-year filly-foal recaptures In one brief revel her youthful fire And the ardour of youth and youth’s fierce raptures; Where Werewood broods on the water’s brink And leaf-shades dapple the delicate fallow That steals from the shadow at eve to drink From foam-fringed eddy and wave-lapped shallow. But this fleeting zest is the last she will know Of her morning joy—for the burden of years And the load of care weigh heavily now On the sobered water that laps the piers Of Bewdley bridge, and the solemn stream That ebbeth sullenly mile on mile Without a voice, without a smile. Yet rare and fugitive, hour by hour, Fade on the moving mirror’s face The imaged beauty of Worcester tower And Tewkesbury tower, and the stony lace Of Gloucester’s fretted parapet; And the mournful stone of Berkeley’s keep Saddens her surface—but not yet Shall dreaming Severn awake from sleep, Not till the green vale opens wide And the wrath of the bore rolls in from sea And the stinging salt of the sudden tide Mindeth her of her destiny. Till, moving with more majestic gait, She taketh seizin of the skies, And robed in ever queenlier state Spreadeth the firth in which she lies With azure of the imaged vault And clouds dove-grey and blinding white And steely gleams of cool cobalt; And the galaxies of indigo night Spangle her raiment with cold fire And burn within her broadened breast, Till the hungry sea hath his desire And she sinketh in his arms to rest. Water to water . . . Her life is o’er, And the sea-born mists that fell to earth On the mountain-tops are merged once more In the bitter waves that gave them birth. _Yet, Mistress Ruthe, do not forget_ _How the seal of Liberty was set_ _On our rights when free men fought and died_ _For God’s Crowning Mercy on Severnside._ (2) Teme is Severn’s wild, sweet daughter, A wayward child; and her limpid water Gushes and wells from the gentler rills That trickle from the Kerry hills, Where pale, cloud-tented sheepwalks lie Meek beneath a rain-washed sky In airs that are thin and crystal-clear As spring-water, where the idle ear Listening heareth little else Than the rustle of harebells and heather-bells, Or the boom of blundering bumble-bees Drunken with honey culled from these, Or the whisper of grasses, that is almost Silence, or bleating of weak lambs, lost In bracken too tall for them to spy Their anxious dams—and so they cry Desolately, but dare not move For the hungry wings that hover above . . . But virgin Teme knows naught of these As she lapseth under her alder-trees From pool to stickle and stickle to slide Threading the thin-strung woods that hide Her hesitant meanderings, Where the pied water-ouzel sings, Bobbing his breast on an island stone— (Stir but a finger, and he is flown, Whirring upstream from the shadow of harm With a startled stutter of alarm That is like two pebbles clashed together!) Where, in the drowsier Summer weather, Gleams for a moment and is gone The burning blue of Halcyon; And the redstart flits from a crannied wall, Flashing above the waterfall The rufous glow of a feebler fire; And the light-hearted pipits spire Tossing their bodies high in air And twittering as they hover there. So, with alternate gloom and shine, Teme falls by Llanfairwaterdine To Knucklas village and Knighton Vale, Where the felled woods lie silver-pale With floss of silken willow-weed; And on her face the windblown seed Lighteth softer than thistledown To drift and skim, like mayflies blown To their death in June—till a tiny waft Of light air lifteth it aloft, And the seed goes sailing on its way, While sweet Teme floweth without stay Between the wild flags’ clustered swords, Where gentle, wide-horned Herefords Bend their white-muzzled heads to drink From muddy pools on the trampled brink; Or stand knee-deep in the cool stream In an unimaginable dream And slowly swing their tails, while flies Settle on their uncurious eyes; Till the roofs of a rising village strown On a steep hillside, and a tower of stone, Stand in her path and halt her flow, And clear Teme feels the undertow Of denser waters that have run From the marly dales of Corve and Clun, And the streams of the confluent rivers mingle In a deep pool that laps the shingle Where the twin sisters meet and twine Under the bridge at Leintwardine And the two waters flow as one . . . So swollen Teme goes tumbling down Over the rapids to Trippleton, Then falls to peace in a shadowy slide Where tall trees lean on either side, And their drooping boughs are arched above Water that hardly seems to move Save for the drift of scum that floats Dappled by foam and dense with motes Of silt suspended in mid-stream. Here, by the banks, the great trout dream Daylong in sunless sanctuaries Of root and snag—but when the skies Grow cool, and the last loaded wain Creaks home to Trippleton again, Forth from their haunts they steal and lie Heading upstream, with greedy eye Waiting, a bare palm’s depth beneath The surface, for the drift of death Or winged life that the current then Washes within their hungry ken, And, lifted on a quivering fin, Suck the delicious morsel in So gently that the water’s skin Is barely dimpled; but if their prey Flutters or dips to flit away, Then will they leap to snatch it, heaving Their black backs arched in air, and leaving On the broken water a ring that spreads To rock the dabchicks in the reeds, Or, borne in widening circles, fades In the shallow tail of the pool, where shades Of silvery umbers, ghostly-grey, Sway on the gravelly ledge; for they Hover not under the water’s face, But spring upright from their resting-place To gulp their prey in the toothless gape Of small, smooth lips—yet the grayling’s shape Outshines the stippled trout’s in its mail Of imbricate silver, for his broad tail And fins are dipped in crimson dyes, And when, forspent, on the bank he lies He smelleth sweetly of mountain-thyme Or cool cucumber. And in the prime Of the mayfly-hatch, when Teme grows warm And the limp-winged drakes are whirled like a storm Of flurried snowflakes to spin and dip In the brief, hapless fellowship Of their nuptial flight, and, spent, go sailing With draggled vanes—then trout and grayling Forget their wariness and fall With one accord to the carnival Of June’s fierce gluttony in the slaughter Of gauzy myriads, and the water Boils with the rises of great fish springing Into the air, and swirling and flinging Their silver bodies this way and that In wanton greed—and the tiniest sprat Of a fingerling may take his fill, Till the mayfly-storm drifts by, and the still Surface is turned again to glass, Unflawed and lifeless as it was— Mere mirror of the dusk that hears Naught but the wimpling of the weirs And murmur of the pebbled shallows. Then zig-zag bats that swoop like swallows Dart and flitter on web-winged fingers Hawking the last mayfly that lingers Unharmed in that fierce hecatomb Of watery death. And when night’s gloom Falls deeper on the starlit dubs, The otter whistles her frolicsome cubs To cease their gambolling and tear The eels she has dragged to the dripping weir In her pointed teeth. But when day breaks, A wild, aerial music wakes The valley, in the curlew’s calling And cat-like cries of lapwings falling Like tumbler-pigeons from the sky, And the clear trilling of the shy Hovering sandpipers that trip With delicate feet on an island strip Of sand, or the dipper’s wren-like notes. Sometimes through morning mist there floats The shrilling of vigilant greenshanks, Where, beneath grass-tussocked banks, Grey wagtails, with their yellow breast And gorget of black velvet, nest In a cleft of clay, and flutter near With a soft brilliance that hath no peer In the English air . . . So Teme runs on From Leintwardine to Burrington, Stealing with a soberer pace Past Downton Rocks to Bringewood Chase: And here she floweth without sound; For Bringewood Chase is holy ground, Where _Comus_ and his sisterhood Of laughing dryads ruled the wood, And wove about the enchanted vale Their silvan magic—that was frail As morning gossamer, yet fraught With such strange potency, it caught The mind of _Milton_ in its net; And leafy Bringewood liveth yet With Vallombrosa’s leaves, for ever Sacred in song . . . So the hushed river Hurrieth, as her waters sweep Under Ludlow’s storied keep, Where the castle’s crumbling walls look down Upon the many-chimneyed town, And the sweet-tempered Ludlow chimes Waver through wreathing smoke that climbs From the draughty vale—and still they seem Rapt in the other-worldly dream That thralled them in the haunted wood Of _Comus_—and this raptured mood Dwells with those waters as they glide Through tranquil meadowlands and wide Stubbles, where seagulls, fluttering low, Whiten the furrow behind the plough And hover above the ploughman’s head, Watching the burnished mould-board spread Its furrow-slice, and lighting there To raven their choice inland fare Of wireworms in the cloven turf As greedily as they comb the surf Of their native surge . . . So Abdon Burf Falleth behind, and Titterstone Glee Looms on the left—and Teme runs free Through the spreading vale to Saltmoor Well And the elms of Ashford Carbonell, To drown the last of her panic fear In the deep green of Worcestershire; Where her marl-reddened currents fret Cliffs of red sand, and hopyards set With intricate trellises of twine In quaint cat’s-cradles, and the bine, With eager tendrils spiring, weaves Its clerestory of translucent leaves Vaulting the alleys with their slight Radiance of cool green light. Here the gnarled cider-orchard breaks Its shell-pink buds; here Autumn shakes The ripe wind-fallen fruit to lie Hid in lush grass—and when men pry, Raking the windfalls into heaps, A drowsy smell of pomace steeps The valley. Yet Teme’s chiefest pride Is her miracle of Eastertide When the white cherry-blow is whirled In drifts upon a dazzled world, And billowy blossom, tossed on high, Beggars the brightness of the sky With an innocence beyond belief On this aged earth—yet fugitive As the radiance of April’s moon Whitening the ghostly boughs—and soon The mirror of Teme hath naught to show But the lesser light of hawthorn-blow; And ivory-plumed elder throws Its image on a stream that flows Deep-sunken through the tawny clay Of the cold plain, and ebbs away Sullenly, with the sluggard pace Of age—till Severn’s arms embrace Her tired daughter, and tenderly Carry her, sleeping, to the sea. _Yet, Sister Ruthe, remember well_ _How the first blow for freedom fell_ _Upon the powers of privilege_ _Where Teme joins Severn at Powick Bridge!_ (3) Avon springs from the mints and cresses Of a gentle pastureland that lies Midmost in Mercia’s green recesses Beneath mild-tempered midland sides; Little she knows of the fierce birth Of Severn her mother or sister Teme, For her waters well from a kindlier earth, And her youth is quiet as a dream Unbroken by any stormy splendour Of moor or mountain, or the loud Tumult of torrents. Gay and tender, She moveth idly as a cloud In Summer, or a careless child On a spring morning gathering posies Of wet marsh-marigolds, and wild Forgetmenots, and faint primroses, And yellow-varnished celandine, And rushes pithed as white as milk, And sallies flossed with smoky silk, And lilac ladies-smocks, and all The moisture-loving flowers that twine In April’s dewy coronal; For innocent are Avon’s ways, And meditative is her mien As through the minty marsh she strays In a shallow vale that runs between Low hills of rolling grassland, pied With gorse and spinneys of oak and ash Where the horsemen halt at the covert-side Till twenty dappled couples crash In a burst of music, and the wail Of the hunting-horn’s sweet quavers Wakens the leafless woods, and wavers Over her water to the pale Chequer of forty-acre fields That the quick-set bullfinch shields With triple thorn . . . So, like a skein Of scarlet threading the green weft, The bright hunt straggles over plain And hillock, and Avon’s vale is left Empty—as when, on this same field Of Naseby, Cromwell’s Roundheads broke Rash Rupert’s cavalry—and they reeled And scattered on the wold like smoke And vanished . . . But Avon floweth still, Gathering to her nascent stream Clear tributary waters: _Leam_ And _Swift_; and many a nameless rill Steals through the rushy watermeads To filter through her fringing reeds Unseen. And many a water-mill, Fed by the borrowed race, returns The flow the slatted mill-wheel churns In a bright cataract that re-fills Her dwindled trickle. And lifted high On the smooth skyline of the hills, Sails of gaunt windmills sweep the sky With cumbrous lattice, languidly Turning the low-geared pinion wheel That rolls the gritstone, till the meal Dusts the miller’s shoulders white As a mealy cockchafer or bee That in high summer you may see With pallid clover-pollen dight . . . So Avon girdles in her sleep The gabled roofs of Warwick town Where the King-maker’s castle-keep Shadows her face, and floweth down Into the unmysterious glades Of Arden’s oaks, no longer haunted By dappled fallow—yet the shades Of the sweet meinie that enchanted This leafy wildwood, in the Spring Of Shakespeare’s youthful fancy, still Brood on the twilight lanes and bring Their magic with them, when the trill Of May’s last nightingale awakes Infinite yearnings, and the fall Of his dwindling cadenza shakes The heart with hushed delight—and all Arden lies breathless, listening For the light step of Rosalind And Amiens’ song . . . Yet still the spring Of a nimble squirrel that in the thinned Woodland leaps from tree to tree Trailing his feathery brush, is free To traverse all the ancient girth Of Arden without touching earth; Still the glade’s bracken-fronds unfold Their croziers of mealy gold; Still Arden’s bluebells fan the verges With silvan fragrance, and wood-spurges With triple cups of golden green Betray the woodland’s old demesne— And the lost forest lives in these Its lowlier denizens, that held Their stations when the mightier trees Sheltering their humble growth were felled To keel the fleets that kept the seas In the days of great Elizabeth, And carried to Virginian leas Those words that are the very breath Of England . . . But Avon knoweth naught Of any music but her own, And nothing of the magic wrought By him who sleeps beneath the stone Of Stratford’s airy spire, and yet Makes our imaginations seem As thoughts that flower in a dream And wilt on waking, or are flown. Yet, swan-sweet Avon, can you forget How one whose meanest word was lit By passionate perfection, stood Mirrored in your translucent flood, Or idly on your banks would sit Trailing his fingers in the water? O swan-sweet Avon, Severn’s daughter, Do you remember how he moved Through the pied meadows that he loved, And how he smiled to catch those sweet Elusive images, as fleet And fiery as the kingfisher’s Arrowy azure, in his verse? And did you hear his rustic tongue Savour each salty syllable Shaped on his lips when he was young? Saw you him ever when he leant, Undazzled by the glancing looks That flickered from your stream, intent Upon the many-storied books Of Plutarch, or the turgid flow Of Holinshed’s grim chronicle? And did you see his dark eyes glow When fierce imagination fell To burn upon the prosy page, Till the wide skies became a stage And, in the light of that rich birth, Heroes walked again on earth? But Avon answers naught, for she Was passing-old when he was young, And still may flow when all he sung Shall live but in man’s memory As a crabbed text in a dead tongue. So Arden’s wasted woodlands sink Behind; and white on Avon’s brink The widening Vale of Evesham throws Its benison of blossomed boughs. So dazzling-bright the orchards lie, It seems as though the April sky Had fallen upon earth and strewn Its cloudy billows there—and when Night falls on Bredon, and the moon Silvers the prodigal blossom, then The orchards of the vale seem lost In a soundless sea of mist that laps The bases of the hills and wraps Their sleeping knees—where like a ghost The dome of Bredon glimmers pale, Islanded in the misty Vale . . . But when lascivious winds of May Have ravished the light petal-cloud And fruit swells on the leafy spray, Then are the plum-trees’ branches bowed With tasselled clusters of cool green That August’s bounty, warms to gold Or deepening orange—and some are seen Drooping with purple and tawny-red, So closely set no branch can hold Its juicy burden, but will shed Ripe fruit at the first finger-touch; And the bruised flesh, fallen, spills Its heavy-sugared juice and fills The Vale with vinous fragrance. Such Are the Summer languors Avon loves: For when the weedy lock-gates close, Her listless current barely moves Under the drooping willow-boughs Where the deep-bellied, sullen chub, Gaping through the scum and froth That eddies in a sunless dub, Sucks in the velvet of a moth Faint-fluttering with sodden wings In hapless circles—or hungrily Heaving his slimy body, springs To gulp it in mid-air, and sends A ripple to the beds of reed Where pike with olive-mottled flanks Bask on the mud of shelving banks, So drowsily, they will not heed The shadowy roach that swim in shoals, Or spectral perch with tiger-stripes Lurking in their deep water-holes; But when October’s rigour tips The elms with pallid leprosy, And the first gales of Autumn shiver The rustling reedbeds, then the river Wakes from her lethargy: and you see Slow Avon crisped with waves and rippled With wind—and clouds of babbling stares Wheel from their granaries in the stippled Stubbles to roost in reedy cover. And now the dome of Bredon wears Its richest liveries—for over Her falling flanks the tall elms stand Robed in bright gold; and over all The orchards spreads the yellow pall Of Autumn; and the meadowland Of Avon seems to hold its breath In the mute majesty of death: Till ice, with brittle crystal, edges The shallows, and the frozen sedges Grow stiff with rime. So Avon sweeps Unsmiling through more sullen deeps In a null nescience flowing down By Nafford Mill and Eckington To the wide, flood-whitened fields that lie Beneath the tower of Tewkesbury: A weary river that hath run Her course—sunk in oblivion So death-like that she hardly hears The hollow thunder of the weirs That draw her listless to her rest In mother Severn’s ancient breast. _Yet, Sister Ruthe, remember too_ _That day when freedom flamed anew_ _To perish in the darkened hour_ _When Montfort fell by Evesham Tower._ XII THE TALE OF JOHN DE MATHON A.D. 1280 _The Scene is the Infirmary in the Monastery of Our Lady of Worcester, a capacious chamber, with a high-roof of rough-hewn timber, dimly lit by slender lancets. In its darkest corner, on a narrow pallet-bed, lies the mummy-like form of Brother John de Mathon, an old man clothed in the habit of a Benedictine monk. He is so ancient, indeed, as to seem hardly human. The wrinkled scalp that defines the shape of his skull is the colour of dirty leather; his orbits are so cavernous that the blind eyes are invisible, lost in their depths; and the only parts of his anatomy that betray any sign of life are his hands, disproportionately large compared with the stick-like wrists, whose taloned fingers pluck with a restless automatism at the grimy coverlet which has been thrown over him. By his side, on the stone-flagged floor, a florid young man, robed in a similar habit, sits cross-legged, with a parchment on his knees, a pen in his hand, and an ink-horn within easy reach. He looks alternately bored and faintly amused as he bends over the malodorous pallet to catch the words that issue from Brother John’s toothless mouth. Occasionally he scratches a perfunctory note on the parchment; but for the most part he is content (or constrained) to listen to a rambling tale that has little of interest for him, as the old man speaks in a thin, toneless voice_: Art thou still there, my son, and canst thou hear me? It were well to press my hand lightly now and again, For thus I may know that my scanty breath is not wasted, And, should I fall asleep, thy touch will awaken me And pluck my mind from dreaming. What did I say? _The days of our years are three score years and ten:_ _And if, by reason of strength, they be fourscore years,_ _Then is their strength but sorrow._ I was born In the first year of Richard Lion-Heart, When the Welsh kings rode to Worcester to make peace With John Sansterre his brother; and of my boyhood I have naught to tell—albeit therein my memory Burns with the brightness of a lamp new-lit, Discovering trivial things as doth the shaft Of a mote-laden sunbeam. Little I recked Of the realm’s turmoil, or the march and counter-march Of turbulent barons; for mine own earth was bounded By the enfolding hills, and was no larger Than the sweet-smelling cowslip-balls we made In the meadows of Malvern Chase. I was but eighteen When I trudged my way to Worcester, and first donned The habit of our order, that I have worn For well-nigh seventy years; and Prior Simon, Marking my true, sweet voice, gave me more favour Than a raw lad merited; and when I had learnt My notes and conned the canticles, chose me to lead The singing on high festivals. Many came To hear me sing, and I, being callow, was puffed With the glory I owed to God, who had endowed me With this pretty talent. Ay, and I well remember (But for Christ’s sake set not this down!) how one bold wench, Who was wife to a brewer in Silver Street, by the Shambles, Heard Mass whensoever I sang; and as the procession Trailed by where she knelt on the stones, and I passed so near (For so had she placed herself) that I all but brushed Her hair, which was mouselike in hue and sweetly-scented As musk or clover in Summer—then did she peek at me Through her crossed fingers, smiling, and blinked one eye! At which I—as any might guess—blushed red to the crown Of my tonsure, but, none the less, when those high notes came In which I excelled, and I saw she still gazed my way, Her face calm and pale in the distance, then did I carol (God pardon me!) like any cock-chaffinch, perched On an apple-tree’s topmost bough, that fluffs his breast To bursting with the might of his brazen challenge! Yet, albeit I was a young fellow then and well-favoured, I think there was more lust of pride than of concupiscence In my error; and though, indeed, I made no confession Till fifty years later, one day when I thought I was dying, Yet doth the memory of her glance and the musky spice Of her hair abide—though she, fond soul, is dust, And I am a man no longer. Beyond doubt, There is little true sanctity untried by temptation, As Augustine knew to his cost. My sin was Pride; And Time hath humbled me—as thou shouldst perceive, Hearing the thin, cracked pipe of one who has ravished The ears of kings . . . Kings, do I say? There were two For whom I sang. The first was John the Landless; And never, some say, was king more unkingly than he In his treacheries; though I, being cloister-reared And unworldly, saw not this blackness of heart, but was dazzled By the mere shine of kingship, glorying in the flattery Of a prince who favoured our house, and often abode here With his lackey, Walter the Bishop (the same who stood By his side at Runnymede) for the high festivals Of our church, and ever delighted in the sweet music We made—but even more in our Severn salmon And lamperns and royal sturgeon washed down with the wines Of Gascony and Touraine, when he made of Lent A season of prodigal banquets. John was a man Of ruddy and open countenance, well-fattened, and easy Of laughter for them that pleased him; yet, were he crossed In the meanest trifle, then would his Angevin blood Blacken his face with wrath till the veins in his temples Were swollen to bursting, and his small body was shaken With such a tempest that he would writhe on the ground, Rolling his eyes, and catch up sticks and straws To chew them like a madman. Such, I have heard, Were his ravings at Runnymede, when the magnates bound him By dooms he had no intent to suffer; though we, being swayed By his kingly graces and the words of our Bishop, Walter de Gray, held this poor king ill-used, And deemed the Barons’ charter less an instrument Of liberty for the common folk than a change From the rule of one man, who had loved us well, to the power Of a many who loved but themselves. For, mark you, my son, There was naught in their vaunted charter that had not been granted Long since by King Henry the First, and more concern For their own rights than for those of Holy Church, As Pope Innocent surely knew when he laid his ban On those barons and their shrewd counsellor, Stephen Langton, Making the king’s cause ours. So we of Worcester Stood by our lawful liege, and reckoned his enemies Accursed—the more so when Geoffrey de Mandeville Called on King Philip of France to send his Dauphin To conquer England and filch John’s kingship from him: For, know you this: when I was a lad we still called One man a Norman and another English; But now those Normans who had dispossessed Our Saxon forbears boasted their Englishness, And hated the foreigner fiercely as they themselves Had once been hated; and when the Frenchman set foot On the shore of Essex and marched his knights toward London, Then was all England one, save for those few Who, by duress, had bound the king at Runnymede And sworn to oust him . . . It was then that the cruelty Of the king’s heart first showed itself, as he fell On the rebels of the North. Never have I known Such a passionate fury as burned in his body and drove him This way and that through the length of England, snapping Like a mad cur at all that crossed his path, Whether they were friend or foe, and never sleeping Two nights in the same bed. Yet those who condemn him Remember not that the king was hard beset As a hunted wolf; and if his fangs were reddened With innocent blood, his hunters’ hands were no cleaner; Nor that the Holy Father himself had frowned On their lawlessness. It was intemperate haste That drove him to his doom; for, as he strained Northward to harry Lincoln, with less wisdom Than King Canute tempting the mighty malice Of the untameable tides, his baggage-train Sank in the quicksands of the Wash, and was lost; And the king himself, struggling so far as Swineshead To dry the draggled remnant, there fell sick Of a mortal flux. There is a story told How that he died of a surfeit of peaches swilled With fresh-made cider—and I, of my own eyes, Know him a glutton, having seen him bloated With meat at the Bishop’s board; yet that which slew him Was but the flame of hatred, that burnt out Like a fierce bonfire, consuming his tortured body As they bore him to Lincoln, ever panting and groaning, On a litter of horsecloth stiffened with woven withies From the fen; and there, on the third day after, he died, Duly shriven (as should be told) by the Abbot of Croxton, And when they asked him where he would lie, he bethought him Of our church of St. Mary at Worcester, saying: “_I commend_ _My body and soul to God, and to Saint Wulstan._” So here we buried him, even as Merlin foretold, With the bones of Wulstan on one hand, and on the other The relics of Oswald; that, when the trumpet sounds And the graves give up their dead, he might take his place In the bright company of Heaven—though some Still call him Nature’s enemy, and maintain That not even their saintly sponsorship shall save His perjured soul. Yet never will I believe That any burn in hell who have died in grace As he did. And, whatsoever havoc he wrought In his evil life, his death brought England peace, As is graven on his tomb: _Hoc in sarcophago_ _Sepelitur regis imago, qui moriens multum_ _Sedavit in orbe tumultum_—which is lame Latin And middling rhyme, but, in the essence, true. So may God rest his spirit, I say, who gave His realm rest by his dying . . . The second king Before whom I sang (and never sang I more sweetly Than on that day) was Henry, his son; a child But nine years old, whom a splendid company Of barons, earls, bishops and mitred abbots Carried to Worcester for the dedication Of the new cathedral church. And of this I will tell thee A tale—though whether or no thou shouldst set it down I am doubtful, seeing that it brings little credit To our new bishop Silvester, once our prior. Yet the story hath this moral: that impatience May sink to sacrilege . . . Know you, then, we had fashioned A new shrine for Saint Wulstan, since the old Had been stripped of all its richness to provide The fine we were mulcted for our forced submission To the French Dauphin. Never was a saint’s shrine More gloriously wrought. But when we came To set Saint Wulstan’s body therein, we found The mason had mismeasured, the saint’s stature Being greater than ordinary. Then Bishop Silvester, Vexed by our hesitations, and determined To have done with the business, stripped off his robes And with his own ringed fingers hacked and hauled Saint Wulstan’s body asunder, cramming his bones Into the coffin, ay, and even boasted Of his own ruthlessness, calling the sacred relics Naught but dry bones. That was the sixth of June, As I remember well, and six weeks later All but two days, he died; and afterward, On the festival of Saint Andrew, a whirling wind Cast down two towers on either side the apse Of the minster. From which signs let no man doubt But that saints in deathless glory still are swayed By mortal spites and passions . . . Once again My ill-shepherded thoughts have erred; it would be pleasant To let them stray thus browsing on the sweeter Pastures of memory; and much could I tell Of Silvester’s successor, William de Blois, Whom Gualo, the Pope’s legate, thrust upon us; For this man was a rare builder, and up-raised The soaring arches of a new sanctuary Above Our Lady’s altar; and, being warned Doubtless by poor Silvester’s doom, disposed The buried bones his masons marred in a pit Beneath the new-built charnery, where mine Shall rest when God so wills it. But of him I will speak no more; for now my chronicle Takes sterner shape, being shadowed by the presences Of three huge men, who rise above the press Of pettier persons as the craggy peaks Of Ararat towered over the drowned wastes Of Noah’s deluge: first, Walter de Cantelupe, My lord of Worcester; next Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln; last, and greater than either, Earl Simon, called de Montfort, the noblest man England has ever known—which is the stranger In that this knightly paragon was born In Normandy, and lived the greater part Of his stormy days in Gascony. See, already I have overshot my mark! Hear then, my son, How that fair child whose kingly presence honoured Our dedication, grew to belie the promise Of innocent boyhood. Hapless is the realm, Men say, in which a child is king: and never Was saying more grimly proved than in the fruit Of this enhavocked reign; for, from the day When he was chrismed, his sapling strength was twisted By the ambitions of ruthless men who schemed But for themselves; and by their flatteries Nourished a weak-willed tyrant, as unstable As a wind-tossed aspen flurried this way and that By every changeful gust—whereby our country Became once more the prey of foreigners Who battened on her bones. It was an evil day— Though little we guessed—when John, his father, drowning In surges of rebellion, clutched at the rock Of Rome, and made the honour of England part Of Peter’s patrimony. For now the claws Of the Roman dragon gripped our Church’s throat, And, throttling, squeezed forth the last gouts of blood From her blanched carcase—not only in exactions Of treasure to feed sinews of temporal might In lands we knew not (first a tenth part of all We had, then, appetite growing with gluttony, One fifth) but also in the greedy gullocking Of vacant benefices, from bishoprics To simple chaplaincies that we had reckoned Our natural right, till every cure was filled With predatory aliens and pluralists Who never set foot on English earth and spoke not One word of English. And King Henry’s court Was little better, being crammed with sycophants Of Anjou and Poitiers—the hungry crew That, in the time of the Confessor, tempted The Conqueror to Hastings. And when the King Wedded the Princess Eleanor, to these Was added a locust-swarm of Provençals Who stripped all that was left, and soon, inflaming The king’s mind with vain schemes of foreign conquest That fell to nothing, pitted his light wits Against more practised players, till his crown Seemed but a pawn upon the chequer-board Of shrewd dynastic gamesters, and Church and Laity, Being thrust at length into each other’s arms, Were joined as never before. Then was a murmur Of protest, loud though late, wrung from the lips Of England. Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, Was our first champion, an old man steeped In ancient wisdoms; and our own Bishop, Walter, His friend and my loved master, stood beside him With Simon, Earl of Leicester, when they brought The King to Oxford—even as his father before him Was haled to Runnymede. I, as Walter’s chaplain, Rode with him over Cotswold. There was the weakness Of the King made plain; for when he saw the powers Of Church and Baronage in arms, he cried: “Am I your prisoner?” Whereon Roger Bigod (For so I heard him) answered: “Nay, my Lord King; For all we ask is that your Poitevins And the alien placemen who have dispossessed Both folk and faith of freedom, shall be banished For the realm’s honour and welfare. And we demand That you and your son the Prince shall solemnly swear To lay no burdens on us but with the leave Of counsellors we shall choose.” Then did King Henry, Powerless to do aught else, submit himself, Swearing as he was bidden; and by that Parliament Of Oxford, clerk and layman, rich and poor, Obtained protection, under the firm hand Of Simon and his fellows. It was as if We had waked from nightmare dreams into the peace Of a clear dawn—though they that watched more shrewdly Saw the sky streaked with presage of the tempest That followed after . . . I have little to tell Of the wars that wracked us then; for my own knowledge Is naught but hearsay, save that the King forswore That oath, in his father’s fashion, soaking the land With innocent blood, and that the jealous Pope Released him of his promise to maintain The charter sealed at Oxford. It is a tale Of manifold treacheries. But the last page Of this chronicle was writ beneath my own eyes Downcast with shame and dim with tears. For, know you, After the battle at Lewes, when Earl Simon Had caged the elder hawk and thrid his leash Through the young falcon’s jesses, then that envy Which has been freedom’s bane in all her story Gnawed at Earl Simon’s powers. There is enchantment In the very air kings breathe, as if the height Of their station turned men dizzy, and the smiles Of captive royalty were more dazzling Than the light of reason—so that those who fret At their peers’ dominion are fain to grovel Before a faithless throne. Thus, one by one, Earl Simon’s friends forsook him: Gloucester and Norfolk And Bohun and Mortimer and Roger Bigod Who had been freedom’s spokesman—all forsook him; And though Earl Simon held the King, Prince Edward, Laughing at his fond leniency, slipped His leash and fled to Wigmore, gathering The Mortimers to his side. So, when Earl Simon Turned toward faithful London, then he found All Severn held from Shrewsbury to the sea, With every bridge down-broken, and every boat Scuttled or beached on the far bank, and half The force he counted on, under young Simon, Divided from him. Thus was he caged no less Than his kingly captive; and in the extremity Of need, called on Llewelyn of Wales for aid, Erring therein—since no true Englishman Who had seen our Marches harried by the Welsh Could stomach such alliance. Nine wasteful days Earl Simon lay at Hereford, waiting for news, That came not, of his son. But young Prince Edward, Being swifter and more forthright in strategy And warned by a certain woman, who, with the guile Of Rahab, lurked in Kenilworth, broke from Worcester, Fell on young Simon unawares and worsted him Ere he could join his father. But of this The Earl knew naught; and, on the second day Of August, marching from Hereford, crossed Severn At Kempsey, where my master, Bishop Cantelupe, Lodged him within our manor. There I saw him, And marked how cares had aged him, though his mien Was calm and noble as ever, and his eye Bright as a boy’s beneath his grizzled brow. There as we sate that evening, I heard him speak With my lord, Bishop Walter, of how he planned To mould a better England, when the legionary Factions that rent her had been exorcised, Saying: “There is none other land nor folk Worthier of peace than ours, nor yet more temperate In the uses of their freedom, be they but left To its unvexed enjoyment. Such a firm peace, Under such guidance, it is my intent, By God’s good grace, to give them.” Then he spoke Of his counsel for the morrow: how he would march By Avonside to Evesham, where his friend, Henry the Abbot, would house him till he could join Young Simon at Kenilworth, and they together Circle the Prince with greater force and scatter The embers of rebellion. Then Bishop Walter Bade me march with Earl Simon, being himself Too feeble for such adventure—though I, in truth, Was older than he. That night we tramped fifteen miles, And came footsore to Evesham as the dawn Broke over Cotswold; and I, beside the king (Who told me he remembered how once I had sung Before him, but I, though flattered, disbelieved him) Heard the monks’ Mass, and broke my fast. But Simon Would neither eat nor pray with us, but climbed To the tower’s top to meditate alone, Brooding upon the kingdoms of this earth As Christ in his temptation; and fairer kingdom No mortal eye could see than that ripened vale Caught in the loops of Avon. It was noon Ere he rejoined us; and even as his foot Touched earth, there came a message: that the woods To northward were alive with marching men And bright with banners. One whose sight was keener Than ours, his barber, Nicholas, clomb the tower To see those banners blazoned with the bearings Of Simon the Younger—and then he cried again That this was true, but that the men who bore them Were none of ours, but our sworn enemies. And now, as they drew nearer, we could see That those who led them wore the blood-red cross The barons of the King had borne at Lewes, And that the advancing host outnumbered ours By three to one. Then would a feebler heart Have quailed, but Simon’s quailed not; for he smiled, Saying: “By the arm of Saint James, they come on bravely, But it was I who taught them this order! Let us commend Our souls to God, for surely our bodies are theirs.” Then the monks thronged about us, urging Simon To flee while there was time; and he himself Begged his son, Henry, and Hugh Despenser, to ride Over the bridge behind us; but already The horsemen of Mortimer had swum the river And barred their crossing. And when they told him this: “Come then,” he said, “and let us die like men, For if we have fasted here we shall breakfast in Heaven!” Then called he me by name, and did enjoin me Not to adventure my brittle bones in battle But to seek sanctuary. And I, in sorrow, Turned from him, slowly climbing to the parapet Of the great bell-tower; and from that vantage-point Saw, though I was no soldier, the hopelessness Of our case; for we were snared in the deep loops Of the river, that embraced us on every side Save one, where the road to Worcester ran between The scarps of Crawcombe and the impassable ditch Of Avon—one narrow sleeve of watermeadow. And, as I stood there gazing, the sky darkened To raven blackness, and a baleful blight Settled upon the scene, as on that day When Christ was crucified, and the temple veil Was rent asunder. So, of that awful slaughter (For battle none may call it) I saw little But a tumult of living waves, tossed back and forth From the bases of the hills to that bloody river Choked with the carrion of the fugitive Welsh Drowned in their thousands, whom William de Beauchamp’s men From his castle of Elmley clubbed with pikes and staves, So that those few who floundered to the bank Were drowned no less. But of the tempest’s heart Where Simon, like a strong tower, rose above The cowering king, with his two-handed sword Sweeping a deadly circle, I saw naught, And only heard thereafter how he had fallen Crying ‘Dieu merci’, while the royal craven Uncovered by his falling, whined and whimpered: ‘I am Henry of Windsor, your king—for God’s sake strike not: I am too old to fight’—though, in very truth He was younger than Earl Simon. And at the hour When Montfort fell, the western sky grew dark, So that we could not see to chant out vespers In the abbey quire—as though the sun itself Disdained to show so foul a deed; but fouler Was yet to come, when the Prince’s butchers dragged His naked corpse to Evesham, and Maltravers— Cursed be his memory!—lopped off limbs and head. And with a grosser obscenity mutilated Those venerable loins, making a laughing-stock Of the grisly members, as do the Saracens Who know no better; but this man was called Christian. And the young prince, now King, sent that grey head To Mortimer’s wolfish mother Maud, at Wigmore, As a warning to the Welsh. Such was the end Of Montfort, the strong mountain of our freedoms And fortress of our hopes . . . So, sorrowfully, I tottered home to Worcester, broken in spirit And stricken in years, to end my dwindling days In the service of God and Our Lady, and humble prayers For the rest of that great soul; for never again Did I leave this cloister, and never more will leave it Till they carry my light bones to the charnery, And I pray that it be soon—for, even in the telling, This tale hath mortally wearied me. Give me a sip Of water, my son, and leave my side . . . For now I fain would sleep. XIII SONG OF THE THIRD CRUSADE A.D. 1191 We were the fools that trudged away From ridge and furrow of chalk and clay, From scythe and mattock and plough and cart To follow King Richard Lionheart: The plodding, patient English foot That got no wage but drink and loot And the glory promised to them that fell Fighting against the infidel. We knew hunger and we knew sweat And the scorpion desert’s blinding heat; But never once did we know dread— We were too slow-witted, the Frenchmen said. And never did our uncurious eyes Widen with wonder or surprise; For whatever they saw in foreign parts We still had England in our hearts. We bawled our snatch and cracked our joke In the reek of Etna’s brimstone smoke, And coughed in clouds of sand that hid The feet of sphinx and pyramid; Yet ever mid alien sand and stone Nursed a green vision of our own, And through the hot mirage of Nile Saw the cool watermeadow smile. We groused and bickered and swore and wenched And roared our bawdy songs, and drenched Our fiery throats with Cyprus wine And the sun-warmed fruits of Palestine; Yet each would willingly have given His days on earth and hopes of heaven To plunge his cracked mouth in a pail Of Worcester perry or Stratford ale, And thrown their peach and fig to rot With the sun-freckled apricot If but his teeth might crunch the fresh Cool crispness of a pippin’s flesh; And each would gladly have cast aside The dusky, amorous, almond-eyed Women of Asia, once to quench His want in the arms of an English wench! But they shipped us North and matched our skin With the Damascene blades of Saladin; So we sacked Acre and trudged on Through sleet and snow to Ascalon, And hunted the Saracen like a fox From cover to cover in Hebron’s rocks Till we’d shut the heathen seed of Shem In the blood-red walls of Jerusalem; Where we held them girdled with steel and fire And took an oath we would not tire Till we set the Cross we had sworn to bear On the brink of the Holy Sepulchre. But while we laid that siege, the sun Clomb to the Lion’s flaming zone, And the parched soil was cracked and cleft Till not a blade of green was left; And the meat we butchered, blown with flies, Grew quick with maggots beneath our eyes; And the drinking-pools where our water stood Curdled and stank and turned to mud; And the air we gaped was like the breath Of a jackal’s throat that smells of death; For a secret murrain that had no cure Rotted the flesh of great and poor; And many with madness in their eyes Stared gibbering at the white-hot skies Where foul birds, circling overhead, Shadowed the living and the dead, So high they seemed no bigger than flies— But or ever men reached their agonies The air was thrashed by the flutterings Of a hundred hungry noisome wings. And the secret murrain that none could stay Wasted and wore our strength away, Till the Lion Heart, that had beat so bold, Suddenly faltered and then grew cold; And he sailed and left us to pine away Within sight of sad Gethsemane: Not even Christ in those darkest hours Knew passion more desolate than ours! While they that had lured us forth rode home Shriven and blessed by all Christendom, To boast of the sacrifice they made When they bore the Cross in Christ’s crusade; And their bones lie snug in the hallowed earth Of the villages that gave us birth, Covered by carven effigies With their mailed legs crossed beneath the knees; While ours, that earned no meaner fame, Are lost in graves without a name, Or bleached on the unhallowed sand Of a waste miscalled the Holy Land: The plodding, patient English folk That never wavered and never broke, And knew not why they fought and fell In the deserts of the Infidel; That had no crown but a crown of thorn And perished unshriven and forlorn, And gained no glory and won no wage But the toil of a fruitless pilgrimage. XIV RETURN OF THE NATIVE A.D. 1380 _The Scene—though one would hardly recognise it after the intervening centuries—is the slope of Bredon Hill, a few hundred feet below the ramparts of the Iron Age Herdsmen’s camp, and not far from the site of the garrulous Centurion’s villa. All traces of this have long since disappeared beneath thorns and brambles, which, undisturbed by superstitious hands, have formed an impenetrable thicket. The plain, too, has changed. It is noticeably less densely wooded; and where the forest of scrub-oak once stretched unbroken, a number of clearings can now be seen, each occupied by a village in which humble buildings of daub and wattle are clustered about a church and tower and manor, and surrounded by the cultivated land of the ‘common field,’ divided into elongated strips by linchet-ridges. Although there are no hedgerows and few elms, the landscape has lost much of its ancient wildness, and a great part of it is now deforested. On the northern horizon the choir and nave of the Abbey of Pershore rise above the roofs of the little town which has grown about it, and a tall tower, as yet uncompleted, shows that this foundation has not yet reached the full pitch of its pride. At the point where the Centurion and his visitor halted for a while to observe the view, there now stands the dwelling of Hob the Shepherd, a free labourer on the roll of the Abbot of Pershore. His home is little more than a hut consisting of a framework of rough-hewn timber filled in with mud, with a single door and two unglazed windows. There is no chimney: the smoke of the fire which serves for heating and cooking escapes as best it can from a hole in the thatch. The room’s only furniture is a trestle-bed, a long narrow table made of one plank of oak, and two settles of the same wood. It is a mild May evening, the still air is drenched with the heavy odour of hawthorn-blossom whose whiteness powders the flank of Bredon like a snowstorm, and the birds are in full song. A lazy smoke rises through the hole in the thatch from the fire on which Hob’s supper is seething, and mingles a faint reek of woodsmoke with the breath of the may. The owner of the house sits on a wooden settle before his door and idly contemplates the wide landscape which stretches beyond Severn to the serrated ridge of the Malverns. Hob is a lanky old man, with a mop of white hair, an unkempt beard, and craggy features, of a certain rugged nobility. He is dressed in a coarse woollen tunic, and his long legs are strapped with thongs of leather. The blue eyes which brood on the distance become suddenly aware of a solitary figure toiling up the slope of the hill towards him. It is that of a spare man, as lanky as himself, tonsured, and clothed in a torn cassock which is tucked about his loins with a girdle of rope. Over his shoulder he carries a long staff, with a bundle slung from it; but in spite of his shambling gait, he is evidently a man of unusual strength; for he makes nothing of the steep pitch and climbs it without slackening his pace. As he draws near, his ill-shaven face lights up, and he waves his free hand to Hob. It is a grim, sad face, but marked by a curious innocence and simplicity and an air of refinement hardly in keeping with his personal uncouthness. Hob returns his salute and rises to meet him._ The Clerk: Good evening to you, friend. Can you spare a traveller Shelter from storm and harbourage for the night? Black clouds are massed on Malvern, and the tempest Will soon be on us. Hob: I have no great liking for strangers. From your habit I see you are clerkly. You should rather have rapped At the rich Abbey of Pershore than thrust your company On poor folk who know you not. The Clerk: When I was a lad Hearts were warmer in Worcestershire. Am I so aged That you know me not, Hob of the Hill? Hob: My sight is dimmed, And my heart grown cold with sorrows. You have my name, But your face is strange to me. The Clerk: Cast your thought backward To an evening such as this thirty years ago And one who halted here on his road from Malvern To his father’s at Wychwood on Cotswold. Do you not mind A lanky lad whom people called Long Will? Hob: What? Bist thee William Langland? That is a name Known to the ears of many; but little I thought To see you again in these parts, though I should have known you By your lambering gait and your gown. Ay, your face is not changed; But I reckoned you had turned Londoner for good and all And forsook old friends in Worcestershire. Come, sit you down; Ease those long shanks and tell me how you have fared; And then we will share a snack of boiled bacon and drink A pint of perry together. That’s the best I can offer; But you’re welcome to all I have. What brings you here In these changeful times? The Clerk: Alas, I am trudging back To my prison-house in London, the land of strangers, With empty belly and purse. But why I am here Is a different matter. When April came, and I saw The sally-buds puffed with silk in the water meadows By Fleet and Tyburn, the sap began to stir In my limbs and irked my feet, that are corned by the cobbles Of stone-paved streets, to tread on green grass again; And my head was ravished in sleep by taunting visions Of Temeside cherry-blow, and white clouds sailing Over dappled Malvern, and primrose-banks And nodding daffodils and the smell of the may, Till I could abide it no longer; and so, one morning When Spring blew through the city, I stuffed my pack And kissed my dear wife Kitty and little Calotte, And strode out over Chiltern, blithe as a bee Winging to clover verges. And when I had trudged Four days on end, with a gay and humble heart And my muddled brain washed crystal by clean air And sweet verse chiming in time to my step, and I saw From Cotswold’s brow those hills I loved as a boy, Then fell I down on my knees and gave Heaven thanks That God still bides in Worcestershire. Yet this paradise Dures but the breath of Spring; and when the daffodil Hung his gold head, and the cherry-blow was dashed And hawthorn rusted on Malvern—then I knew That this miracle was over, with one more Spring Notched on my dwindling tally, and turned my face Like Adam, from the angel-guarded gates, Home to my dusty livelihood. Hob: What make you there, Will? The Clerk: My bare living, by murmuring of _Placebos_ And _Domine diriges_ and the Seven Psalms For the good of my lean purse and better men’s souls. Sometimes I toil at copying of crabbed texts In Paul’s Walk for fat lawyers, that like leeches Suck blood from quarrelsome fools; but oftenest I stray the idle streets, telling the rosary Of beaded words that I have strung together, Year after year and bead on bead, to fashion My vision of Piers Plowman—which is but the vision Of poor Long Will. Often folk gape to see me Go muttering on my way, and in the stews Of Tyburn raddled Flanders bawds will set Their curs to snap my ankles, and rock to see My draggled hems in tatters. Often I lean By tavern-doors to catch the blasphemies Of sots and gluttons. Often my cheek is spattered With mud thrown from the horses’ hooves of lords Riding to Westminster. Often I mingle With chaffering crowds on Garlic-hythe, and routs Of holiday prentices making cudgel-play Or roaring to the cock-fight—yet all these folk, Gentle or simple, fair or foul, are meat For my imaginings, and find their place In the stringing of my rosary, though many Defy my cunning. Sometimes, when I have lain Starven with cold in my garret of Cornhill, A brave line sparks the night with lettering Of fire, and I must rouse my wife and light A rush to set it down by—but, like as not, By dawn the gleam has faded, and the faggots That flared so bright have fallen to grey tinder. Yet still my rosary lengthens, and by long fingering I think the beads grow smooth. ’Tis a strange life We poets live; for half the things we dream Slip back into the darkness whence they flickered Like marsh-lights from the swamp of sleep to lure Our minds in muddy flounderings. I had been happier If I had not been learned, and had kept sheep On Bredon Hill like you, Hob. I have grown old, And wearier than my years warrant: a gnarled thorn, Niggard of blossom now . . . Hob: Yet your Spring’s burgeons Bloomed not in vain. Piers’ coulter has driven deep, And the wordy seed you scattered, borne on the breath Of common men and blown from mouth to mouth, Hath fallen in fertile furrows, and sprouted valiant As winter wheat in a mild season. Rightly You dub yourself a thorn: your spines have pricked A mort of bloated bubbles, and made folk laugh Who had little stomach for laughter—or much else In these unhappy days. The Clerk: Enough, enough Of Piers and him who made him! Tell me, friend, How you have fared these many years, and your wife And your three lads? You see my memory Is not so flimsy, though by now I reckon They have children of their own. Hob: All gone, all gone . . . A careworn man am I, who pines alone Like an old stag in the thickets. It was the Death, The Black Death, that widowed and bereft me Of wife and child. The Clerk: That was the deadliest frost That ever nipped green England. Well do I know it; For I was lodged in Cornhill when the Pestilence First broke on London—where the dead lay drifted Like Autumn leaves in Wychwood, and Winter’s snow Fell on them yet unburied: street and alley, Charnel and graveyard, clogged with Christian carrion, Till Bishop Ralph, out of Paul’s patrimony, Bought No Man’s Land in Spittle Croft, and dug Plague-pits to hold the nameless. Fifty thousand Had perished by Pentecost. Yet I moved among The mounds of dead unscathed,—having made strict vows To Blessed Saint Petronel—ay, and carried many On my bent back to heave them in the pits, With my mouth and nostrils muffled in singed rags To stem the stench of death. In those dread months I saw strange sights, and listened to stranger words; For, mark you, Bishop Ralph, seeing how multitudes Went straight to hell unshriven, gave power to clerks Of lesser orders to hear the last confessions Of folk in dread of death—and I, who hearkened, Reeled back in horror from the brimstone pits Of black iniquity that yawned in souls Of innocent-seeming men. Yet ever my mind, Being given to tale-making, strained at the shackles Of secrecy; and, but that my lips were locked, I could have writ such tales as young Dan Chaucer, With his new-fangled measures, never dreamed of; Such loves, hates, lusts, torments and vanities As would have made all Christendom hang on my lips And plead for more. There is another story I might have made had I been younger, telling Of how the Death began: how, in mid-Asia, The hordes of Tartary besieged a city Called Caffa, and, as they lay encamped about it, Sudden the Pestilence smote them—how, in revenge For what they deemed a hostile magic, they loaded Their catapults with corpses, and hurled their dead Into the leagured town; how certain merchants Of Genoa, fleeing from that terror, carried The seeds to Italy, and how thence it crept By Avenon, through Gascony, to Bordeaux, And so by ship to Melcombe in the shire Of Dorset. That would have made a tale to freeze The blood of generations, and stamped my fame So deep, King Richard might have granted me The boons he gave Dan Chaucer and his Philippa: A pitcher of wine a day, ten pounds of pension, And the Petty Customs of Wine in the Port of London! But that will never be. You see how fond Ambition’s dreams have made me: the very pestilence Brings grist to my mind’s millstones . . . Forgive me, friend I had not guessed the Death had dealt so foully With you in Worcestershire. Hob: Raise but your eyes And scan the fields; the half our fathers won By the patient plough has fallen back to grass, A waste of riotous weeds: pass through our villages And mark the sagging thatch, the mess of nettle And bramble tangling hearths where homely gleeds Once burned! Go to the mills of Avon and see The broken sluices, the still wheels shagged with moss, The rumbling gritstones moveless, the very rats Grown gaunt for lack of grain. See how the tower Of Pershore bites the sky like a broken tooth As witness of our want. There is no dwelling Nigh Bredon Hill but mourns the ruthless reaping Of that black harvest and its aftermath Of misery. We have neither will nor strength To mould our sorry world anew. All England Goes mourning to the grave of all her hopes And hears no passing bell—for they that tolled Lie mouldering with the rest; and there’s no remedy That men can see. The kite has built her nest In the Tree of Life and caws for carrion, While lords in London drown her hungry scritches With drunken song—and you—you sniff the may To mask the taint of death. The Clerk: You humble me. Tell me your tale; I’ll make a song of it To prick uneasy consciences. Hob: Songs? Songs? Throats that are clemmed with hunger have no spittle For aught but _Dies Irae_! Yet will I tell you How this fair-seeming roseland, on which May smiles So soft, within is cankered. You know well How in old time, we villeins of each manor Paid our lords’ dues in labour—so many days At plough, haysel and harvest—and, in return, Held our own strips of field, and shared the commonage In the waste; and none complained—we were merry folk, With ale a penny a gallon and hogs in plenty Routing the woods for acorns. Then some lords Impatient of our slow husbandry, made bargains To pay our toil in silver. Such was the poison First marred our peace; for hired men, over-spending The pence they earned, light-headed with false freedom, Forsook their forbears’ settled ways and left Their plots to fallow; and much good land lay waste While they that should have tilled it went their ways As labourers, bound neither to lord nor land But to their new-filled purses, faring wastefully In prodigal seasons, and in years of want Sullen and starved . . . Then came the winnowing Of the Black Murrain: when not one man in three Was spared to drive a plough. The dwindled tilth Shrank yet more piteously. That year’s harvest stood Unreaped and sprouting on the stalk. Loose cattle, Straying unherded, trampled through fields of grain Rotted untimely and unground, while Famine Grinned at our door, and money earned or saved By those who had boasted freedom (having lost The land that made them free) was not enough To buy bread for their brats. And, mark you, their lords Were in no better case, seeing that the King Still swinged them with fierce taxes to arm and feed His fighting-men in France—and not one farthing Dropped in their coffers save they sold their corn! But when they called for reapers, the landless folk Laughed in their faces: “What? You would pay us twopence For a day’s harvesting, when our children starve And corn is scarce and rye-bread costs us treble Of what we gave before the Pestilence? Nay, sixpence is our hire; and if you grudge it, Then let your harvest rot!” Then all the gentry Huddled together, and rode forth to London, Cozening Parliament to frame a Statute That bound all labourers to take the wage They had won in days of plenty, and their masters To pay no more—a penny a day for haymaking, Threepence, at most, for reaping—and if they bowed not To this decree, then should the lords pay forfeit And labourers, bond or free, be haled to justice And cast in prison. Yet still the harvest lay Ungarnered; for land-bound folk were few, and landless Had naught to lose, while they that were clapped in jail Could swing no sickle. So the Hunger grew, While houses fell to rubble, and the fallows Lay foul with dock and thistle, and clogged ditches Turned land in good heart sour. Then our taskmasters, Still vexed by the King’s taxes, grew ever more greedy Of petty tolls and penalties: each man must render A fine when his daughter wedded; all must carry The corn they grew to their lord’s mill, and pay A monstrous fee for grinding; none could oppose Oppression—since no land-bound serf might plead Against his lord in the King’s courts, or leave The land that failed to feed him. Thus, desperate men Banded themselves together and took flight, Straying from town to town and shire to shire In search of labour where none knew their names Nor whence they came—so half England was harried By homeless, lawless men, who dwelt like wolves In the woods, and preyed on simple villages To filch a livelihood; and our empty fields Became a wilderness . . . The Clerk: Yet you bode here on Bredon? Hob: I was too old and sad for such adventuring, And had no land to bind me; yet my roots Are so deep-set that, if they had been wrenched From this dear soil that bred me, I should have pined And perished. The Clerk: Tell me, then: what is the cure For all these ills? Hob: There is no sovereign remedy That I can tell, nor counsel save the cold comfort That old wives give to a young girl in labour: “You must be worse before you are better!” And yet I feel the first pangs of a great travail begin To shake me. Mark how yon storm shadows the Chase From Malvern foot to Ripple, and how the wind That runs before it tosses the hawthorn-blow And turns the hornbeam white with terror! Thus Restless, the storm-wind wafts through England now— Though whence it comes and whither it will carry us I know not. But this I know: there is no secret Cranny or nook it has not pierced; no bush Nor humble bent but feels it. First it bore But a vague whispering, such as those measured words Minted by Piers your Plowman, that kindle the mind And smoulder there unquenched, like a red ember Kindling unquiet heat. But of late we have heard Words homelier than yours, pointed with rhymes That stamp them on the memory, which are made By one called ‘Jack the Miller’—such as these: ‘_John the Miller hath ground small, small, small._ _The King’s son of heaven shall pay for all._ _Be ware or ye be wo;_ _Know your friend from your foe._ _Have enough, and say “Ho!”_ _And do well and better and flee sin_ _And seek peace and hold therein_ _And so bid John Trueman and all his fellows._’ The Clerk: These are lame verses, with neither sense nor measure. Jack Miller is no poet. Hob: For the measure, I have but little knowledge; but the sense Is plain to common folk. There is another Word that has passed through all the countryside, Whispered from mouth to mouth: ‘_John Schep, some time Saint Mary’s priest of York, and now of Colchester, greeteth well John Nameless and John Miller and John Carter, and biddeth them that they beware of guile in the borough and stand together in God’s name, and biddeth Piers Plowman go to his work, and chastise well Hob the Robber, and take with you John Trueman, and no mo; and look you sharp to one-head and no mo._’ The Clerk: He has borrowed my Piers Plowman without leave. The rest is windy raving; I can see No meaning in it. Hob: Then you are duller-witted Than ever I thought. I will tell you its meaning: That the withers of common folk, who till for others The soil that is their birthright, are galled to the bone By the bonds that fetter them; and that some few Who boast more wits than the many have asked this question “Since we are one in Christ, and in his Kingdom There are neither bond nor free, but Adam’s heritage Is rightly shared by all his breed, how comes it That most men fare afoot, perished with hunger, While others ride full-fed and spend the substance Won by their brethren’s toil in waste and gluttony? Answer us that!” The Clerk: This has been fully answered By Master John Wycliffe of Oxford, in the treatise _De Dominio Civili_. All things, he says, Belong to God, and are held of him directly; Yet what men hold is only truly held If they be righteous. The tenure of the wicked Is unsubstantial; and what they seem to hold Is never theirs in truth—seeing that the righteous Already, in virtue of their righteousness, Are seized of all God’s heritage. Wherefore It is idle for the righteous to dispute Possession of what the wicked seem but to hold, And have no seizin in. Further: if righteous men Serve wicked lords and masters, for all that wickedness They owe no less obedience; since it is written: _Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s_ _And unto God the things that are God’s._ Hob: That is no answer To stop mouths clemmed with famine, but a mere juggling With words and twisting of scripture that sounds strange On the lips of one whose tongue was once as sharp As a crab-apple and rough as a perry-pear That would rasp the roof from your mouth! The Clerk: Both brew good liquor . . . Yet you are right: when I was young I was teart As Tewkesbury cider; but marriage melloweth man, And the sweets of cities are as raisins or honey Dropped in the cask; so, when the froth of youth Hath bubbled from the bung-hole, the liquor softens To a cheerful smoothness—though, mark you, with age It may grow ropey and turn again to vinegar That hath no virtue but to pickle neats’-tongues And sets men’s teeth on edge. Hob: A rougher answer Will yet be given, and sooner than you guess, By men who deal in deeds, and having known Hunger in freedom, deem it preferable To plenty in slavery. _The wind bloweth_ _Whither it listeth_; and this wind bloweth strong And shrewd out of the East, where Jack the Miller And his bitter kith have sworn to stand together To see the new wrongs righted, and give men back The ancient liberties wrested at Runnymede From John Sansterre. And when that wind has gathered And the storm breaks, the towers of privilege Will crash before it as the walls of Jericho Fell when God’s people shouted. They shall no more Withstand it than fond Canute could quell the tide, Or we two, perched on Bredon, stay those ranks Of heaped cloud charging on us. (Hark! Already Low thunder rumbles in the Vale, and lightning Rips their black bellies! We had best take shelter Before we are caught.) But mark you this, Long Will! Though this storm sweep all England, and in its wake Tall oaks and elms lie toppled, torn from their roots Or lopped of rotten timber, lowlier growths And nearer to the soil, as we and ours, Shall lose no leaf; and when the tempest passeth, Stand glistening with raindrops in the May sun And watch the coloured span of God’s bow arching Blue Cotswold . . . Come, then. Hasten! The first drops fall. XV A BALLAD OF JOHN BALL A.D. 1381 John Ball was moulded from the clays Of the cold vale of Ouse, Blunt of speech and bold of gaze Great of bone and thews, And through his bitter blood there ran The gall of a lonely, landless man. He dwelt in plenty among the priests In Saint Mary’s Abbey of York, But had no stomach for their feasts Nor patience for their talk Of heaven, when pestilence and dearth Painted hell on English earth, Where he saw the ermined gentry ride Warm-clad as they had lain, While folk that furnished them their pride Trudged cold through wind and rain— And their very dogs were better fed Than the brats of the poor who whined for bread; Where logs that warmed fur-slippered feet Were hewn by frozen hands, And the wealth they spent on wine and meat Was wrung from stolen lands By landless folk whose sires had won Those very fields from barren stone, But were now serfs, bounden to the soil And galled beneath the yoke Of the few who battened on their toil Till body and soul were broke, And their starved carcases at last Into the nameless charnels cast, While orphans gleaned the hungry lands In ragged multitudes, And fugitives in lawless bands Like wolves lay in the woods, Prowling forth at night to prey On folk no better fed than they. So from Ball’s anguished heart there broke At length a gathering tide Of long-pent anger, and he spoke His bitter mind, and cried: “When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman? “For we are all God’s sons by birth, And save for mortal sin Each one inheriteth God’s earth And all that is therein; And if, in this, we flout God’s will, What wonder that the world goes ill?” Then (for this doctrine touched their greeds) The monks arose in wrath; They stripped John Ball of his clerkly weeds And drove him from the North, Bounden to silence by the strict Ban of their Bishop’s interdict. So he kicked the clods of his native clay From his shoes and sought the South; And they reckoned themselves well-rid that they Had stopped this blabbing mouth That dared to speak forth without fear The truths they hated most to hear. Southward he wandered without haste To the agued Essex fen, Lurking in hovels of the waste With landless, hopeless men Whose thoughts, for utter want, had grown Darker and bitterer than his own; And though no bishop would let him preach In temples made with hands, Men flocked to hear the forthright speech That a plain folk understands Better than mumbled Latin read By priests who give them stones for bread; For his rede was no fine-tempered sword, But a bludgeon of tough oak That hammered-in each uncouth word Till those down-trodden folk, Dumb with toil and blind with pain, Blinked their bleared eyes and saw again; Till hapless men in hundreds heard The words John Ball had said, Till from the fens the ferment stirred Like brewsters’ barm in bread, And spreading forth from East to West Leavened the hearts of the oppressed. And the hapless hundreds all agreed As one man to maintain The bare rights gained at Runnymede And take their own again, That freedom of their native earth Be given to men of English birth; Till, when the young king’s officers Sent his tax-gatherers forth For gold to feed their foreign wars, All Essex rose in wrath And beat them from the shire, and sent Word to their brother-men in Kent; And starved serfs gathered everywhere As the shire of Kent awoke, And Canterbury and Rochester Roared to heaven in smoke While half the harvest’s garnered stores Lay spilt upon the threshing-floors; And starven Kent, with pike and flail, Swept through the Medway plains, To break the walls of Maidstone jail Where John Ball lay in chains, And set him free and bore him on To the barred gates of London town, Where, on the bank of Thames, the rout Surged like a foamy sea: They burnt the palace of Lambeth out And sacked the Marshalsea, Calling on them that kept the gate To give up London to its fate. Then did the folk of London cower, Seeing they were bestead; For the King was shut within the Tower, And the Queen, his mother, fled, And the merchants had no spunk to fight Against a cause they knew was right; So Alderman Sybele, who stood alone And was scared for his own skin, Sent the great drawbridge rattling down To let the rabble in: And the gutters bubbled with a flood Of broached wine frothed with human blood. For dazed men knew not what they did And cared not whom they slew, And nothing recked so they be rid Of the stony-hearted crew That had docked them of their dwindled wage And robbed them of their heritage. So, with no lust but to destroy, Fierce Kent surged through the street To burn the Palace of Savoy And the Flemings of the Fleet, While, from the North, the turbid spate Of Essex thundered through Aldgate; Till London was a shambles lit With flame and drenched in gore, And blood and fire in fury beat On the bastions of the Tower, Where the King, with his craven court, Huddled in fear, but could do naught. Then young King Richard rose and spoke: “How should a king disown These rude, benighted countryfolk Who are subjects of his crown? Rather will I ride forth to find What maggot rots my people’s mind. “And if I deem their wrongs well-found, Then will I do them right; For so I swore when I was crowned, And must fulfil the plight I pledged them as their lawful king To give them justice in everything.” So the King, by Aldersgate, rode out To Smithfield Square; and when They saw this noble child, that rout Of simple, hapless men Forgot their bitter wrongs, and cried: “The King, the King is on our side!” And Walter Tyler, who was their chief, Set forth their just demands; And the young king promised them relief From tax, and that the lands And forests should be theirs once more, And lords no longer grind the poor. But while he spoke this soothing word And granted them their due, The Mayor of London stripped his sword And ran Wat Tyler through; And when they saw their leader dead, The crowd, bewildered, broke and fled; And his aldermen called out the wards To smite them in the rear, And the men of London drenched their swords In such a massacre As the shambles of Smithfield had never seen And never will know again, I ween; And through all England the butchers rode From Suffolk to Somerset Wherever a feeble ember glowed Of the gleed John Ball had lit; And summer fields, from York to Kent, Smoked with the blood of the innocent. They caught John Ball in Coventry And dragged him South in shame, They broke his neck on the gallows-tree And quartered his lean frame; And they brought his carcase to London, and set His head on the bridge-house parapet; It grinned there, shrivelling day by day, That mouth of speech bereft, Till weather had sloughed the lips away And naught but bone was left, And careless folk who passed the gate Thought no more of John Ball’s fate. And now the guard-house gate is gone And razed the parapet; But that mouth still asks the question That none dares answer yet: _When Adam delved and Eve span,_ _Who was then the gentleman?_ XVI Interlude THE WARS OF THE ROSES A.D. 1455-1485 Behold a more tempestuous age Than England ever yet hath known: See the embattled Roses rage In tumult round a redeless throne: See all her braggart chivalry Driven from Gascony and Maine Headlong to the narrow sea, Dragging in their dishevelled train The louts that laughed to burn the Maid, Yet faltered when the shining lance Of bold Dunois and Guesclin’s blade Flashed and smote them out of France: Whose rustic wits could understand No cleaner trades than rape and plunder; Who fell upon their native land And tore her living limbs asunder, Who sold their mercenary might To them that bid the most, and bled Till the Red Rose was blanched white And the White Rose blotched with red! See the fierce falcons from the harsh Eyries of Mortimer soar to fling Their terror from the Powys March To Verulam, where the hapless King In predatory talons caught Is rapt and caged and set at naught! _Yet while that changeful battle swayed_ _The bells of Alban’s minster rang_ _For Vespers, and the barley-blade_ _From Verulam’s buried ruins sprang_ _Enriched with death anew to yield_ _Life from the trampled battlefield._ See how the angry queen bereft Rallies her broken host and falls On York and Neville in Ludford cleft And holds them locked in Ludlow’s walls, And the fierce Red Roses whirl away The White Rose and the Ragged Staff Like vapours blown at break of day From Temeside, or wind-winnowed chaff That is flurried from a threshing-floor: Till Teme is sullied with the stain Of death, as when dense waters pour From Corvedale red with Lammas rain! _Yet even in that bitter hour_ _When York was broken and betrayed,_ _The masons perched on Ludlow Tower_ _Plied their patient craft, and laid_ _Course upon course the quarried stones_ _That made that miracle of grace_ _To bear the mellow chime whose tones_ _Waver above the market-place._ But see: the Ragged Staff returning Ravages the midland plain: See Northampton sacked and burning And the crazed King caught again! See the resurgent White Rose wilt At Wakefield, where the rebel blood Of stubborn York himself is spilt— While March, last hawk of that fierce brood, Wings to the West and whets the sword That shall avenge his father’s loss On Pembroke’s levies, where the ford Straddles the Lugg at Mortimer’s Cross! _Yet even as the fallen hopes_ _Of Lancaster lay drowning there,_ _The woodman’s axe on Lingen’s slopes_ _Rang through the February air,_ _And in the frosty folds that lie_ _On Lingen’s sheepwalks, shepherds kept_ _Their starlit vigil, till the sky_ _Grew dim with dawn, and turned and slept_ _In peace, with neither ruth nor cares_ _For a quarrel that was none of theirs._ Once more on Verulam see the wrath Of the Red Rose flame—as Neville reels Driven in terror to the North With Lancaster upon his heels, Nor stays his rout nor stands his ground Till the royal roses are laid low By York’s usurper, newly crowned, At Towton in the crimson snow; Till Neville’s bitter brother slew Percy at Hedgeley Moor, and caged That fierce Queen, Margaret of Anjou! So, for a while, the fires that raged Through England’s length and breadth are spent In a smoulder of sullen discontent. _Yet even as the arrowy hail_ _Mingled with snow on helm and shield,_ _The plowmen of the Towton Vale_ _Led their patient teams afield;_ _And shepherds on the heathery moor_ _Of Hexham heard the plaintive bleat_ _Of yeanling lambs above the roar_ _Of battle raging at their feet,_ _Carried the orphans in their arms_ _To the warm ingles of their farms,_ _And laid them by the smoking peat._ See how the germ of vengeance breaks From bloody seed at Hexham sown, When Neville’s treachery unmakes The king he made, and on the throne Plants the weak fool he first forswore! See, nourished by the dynast’s hand, The Rose of Lancaster once more Flaunt above a sullen land— Till York, supplanted and betrayed, Rides from the North to claim his right And the Kingmaker is unmade On Easter Eve in Barnet fight, While his vanquisher pursues the rout Of Barnet to the Severn Sea, And stamps the last red embers out In the bloody meadow at Tewkesbury! _Yet, while the sun of Lancaster_ _Blood-red in Severn’s bosom sets,_ _The fishermen from Tewkesbury weir_ _Launch their boats and stake their nets_ _In channels where allice and salmon run_ _To seek their gravelly spawning-redd,_ _And little recked who lost or won_ _The battle so their mouths were fed;_ _And graziers from the wattled folds_ _Of Cotswold carried bales of fleece_ _To stow them in the greedy holds_ _Of Flanders gaping at the quays,_ _And rode back to their windy wold_ _On horse-packs stuffed with Flemish gold._ So, for long time, a bloodless truce Broods on an exhausted realm— Till dying York in death lets loose His crippled brother, to overwhelm Kinsman and foe in one red flood Of indiscriminate slaughter, wading To climb the throne knee-deep in blood; Till the White Rose with the Red Rose fading Fell together on Bosworth field, Where the cold craft of Richmond brought The savage Crouchback to his knees, And in his brain’s shrewd smithy wrought The double emblem that annealed Those two tempestuous flowers in one, And with a kindlier wisdom sealed His merciful dominion In the long Tudor peace. _Yet while those barbarous warriors died_ _At Bosworth for a tawdry gage,_ _The patient printer Caxton plied_ _His craft, and from the virgin page_ _The magic of immortal words_ _Shone with a beauty to outlast_ _The scars their transitory swords_ _Graved on the tablets of the past;_ _And while ambitious dynasts broke_ _Their thews to prop a transient throne,_ _The spirit of the common folk_ _Flowered in imperishable stone—_ _When men whose names will ne’er be known,_ _The rude, anonymous builders, raised_ _Their village belfries to the skies_ _That God might be the better praised;_ _And master-glaziers’ jewelled dyes_ _Shot the gloomy Norman vault_ _With shafts of sapphire and cobalt,_ _And from their silvery clerestories_ _Shed floods of radiance and fires_ _Of ruby on the shadowy quires;_ _And while the ruthless baronage_ _Flew at one another’s throats,_ _The folk who paid the builders’ wage_ _Gathered within their manor-moats_ _The meed of husbandry that heaped_ _Their granaries with the spoils of peace,_ _And shepherded their flocks and reaped_ _The harvest of the golden fleece;_ _And when the flames of that fierce age_ _With Bohun and Mortimer were spent,_ _These plain folk claimed the heritage_ _Of honourable toil, content_ _To see a soberer England rise_ _From the charred ruins of the old,_ _And welcome, with undazzled eyes,_ _The dawning of an Age of Gold._ XVII NORTH-WEST PASSAGE A.D. 1497 On the second day of the month of May When the cuckoo cried in the woods of Leigh, The _Matthew_ shipped her trade and slipped Her mooring-cable from Bristol Quay. Bristol-made and Bristol-manned, With a crew as tough as any afloat, She sailed that day in search of land, And her captain’s name was John Cabote: A salty, swarthy Venetian, Born of that race of roving men That know the seas from Matapan To the whirlpool of the Lofoden, From the hungry fangs of Finisterre And the sun-white sands of the Azores To the banks of dripping fog that blear The crags that girdle Iceland’s shores. Yet they who watched the _Matthew_ drift Baremasted on the falling tide That ebbed through Avon’s oozy cleft, And hailed us from the waterside To speed our parting, little guessed (And we, her crew, no more than they) The hazards of the lonely quest That lured John Cabote on his way: How, cold as was his outward eye, There ever burned within his brain A vision of new lands that lie Westward of the Spanish main, And a lust for landfalls stranger still Than fiery Hecla’s girdling ice: For he saw the island of Brazille And far Cipango’s Isles of Spice, Where, in a palace paved with gold The Great Khan wields his awful sway On slavish multitudes untold In the seven Cities of Cathay. Over Avon’s oozy bed We drifted seaward mile on mile Till we cleared the bluffs of Portishead And weathered Lundy Isle; And hoisted sail at the tide’s turn Where the last known headlands one by one With the loom of Lundy fell astern, And we laid our course on the sinking sun That set with never a sail in sight Nor ever a single landward gleam As the _Matthew_ bore on through the night With the lodestar dipped on her starboard beam. Through empty leagues, with never a speck Of sail, a week we ran close-hauled, And a short sea spewed the after-deck With icy sheets of emerald, Till, where a haze of shredded spray Whitened the fringes of Cape Clear, The brisk North Easter died away And the cold wind began to veer; And for a second week, the wrath Of a warm gale in the tropics bred Drove us reeling to the North With the drunken lodestar full ahead. The hot wind in the halyards screamed The wild wind stripped the shrouds, The reefed sails split because of it And were blown away like clouds; It carried the foremast by the board And cracked the mainsail-boom: We could do naught but thank the Lord At least we had sea-room. Too dazed were we to care or ask How soon our end might be, As the _Matthew_, like a broken cask, Plunged in the pits of sea, Or like a spar of driftwood clung To the wave’s glassy cheek, And climbed, and for a moment hung Poised on the combing peak, Straddled with bow and stern in air, Enough to break her back: And as the _Matthew_ shuddered there, We heard the keelson crack; We looked to see the whole hull riven And her timbers fly apart, And vowed our sinful souls to heaven With fear in every heart; Till, strange as was the miracle Christ wrought in Galilee, The gale that so misused us fell, And with it fell the sea To a creaming swell as gentle grown As a mother that rocks her babe; And we checked our course anew, by stone And needle and astrolabe. Into the empty West we had sailed, Three hundred leagues almost, When the soft breeze from the South’ard failed, And I smelt the breath of frost; An icy Arctic current set Upon our starboard bow, Till the limp sails with fog were wet And sprent with flurried snow. The breath of yet-unfallen snows Stiffened our clammy hair; It crept into our mouths and froze Our breath upon the air. Blindly through fog the _Matthew_ lurched Till Cabote’s cabin-boy Sebastian, in the crow’s nest perched, Shouted ‘Land ahoy!’ Then all the crew with one accord Ran to the bows and blessed Sweet Mary, Mother of our Lord, Who loves poor seamen best; But as I peered and arched my hand To shade my straining eyes, I knew this landfall was no land But isles of floating ice. Like the risen ghosts of mountains vast In deeps of ocean drowned, Their white-robed shapes came drifting past Without a sigh or sound: Without a sigh, without a sound That ears of man could hear, Those silent spectres gathered round Like mutes about a bier; And the seeping vapours that they shed From icy flank and peak Fell like the fingers of the dead Upon each bloodless cheek. Shrouded in snow and cered in veils Of mist they loomed above: They stole the wind from our slack sails So that we could not move; And the foolish whispered words we spoke To bate our mortal dread Backward in mocking echoes broke And bellowed overhead. So, clamped within that cruel vice, We floated as the snow-light fell, And waited for the grinding ice To crunch us like a filbert-shell. Huddled on the glazing deck, We brooded on our hopeless plight, And heard the riven icebergs crack Like thunder round us in the night, Till the dim snow-light paled again, And a huge phantom of the sun Rose wanly from the watery plain, And lo!—the ice was gone! A warm waft filled the frozen sails And shed their crusted rime, As the _Matthew_ dipped her bows and crept Into a kindlier clime. Two hundred leagues and more we sailed On the same westward course, Till, through a haze of surf, we hailed The sight of unknown shores, Where the tall shape of a lonely cape Shadowed a woody strand; And the Master christened the cape, St. John’s, And the shores the New Found Land. So we broached a keg of Gascony To drink John Cabote’s health, Who had brought us safe through the icy seas To lands of untold wealth Where our eyes, he told, might soon behold Those fabled Cities of Cathay Where common streets were paved with gold And flowers bloomed alway; Where fruits hung down from blossomed trees And bright wings flashed through groves of spice, And sea-worn men might take their ease In airs of paradise. Such were the vain delights we planned And such the empty hopes we nursed, And guessed not that our New Found Land Was desert and accurst: For naught was there but a wilderness Of barren rock, and trackless wood Where no sound broke the silences Of a deathlike solitude But the boom of rollers on the beach And the scream of seabirds overhead; That awful silence muted speech And crushed our hearts with dread. Yet, though we spake not, every man Saw panic written plain In his comrades’ eyes, and turned and ran Back to the boats again. Three weeks the _Matthew_ southward bore, Hugging that haunted coast; Yet none that landed ever saw So much as a man’s ghost, Nor any footprint but his own, Nor any work of human hands But a netting-needle of carved bone Cast on the wave-ribbed sands; Nor any curl of smoke by day Nor glint of fire by night: And our greedy visions thinned away Like phantoms, out of sight. Thus in our hearts a hatred grew For this homeless faring without end And a longing for the ways we knew, For wife and child and friend. So we begged our captain John Cabote To cease his fruitless quest, And he gybed and put the ship about And set the course due East. The elder bloomed on Clifton Down And the cuckoo was flown from the woods of Leigh When we saw the roofs of Bristol Town And stepped ashore on Bristol Quay, Where merchant folk that thronged the port Stood agape on every hand To see what booty we had brought Back from the New Found Land. But their curious faces fell, to know That booty we had none, And that all the treasure we could show Was a netting-needle of bone; And that all the marvels we could bring Their eager ears was nothing more Than a tale of bootless voyaging And of a barren shore. And now the _Matthew_ of Bristol plies A trade of greater gain, For she carries the rich merchandise Of Gascony and Spain; But though Cabote his pension got And we had but our wage, Yet would I fain put forth again On such a pilgrimage: For oft, as in my bunk I dream, Rocked within hail of friendlier land, I hear the homeless seabirds scream Above that haunted strand, And I smell the mould of the forest sod That never human eyes nor feet Save ours alone have seen or trod, And find it strangely sweet; And my nights are lit by the wild gleam Of the passion that beguiles The hearts of islanders to dream Of undiscovered isles, Of chasms that no lead can sound And deserts never crossed, And the search for what no man hath found And the finding of the lost; And in those dreams I grope my way North-westward through the grinding ice To the Seven Cities of Cathay And the fabled Isles of Spice. XVIII ADAM WOODWARD AND THE SHIPWRIGHT A.D. 1525 _Once more the Scene is Worcestershire. To the skylark’s eye the face of the land on which Hob of the Hill and Will Langland looked down does not seem greatly changed in a hundred and forty years. In the foreground the tower of Pershore Abbey, then unfinished, has now reached its full height, and the extent of the monastic buildings betokens the dignity of a rich and powerful community—already doomed, did they but know it, to untimely dispersal. The wild region of Malvern Chase remains much as it was, and the area of tilth in the valleys of Severn and Avon does not appear larger than it was before the Black Death, although the landscape has grown generally paler through the thinning of trees for fuel. Only North of Avon the great Mercian woodlands remain: the forests of Arden and Feckenham stretching in a dark band from East to West and merging, in the neighbourhood of Bewdley, into the dense oakwood of Wyre, which here embraces and overflows the course of Severn to peter out on the less hospitable flanks of the Clees. Through the midst of this forest the Dowles Brook lapses quietly over its ledges of sandstone to join Severn; and, roughly parallel with its meanderings, through a shallow valley choked with brushwood, a sled-scored track penetrates the lonely recesses of aboriginal oak._ _It is an early morning in middle June, with the cuckoo abroad, and though the oaks have broken into leaf, their foliage has not yet darkened to the opacity which, in late Summer, fills the forest with gloom. Yet Wyrewood lies strangely silent. No sound can be heard but the murmur of the brook, the sudden screeches of jays and magpies, or the laugh of the stock-eagle. Over the track, already invaded by springing bracken, there slowly advances a horseman, on a shaggy pony, leading a packhorse, laden with two ill-balanced saddle-bags. The rider is a sturdy, black-bearded young man in maroon trunk-hose and doublet. He wears a velvet cap of the same colour furnished with a silver medal of Saint Christopher, whose protection he might well feel the need of in such an outlandish spot—the more so in that he rides unarmed. At the end of several miles of collar-work the track opens into a clearing occupied by two thatched hovels protected by a stone wall on which the flayed hides of deer are stretched out to dry in the sun. Outside this wall, within a circle of black ash, the mound of a charcoal-burner smoulders, emitting from its summit a thin spiral of milk-blue smoke._ _At the sight of these signs of habitation, the rider, Hugh Baker, son of James Baker, the famous shipwright of Southampton, cautiously pulls up, and the led horse immediately lowers his head to crop the grass that springs between the bronze croziers of unfolding bracken; then tosses it abruptly, startled by his master’s shout, in response to which an uncouth figure stalks out of the nearer hut. It is that of a gigantic man, clothed from neck to foot in leather. The parts of his face left uncovered by his shaggy blond beard, are blackened by charcoal-dust which intensifies the whiteness of his eye-balls and teeth and gives his craggy face a ferocious aspect. In his enormous left hand he grasps a long-bow, to whose string he has fitted an arrow. He is Adam Woodward, servant of Sir William Compton, lately appointed Rider and Verderer of the royal forest of Wyre. From the shelter of his stone wall he challenges the intruder._ Adam: Who bist thee, stranger—and what makest thou In the king’s woodland without leave or warrant? Hugh: I am called Hugh Baker, shipwright of Southampton, And travel in the king’s service by the leave Of your master, Sir William Compton, to make a tally Of the wood’s standing timber. For my warrant: It is here . . . But for Christ’s sake first unstring that arrow! Adam: I cannot read. Hugh: See, then, the sheriff’s signet Stamped on the seal. Adam: What would you of me? Hugh: Your counsel, And what charity you can spare—against just payment— For a stomach that is empty these fifteen hours. Adam: Here is no hostelry. Better you had filled it In the inn at Bewdley. Hugh: So had I, but that I came To the bridge-house after nightfall and found it barred, Nor would they loose the bolt. Adam: Came you thither from Worcester? Hugh: Ay, and so told them. Adam: Then there is little wonder The folk misliked you: there is disaccord Twixt Bewdley and Worcester over the water-traffic Of Severn—though had you passed the bridge I doubt You would have gotten bed or victual; for the Council Bides now in Bewdley, and the town’s beset With greedy gizzards like a carrion Pestered by wood-ants. Within another month The Lady Mary cometh to dwell at Tickenhill, And swarms of bustling tradesmen flock to fettle The palace for her court: there has not been So foul a press in Bewdley since Prince Arthur Her brother’s corpse lay there upon the way To burial in Worcester! Hobble your horses: If they should range in the woods no eye could track them Save mine. Then, if you will, you shall eat with me A mess of venison, and slake your gullet, So it be not too mimping, with a swill Of the teart liquor that we forest-folk Crush from choke-pear and crab-apple. Hugh: Were it verjuice My throat would relish it. I give you thanks, Woodward. Adam: You owe me none. I give no welcome To meddlesome trespass save a goose-winged shaft; But you, who come in peace and with right warranty, I reckon as my guest till you have stepped Beyond the forest’s liberties. Come, sit you down Till the pot seethe. Hugh: I have told you my name. But yours I do not know. Adam: I am called Adam, Woodward of Wyre. Hugh: You have dwelt long in this forest? Adam: I was born and bred in it, like my father before me And his again. My grandfather was servant To the Mortimers of Wigmore who once held This chase. He fell at Tewkesbury . . . Hugh: You dwell alone? Adam: Alone? Alone? How should my days be lonely Amid the living multitude of creatures That bear me company? There is no tree In all Wyrewood but knows me for his neighbour And one that loves him! I have fleeter friends: Hart, hind, hare, wolf and boar, the five wild beasts Of venery, and a mort of humbler folk That list my step but fear not: the russet squirrel Who chitters on the bough and fearless fills His garner at my threshold; fitchet, weasel And spitfire catamount—and those shy rievers That slink by night: vixen and brindled brock, And the sleek-skinned otter-bitch that dives to snatch The great lax swimming in her golden livery Of Michaelmas to find my Lenten fare. All these are my familiars; yet I do reckon I love the tall trees best: they are no runagates, And quiet best befits this wilderness. Hugh: Quiet? Knew I no livelier company I should go mumping-mad. My tongue would shrink For want of wagging, and my ear-drums thicken Till I grew adder-deaf. Adam: Friend, you are wrong. Hugh: What? Can these dumb stocks mark your word or make Articulate answer? Adam: Ay, and with many voices, So you but hearken and the ear be tuned To catch their tone and cadence. Every tree Has its own speech in season: the showery abele That sighs when all are hushed and the weak air Stirreth no other leaf; the timid whitebeam That whispers faint alarm when the wind blenches Her ravelled tresses; why, even the stiff holly, That broodeth mute and sullen in her thickets Till mightier boughs be bared, breaketh her silence In brittle chatter when November strips All other leaves but hers. That is the season When, in their nakedness, the great oaks stand Girt with such godlike majesty that a heathen Who knew not Christ might sink upon his knees And worship them. Hugh: This is idolatry! Surely your mind must have been mazed by solitude To breed such wicked blasphemies. Adam: Behappen It is sounder than you reckon. I do but tell The wild thoughts it has harboured in that season Of deathlike stillness when the starlight falls On a world cered in snow, and even the brooks Ice-muted cease their babbling. There is no silence Holier than this, or stranger. Yet I confess I love my woodland best when all its voices Are raised in riot: as when Lammas gales Roar through the huddled treetops, and torn boughs Leaf-burdened crash into the shuddering brake With shrieks of rending anguish—and there is war In heaven, as when the winged archangels battled With the dark hosts of Lucifer and swept His fiends into the pit. Then my brave oaks Unbent proclaim their majesty, defying The demons of the air. Oft have I leaned With my ear pressed against them, striving to share That fierce aerial tumult—yet not a tremor Shaketh their steadfast boles! No progeny Of earth is nobler or mightier than these— No, nor yet wiser. Hugh: Wiser? That is too much For a plain man to stomach! Would you maintain That these familiars partake the natures And passions of mankind? Adam: Did you but know them As I, you would not doubt it. For their natures: These are as manifold in variety As their hues, shapes and statures. Some are frail— Witness the frightened aspen that for ever Shivers with needless fear, and is so cold At heart she will not burn—while some are gay And light of utter innocence, like the birch That laughs when the wind fondles her, yet is bold To loose her shift of satin and stand poised In slim and silvery nakedness, like a maid Upon the river’s brink. Others are gracious As the honey-dripping and bee-haunted lime Whose tender leaves my gentle fallows nip With lips of velvet. Some, though seeming fair, Are jealous—as the shallow-rooted beech, Whose greed, for all her graces, will not brook Consort or rival—so that no blade of green Can thrive beneath her, and the very oak Pines in her company. Some are treacherous— Witness the elm, whose brittle branches fall To build a coffin for the fool who trusts His life to her false shelter. Some are crabbed And stony-hearted—as the grudgeful yew That dwells apart, black-visaged and withdrawn Like a Welshman of the marches, and hath no joy But in her length of days. Others are spiteful— As is the poison-dripping ash that sheds Death on the sward beneath her. There are many Lesser and lowlier trees with neither malice Nor virtue in their natures: the rugged alder That sways her ravelled rootlets in our brooks And smoulders into charcoal; the tough hornbeam, That like a candle flares, yet is so stubborn She dints the axe—and all the pliable tribe Of water-loving withies whose silver buds, Breaking in floss of palest primrose, kindle The first cold fires of Spring. Yet, of all these, I love the oak most dearly . . . Hugh: Your wise oaks! Adam: How should he not be wise who hath outlived Mankind’s allotted span before he sets A single acorn, and is not meet for timber Ere he hath doubled it? There are oaks in Wyre That had weathered their first winters when the Roman Set foot in Britain, and had but reached their prime When Harold fell at Hastings, yet still stand Hale to the root. Hugh: I am too staid to follow Such lightfoot fancies; yet I do confess They are lordly trees: as pretty a standel of timber As I have seen this twelvemonth. In the South We have no such forests now. The Wealden woods Have fed the smelters’ furnaces and slaked Their charcoal-mounds with sap. Our slips lie empty For lack of sizeable timber-trees to build The hulls this realm needs most. I think your oaks Might end their days more nobly than by drowsing To death in this dim cloister. Lay me that giant, And from his fallen carcase the adze will fashion Garboard, strakes, ribs and knees for such a ship As never took salt water! From yonder elm Sawyers will shear planking to case her decks And carve both keel and kelson. Cross-grained knots Shaped by the turner’s chisel-edge shall furnish Dead-eyes and pulley-blocks; your stubborn hornbeam Yield tree-nails that shall marry oak to elm So the twain be one flesh; your springy ash Find yards and cross-trees. From the pliable poplar Coopers will hammer water-butts and kegs For gunpowder—whereof the fieriest Is mixed with alder-charcoal. Thus your staid forest Wrought by man’s artifice shall sweep the seas In a more splendid shape and prouder guise, Dight with new dread and beauty! Adam: I have never Beheld the sea, nor any vessel nobler Than the great drags and trowes that float our cordwood Down Severn to Gloucester. Hugh: You would not count such craft Great were you seaward-bred, or had you but seen The huge bark _Princess Mary_, that my father, James Baker, built at Hampton. Six hundred tons Of portage, manned by seven hundred souls: Of mould so clean beneath, of sail so swift, Above so sweet-proportioned—castles, coins And fights so cunningly disposed for majesty And terror of the enemy—yet withal So weatherly and maniable! Ah, had you watched her Upon the day she thundered from the slips And floated on the water like a swan Amid a flight of mallard—then had you granted The empire of the Hampton shipwrights’ artifice Above all others. Yet the _Princess Mary_ Seems but a shallop to me, whose eyes have seen The _Henry Grace à Dieu_, that seamen lovingly Call the _Great Harry_, lately launched at Erith, Whose portage is a thousand, and her crew Double the _Princess Mary’s_, manning five tiers Of brazen ordnance—cannons, demi-cannons, Culverins, sakers and falcons, to say naught Of her iron slings, fowlers and hail-shot pieces And murderous hand-guns. There is no battle-ship— Be she galleasse of Portugal or galleon Of Spain or Venice—that can quench the fire Of this formidable paragon. Yet now we plan To build a greater. Adam: I cannot understand Why we, a comfortable folk, should court The perils of unquiet waves, or seek Dominion of the seas that God hath set To guard our natural liberties. Hugh: There speaks The landsman! Know you not that the fickle waters Which fend us can prove traitor, giving passage To jealous foreigners? So first came the Danes; So came the Normans—and, now we are at odds With our King’s false uncousinly cousin France, Our watery moat is narrowed, and the arm Of enmity grows longer. But for the eyes Our prowling fleet has given us, we should lie Helplessly blinded by the mists that cloak The Dover strait in Summer. This is a lesson You land-bound folk have ever been loth to learn And, once learnt, soon forgotten—though your forbears Knew better than yourselves, as when the Fifth Harry, Of Monmouth, from the yards of Portsmouth launched His three great dromonds: the first _Grace à Dieu_, The _Trinity_ and the _Holy Ghost_, to guard His passage to Picardy; and when Henry Tudor (The huckster, as the witless called him) built Four mightier yet—the _Sweepstake_, _Mary Fortune_, _Sovereign_ and _Regent_; ships that in their prime, Sailed without any peer, yet now have lost Their admiralty. Adam: Why so? Hugh: These were but round-ships, Cumbersome and slow-paced, that had neither power To hold the water nor sail close by the wind: Their upper decks o’erburdened by the weight Of their iron ordnance—and so ill-found That one smart squall in a high sea could catch them Unbalanced, and founder them. Since then, a Frenchman, One Master Descharges, of Brest in Brittany, Has dropped his cannon to the cargo-decks That lie above the orlop, thrusting their muzzles Through apertures called portes—bating thereby That perilous lack of ballast and augmenting His tale of ordnance fourfold. Thus, the _Great Harry_ Casts from her teeming belly such a weight Of deadly metal as would stave and sink The _Regent_ in one broadside, and if by chance She were outnumbered, show such nimble heels No foe could catch her—for this kingly ship Is limber as a greyhound. It is strange That an instrument of war so terrible Should be so beautiful. When first I saw her Towed on the flood-tide of the Thames from Erith To Barking Creek (for there my father had sent me To spy upon her) I judged her lines uncomely Beside our race-built Hampton craft—and once She all but grounded on the shelving silt Eastward of Roding river. That was jealousy Feeding false hope: she was not yet rigged or sparred With the tall masts of tapered spruce-wood felled In the forests of the Hansa; and I told My father she was but a monstrous drone, Paunchy and sluggard. But when next I saw her Put forth from Dover, carrying the King’s Grace To parley with his royal cousin Francis Twixt Guynes and Arde in Flanders, then, suddenly, My heart leapt to my mouth, like a young lad’s When first he sees his love, of sheer delight In her perfection: for this huge hulk steered Light as a pinnace and made our _Princess Mary_ Seem but a slut beside her. Never was ship More gloriously apparelled; for all her sails Were damasked cloth-of-gold. Upon the cagework Of her high castles flew four royal standards, Each flagstaff tipped with a gold fleur-de-lys, And from her four mast-heads the golden tongues Of flame-like pennants flickered. From the quarters Of her main deck hung four white banners bearing The red cross of St. George, that drooped athwart A tier of heater-shields or targets charged With the same blood-red ensign, alternate With France’s silver lilies and the rose Of Tudor, and a gold portcullis blazoned Upon a field of green; while on her forecastle, Carven beneath a lion figure-head, She bore the arms of France and England, quartered And crowned within the Garter, and supported By the Lion and the Dragon. These things I saw But at a venture; for my eyes were fixed Upon the crowded main-deck, where King Harry, Ruddy and stalwart, towered above the press Of halberdiers and courtiers, clad in gold Edged with pied ermine: I had never guessed He was so lofty, but that the snow-white plume Which bound his bonnet over-topped the tallest A double hand’s-breadth. Smiling, he gave the word To sound the trumpets and to hoist the sails, And the _Great Harry_, like a tower of gold, Bore on her course to Calais, leaving me Rocked in the wash of her tremendous wake And dazzled by her glory. When she had faded Beyond my envious sight, I could have wept For pride—not envy—that such a miracle Should have been wrought in England . . . I rode home Wildered and shaken, yet the more determined To drain my utmost wits and match this beauty Before I perished. Five years have I bowed Above my draughtsman’s board, bemused and haunted By that rich vision: five years have I laboured Seeking that vision’s shape; and now, at last, My plans are finished: all I need is timber To give them substance. Let us be done with talk! Find me oak, ash and elm—and in a twelvemonth Your moveless forest shall be winged with sail And float till fire or water give it burial Beneath the waves. Come then, for I am burning To make my choice! XIX Interlude A SONG OF THE LONG GALLERY. HAMPTON COURT: A.D. 1587 Rosy-pale the Palace lies Mute beneath the moon: It is the season of the rose And a night of June; Honey-sweet the jasmine’s breath Mingles with the musk Of néw-mówn hay In the midsummer dusk; Milky down the winding walk Steals the mist of Thames— You can hear the petals fall From the bent rose-stems; Softly through the alleyed yew A moth’s wings move: It is the season of the rose And the hour of love— When woven out of moon and mist, In silver and white, The ghosts of the Long Gallery Dance by candle-light. The maids of the Long Gallery Are dust these many years, And none that listens now may hear Their laughter or tears; The twang of lutes and virginals Or the rustle of their shoon As their feet brush the flooring With swéet-rúsh strewn; The dry swish of taffetas And whispering mousseline As their skirts sweep the daīs Of the great, cold Queen. Stiff in her jewelled robe she sits, Austere and pale, While Perrico, the little dog, Peeps from her farthingale; A ruff of cambric picarded Props her pointed chin; A stomacher of seed-pearls girds Her proud heart in; Her cheeks are drawn parchment Blotched with crimson dyes, And in that raddled mask there burn Her hot Tudor eyes; While, shrewd behind their smoulder, The cool Tudor brain Sifts and winnows word and look And gives them shape again. Hopes, ambitions, treacheries, Envies, loves, lusts, Shame and honour—all she sees, Yet none she trusts. Soft-tongued ambassadors Tempt her with their wiles And strive to pry her secrets out: The cold Queen smiles. Captains and counsellors Cluster round her throne: The Queen’s eyes see them all, Her heart heeds none: Wise Burleigh and Walsingham Wait on her command, While Raleigh grips the sudden sword Hilted in his hand, While Leicester plies his flatteries To keep the favourite’s place, And Sidney leans to catch the light From Stella’s starry face As through their mazy galliards In silver and white The limber maids-of-honour dance Deep into the night; And the cold Queen’s lonely heart Is troubled as they dance By many a sweet, unspoken thought And shy, secret glance; Her heart is warmed and troubled— But all that she sees Is the face of Robin Devereux Crouched by her knees: That young face and the other Of parchment and of bone: An old raddled woman Sitting on a throne . . . Down the darkening gallery Fades the phantom rout: The moon sinks in the river-mists, The candles burn out; The river-mist thickens, It droops upon the lawn; Slowly over Richmond Hill Creeps a grey dawn. Gaunt and grim the palace lies Mere brick and stone: The ghosts of the Long Gallery— All, all are gone. XX DEUS FLAVIT ET DISSIPATI SUNT A.D. 1588 Thus to begin: In the third week of July, And the one-and-thirtieth year of the Queen’s reign, We saw the _Golden Hind_ pinnace scudding up-channel, With a strong tide making and a following wind From the South West, into Plymouth. And Fleming, her captain, Stumping uphill to the Hoe in his sodden seaboots, Told Lord High Admiral Howard how, South of the Lizard, He had sighted ten great galleons of Andalusia Quartering the empty waves like a cry of hounds That are strayed or shed from the pack, and go feathering For scent at the covert-side. And this, indeed, Was their case—for the Duke of Medina-Sidonia Had mistook his tryst and lagged fifty miles astern In the stormy loom of the Scillies; so here was a prize To be snapped up with little ado if but we might pounce On this portion before they were whipped together, though we Were ill-placed for the spring, our English fleet being crowded To leeward within the Sound and held there enleashed By the freshening gale. Yet no sooner had Fleming told His tale than the happy news, like storm-water, ran From the Hoe, where our captains were gathered, down every street To the Barbican and the Cattewater: the bells of St. Andrew’s Clashing forth: “They are come . . . They are come!” and a hundred beacons Casting their flames down-wind like the swaling-fires Of Spring from headland to headland and hill to hill— Till this wildfire swept all England, and farming folk That watched for the morrow’s weather saw the dark land Lit like a star-pricked firmament. But we in Plymouth Had more instant work on hand; for had we been trapped In that leeward haven, we knew we should fare no better Than the Spaniards, a year before, when Sir Francis Drake With _Elizabeth Bonaventure_, _Rainbow_ and _Lion_, Ran into the gullet of Cadiz, raked by the guns Of Matagorda, and left that roadstead cluttered With sixty ships, sunk, grounded, or set adrift With fire in their bellies. So, all that night, we toiled By torch and cresset, cramming our ships with shot And warping them out with hawser-work, one by one, Until, by dawn, there were fifty-four of them clear Of the land, strung out abreast of the Eddystone And tacking into a wind which began to weaken As rain fell steadily—so that the waves that ran In a long swell out of Biscay grew smooth and sullen, Flattened by the grey drizzle. So there we lay Heaving, mist-blinded, with lowered sails, and waited For what should next befall us, hearkening To the cries of the wild mews and knowing naught Of where the foe might be . . . But, as night neared, A fishing-smack that had stolen from the Sound With plashing sweeps, gave hail; and her skipper, hoisted On board the _Ark Royal_, blinking in the light Of her cuddy’s lantern, stammered a halting tale Of how certain fisherfolk that watched on the Dodman, (Which like the blunt snout of a basking whale Juts forth from Mevagissey) had suddenly spied Through an opening in the mist, a spectacle Of innumerable majesty: Spain’s embattled might Hove-to four leagues off-shore, in a half-moon Seven mile from tip to tip. How many there were They could but roughly reckon, for the haze Thickened and thinned so swiftly, and by times Their substance seemed but phantoms; yet one man swore To a hundred and thirty sail, and of these no less Than forty ships of battle, and half a hundred Armed galleons of the Gold Fleet, with a swarm Of fly-boats, pinnaces, and such nimbler craft, Which, like torn fleeces of a thundercloud, Trailed from the main fleet’s denser heart to guard The rearward hulks and transports. And at one moment, When shafted sunlight pierced the rack and smote Upon their vanguard, one huge ship had broken Her banner at the main—an oriflamme Whose gold burned through the mist; and they that heard Guessed her Sidonia’s ship, the great _St. Martin_, And her banner the standard that the Pope of Rome Had blessed, bearing the images of Christ Crucified And his Mother, the Holy Virgin. Yet all that day We could do nothing, being at the pleasure Of a moveless air, but lay with sodden sails Listlessly flapping, and whistled for a breeze To waft us seaward of the Spaniard’s rear; And all that night enshrouded in dense mist, Unseen and blind as we, the Armada crept Past us upon the tide. It was still dark When the dank air freshened somewhat, and the wind Veered to the North of Westward, dissipating The watery haze that hid them, so that by dawn No shred of cloud was left between the blues Of sky and sea. Then, through the crystalline Of rain-washed air, at last we saw that vision Of dread and of desire: the Spanish fleet In order of battle standing up the sleeve With the wind on their port quarter. Slowly they moved (Or so it seemed) as though the very wind Grew tired with carrying them, and the sea groaned Under their wallowing bulk. Four galeasses Of Naples, with sweep of flashing oar-blades, cleft The unfurrowed deep before them; next there came Sidonia’s main battle-fleet: weathermost, Ten galleons of Portugal, their greatest The vast _Grangrina_, eleven hundred tons; Starboard of these, ten of the Indian Guard With four ships of New Spain—and, in between, Sidonia’s own flagship, the _St. Martin_; Next, four fleet pinnaces, that like snapping curs Roved in and out, busily shepherding The sluggard flock of hulks and victuallers That floundered in the midst, and behind these Four squadrons of their rearguard battle, ships Of Biscay, Guipuscoa, the Levant And swarthy Andalusia: twenty galleons Of vast lading and armament; and a fifth, Lighter of burthen, moving in a cloud Of agile pinnaces where, last of all, Two watchful galeasses closed the rear, Looking to windward. When the Spaniards saw us Heeled over on the port tack and sweeping down Fast on their rear, Sidonia gave orders To haul in sheets and beat towards the land, With a cunning of double purpose; first to waylay The remnant of our force, which, one by one, Still straggled out of Plymouth, and next to weather Our main fleet—neither guessing how nimble-heeled And maniable were we, nor yet how slovenly Were his own lumbering hulks. So, as they beat To windward of the Cornish coast, we swept Athwart their rearguard’s starboard quarter, raking The Levantiska of Leyva as we passed, With a hot broadside of cannon-shot. Then we gybed And closed upon their windward flank, where none But that grim sea-dog Recalde, who, not long since, Crossed wits and blades with Drake in Lisbon River, Defied us, boldly bringing into action The _Santa Ana_ and the great _Grangrina_ Of Biscay; for they that followed fell away In a piteous huddle, but these twain stood up to us Till the _Santa Ana’s_ forestay was cut through And two roundshot lodged in her mainmast; when Sidonia Bore up beside her, right into the wind, While Valdes, with the squadron of Andalusia, Formed up behind him. So Lord Howard bade The battle to be broken, albeit the day Had scarce begun. But this he reckoned shrewdly: That the Spaniards now had beat too far to leeward To trouble Plymouth; that, in those pregnant hours, Forty fresh sail had swelled our complement To five-score fighting-ships—not thirty less Than theirs—and that no craft in all the Armada (Save for the great _Grangrina_, the _Santa Ana_, The _Raggazona_, and the admiral ship Of Andalusia) was of greater portage Than our _White Bear_ and _Triumph_; nay, even more, That none of theirs could match our best in swiftness Or weight of deadly metal—to say naught Of seamanship, while, in the narrow seas, Where that grim lion Parma waited, crouching To spring upon our shores, a second fleet Under Lord Henry Seymour stood to bar The straits. Therefore we let Sidonia fly Up-channel, dragging on his windward flank The wounded _Santa Ana_, through the smoke Of burnt-out beacons smouldering on the cliffs Of the South Hams, and we hung upon his heels Like an ambling wolf-pack that has tasted blood And gotten the measure of its prey, but waits Until the victim tires before it falls To ravening. And, in mid-afternoon, It seemed that hour had come: for suddenly Their galleon _San Salvador_, of the squadron Of Guipuscoa, blew up—her fighting-decks Flying into the air and her shattered poop Blown clear; but, as we closed on her, the Spaniards Sent in their galeasses, and we drew off. Next, by the Start, Pedro de Valdes’ flagship _Our Lady of the Rosary_ fell foul Of two Biscayans. The first broke her foreyard, The next her bowsprit—and when Valdes boldly Put up his tiller to come into the wind, The mainmast snapped close by the board and crashed Athwart her bulwarks, draping her with torn sails And cordage; so once again we closed, until The _San Cristóbal_ and the _San Francisco_ Covered her, and a Naples galeasse Took her in tow—yet cravenly forsook her When a pert London coaster, the _John and Margaret_ Of a bare two hundred tons, challenged their escort; And we laughed to see so huge a victim falling Into such puny hands. But now, since wind And sea were rising, the Lord Admiral Bade the whole fleet heave-to, and called a council On board the _Ark_ to plan the strategy Of the morrow’s battle; and there it was determined That our Vice Admiral, Drake, should lead the van, His lantern on the poop of the _Revenge_ Guiding our course, with hope to overhaul Sidonia and bring his fleet to action West of the Needles, thereby heading him From off Southampton. So, at midnight, we sailed With a stiff Westerly breeze and a short sea That made the spark on the _Revenge’s_ poop Dance like a graveyard corpselight dizzily Amid the sober stars; till, of a sudden, That drunken light went out like a snuffed candle And left us guideless; so we slackened sail And hove-to, baffled, blinded, and perplexed, While the Lord Admiral, in the _Ark Royal_, With the _Mary Rose_ and the _White Bear_, held on The selfsame course, and the main fleet lay scattered To rearward in the waste of troubled water That foams above the Skerries; and when daylight Broke over Berry Head, these three bold ships Found themselves uncompanioned, without the topsail Of a friend in sight, and the Armada’s rearguard A culverin-shot ahead—so that the Spaniards, Had they been abler seamen, could have borne up And utterly destroyed them. But of this They failed: their jealous captains being busied With licking of their wounds and bickering One with another, so this pregnant hour Was wasted, and by noon our nightbound stragglers Drew up to the _Ark Royal_—save for the squadron Of Drake, who (if his tale were true) had chased Five great ships of the Hansa which, in the dark, He had mistook for Spaniards; but Martin Frobisher In his blunt Yorkshire tongue flatly maintained This was a lie, and that naught but pirate greed, O’er-mastering Drake’s scant honour, had tempted him To slip us in the dark and search the rear For Valdes’ galleon that, hulled and mastless, Lagged there adrift. Yet Drake stuck to his tale, Admitting, howbeit, that on the windward reach Home from that fruitless chase he had fallen in With _Our Lady of the Rosary_, and thought fit To send her into Dartmouth with a prize-crew Aboard her. And now, seeing both words and looks Grow heated and hands fly to hilts, Lord Howard Bound these two fiery captains to keep peace Between themselves, and their malice for the Spaniards. So Drake, being well-contented with his prize, Laughing, consented, and the other grudgingly Bated his jealousy, while we bore on Eastward before a weakening wind that died At nightfall—yet not before Sidonia Had shed a second ship, the _San Salvador_, Which, maimed and burning, he turned loose to drift Athwart our course; and Hawkins, in the _Victory_ Towed her charred hulk to Weymouth . . . All that night The two fleets lay becalmed beneath the moon Just out of gunshot: the warm air so still, We could hear the Spaniards’ voices, and the boom Of a weary groundswell pounding on the stones Of the Chesil Beach. At dawn the dead wind quickened To a brisk North-easter, giving Sidonia The weather-gauge; whereat he tacked about To bear upon us, but Howard turned aside On a long board to the North-West, thereby hoping To fetch to East between them and the land And steal the weather from them; and the Spaniards Now showed their seamanship, sailing on the same tack To cheat us; so Howard went about and beat Close-hauled to Eastward, with the _Victory_, _Nonpareil_ and nine others close astern. Yet these held on their board too long and left Their admiral at the mercy of Recalde, Who now came bowling down, with sixteen sail In line abreast, abaft the _Nonpareil_— All but their greatest ship, the _Raggazona_, The mighty Levantisca—that held straight on To cut off the _Ark Royal_. And now Lord Howard Lay in great jeopardy—for the _Ark Royal’s_ portage Was but two-thirds the Spaniards’, and her crew But half; and had the _Raggazona_ grappled And thrown aboard her pikemen, he had been lost And the fight ended. Yet, though he could not weather The Levantisca, Howard’s ship was handier And, with her rapid firing, so confused The Spaniard that he faltered—and the _Ark_ Stood off unscathed. But now a greater peril Threatened our fleet; for in that windless night Our left wing, led by Frobisher, had been caught In the Portland Race and carried far inshore To windward of the Armada; and Sidonia, Seeing the _Triumph_, with five armed merchantmen Of London, helpless on the leeward shore, Thrust his oared galeasses into the wind To make an end of them, while he, in haste, Pursued our broken vanguard—yet was so blinded By lust of easy conquest and the reek Of our rapid gunfire that he failed to spy Drake’s wing of fifty fast sail weathering Recalde’s rearward squadron, and coming up Upon them through the smoke—the wind having backed To South-South-West. Thus, while Recalde turned And fled to join Sidonia, Lord Howard, Freed from that instant menace, sailed inshore With the _Elizabeth Jonas_, _Leicester_, _Victory_, _Dreadnought_ and _Swallow_, to succour Frobisher, And as Sidonia ran towards Portland Bill To intercept, Howard bore up, until He had the wind upon his starboard quarter And the _St. Martin’s_ fo’c’sle straight ahead. Three times he crossed Sidonia’s bows, and thrice Landed a thumping broadside, then, returning, Gave her the other; and now, as he swept on Toward Frobisher, Drake followed in his rear With a fierce weight of metal that pierced her hull— That ripped the holy standard from her main And left her making water fast and groaning With half a hundred dead and sixty more Bloodily wounded—while the galeasses Whose teeth were in the _Triumph_ dropped their prey And fled in terror. Thus ended the fourth day Of that running battle, and the first encounter Of the main fleets, which, but for our sore lack Of shot and powder, and the crippling wind, Might well have ended all . . . That day we swam Like wildfowl on a glassy mere becalmed While the friendly Portsmouth folk replenished us With bread and shot and powder, and Lord Howard Re-formed us in four squadrons: on the larboard Frobisher in his war-scarred _Triumph_; next John Hawkins in the _Victory_; and to starboard Lord Thomas Howard in the _Golden Lion_ And Drake in the _Revenge_. Now on the morrow (It being St. James’s Day) two Spanish ships The _Santa Ana_, that had been winged off Plymouth, And the _San Luis_, limping fell astern; And a cloud of petty English craft, like ants Ravening a beetle’s carcase, swarmed about them And would have boarded—but that four galeasses Like proudly-swerving peregrines swept between And scattered them. Then Howard, in the _Ark_ And his cousin in the _Lion_ towed their two ships Into the tussle with longboats, and shot away The lantern of one galeasse and the beakhead Of her sister, while a third drifted away With the crippled _Santa Ana_, heavily listing, And might have fallen to us but that our launches Were so peppered by the Spanish musketry They could not tow us further; and as we stood To hoist them all aboard, the wind arose Once more out of the South, casting Lord Howard To leeward of Sidonia, who now bore down In the _St. Martin_ with the fourth galeasse And, having got the weather, so fiercely mangled Both _Lion_ and _Ark Royal_ that they were fain To fall away inshore, while Frobisher Took up the fight—but paid dear for his daring; For, as the wind veered West, Recalde ran Twixt him and Howard, and with a chance shot splintered His rudder; and though eleven launches strove To tow the _Triumph_ out of range, it seemed She (and the _Ark_ no less!) was lost—until, In the article of doom her shipwrights botched The broken rudder, and at the same moment The fickle wind backed South—and Frobisher Cast off the launches and so slipped away On a long reach to Westward . . . But already The Spaniards had found cause to rue their rashness: For Drake and Hawkins, profiting by that shift Of wind that saved the _Triumph_, stole about Their larboard wing, and with the _Nonpareil_, _Revenge_ and _Mary Rose_, drove their _St. Matthew_, The weathermost of Sidonia’s squadron, crashing Into their huddled rearguard, crowding them To leeward on the sandbank of the Owers, Where they had grounded—but that, in the fury Of that hot fight we had burnt up all our powder And emptied our shot-lockers. Thus, when they lay Confused, we could not press them, and the promise Of victory slipped from us as they cleared The shoals and fled on Eastward up the sleeve— Not without scathe: for, by this day, the rumour Of the running battle had crept along the coast; And many spirited gentlemen that were fain For heart-love of their country to adventure Their skins upon salt water, hired themselves At their own charge boats, shallops, skiffs and hoys, And sallied forth in haste, like jolly ploughmen To a bout of cudgel-play or London prentices That go roaring to the bear-pit: yet the quarrey They baited was no sullen bruin, chained And spiritless, but a horned fighting-bull Of Andalusia, that these picadors And pert banderilleros boldly pestered With pricks and lances—running in and out Of the stately Spanish fleet like dabchicks darting Amid a game of swans. But, though we laughed To see their reckless daring, yet were we troubled By their impudent seamanship, that often placed Themselves and us in peril. But no counsel Could quell their gallant mischief; and, as both fleets Stood up the channel wafted by the wind That in the dog-days blows from the South-West We soon outsailed them . . . So, by evening Of the seventh day, we had cleared Dungeness To see the chalk-white cliffs of Dover dyed By a red sunset, and the friendly topsails Of Seymour fleck the straits. Whereat Sidonia Veered towards France, hoping thereby to gain The forty Flemish flyboats he had begged Of Parma, that, so strengthened, he might cover The Spaniards’ crossing; but not one sail came forth From Dunkirk or Ostend: so, being counselled That if he ventured further the fierce tide Might carry him beyond the straits, he cast Anchor in Calais roads—with Howard’s fleet A culverin-shot to windward, full astern, And, on the lee, the sunken sandbanks stretching From Sandettie and Outer Ruytingen To the Wandelaar—a treacherous berth for such As knew those soundings ill. Hither, at nightfall, Fenton and Seymour, with six-and-thirty sail Thirsting for battle, beat up from England, bearing Meat and munitions, and the heartening news That in the port of Dover they had made ready A fleet of fireships that, loosed upon the tide And sent down in the dead of night, might smoke Or burn the foxy Spaniard from his holt Ere Parma’s pikemen mustered—but since no moment Was to be lost (for the tide turned at midnight) Lord Howard called for ships out of the fleet So to be cast away. Then Drake, free-handed, Offered the _Thomas_, and John Young the _Bear_, A bark of seven-score tons; and other captains Made up the tale to eight, which, being besmeared With wildfire, pitch and resin, their bellies crammed With brimstone, and every piece of ordnance charged With cannon-balls and chain-shot, Young himself Led them into the wind, with the tide racing At full—nor loosed his tiller ere their decks Were lit from stem to stern, and hot flames licked The longboats lashed beside them. Thus they swept Unhelmed into the black heart of the fleet Of Spain, with cannon thundering and roundshot Hurling on every hand; and when the Spaniards Woke to this fiery peril they were cast Into utter panic, reckoning it the work Of the devil or Drake his offspring, in confusion Hastening this way and that, incontinently Hacking their anchor-cables and running foul Each of his helpless neighbour—and, in a wrack Of splintered spars and ragged cordage, swept Out of the roads of Calais, through the straits, Into the wild North Sea—while Howard’s fireships Burnt themselves out to leeward, and denser darkness Fell on the deep . . . Now, as the great _St. Martin_ Lay tangled in that tide-borne rout, Sidonia Signalled the scattered galleons to re-form About him—but none obeyed save the _San Marcos_ And a handful more. Thus, when the break of dawn Whitened the shoalings, this mean force appeared Head to the wind, and all the rest astraggle Six mile astern, off Gravelines. Then Lord Howard Re-formed our line: himself, in the _Ark Royal_, Midmost; to port, Seymour and Frobisher; To starboard, Drake and Hawkins—but, as they swooped, Five squadrons all abreast, his watch espied Spain’s last unwounded galeasse, _San Lorenzo_, Dragged Eastward, rudderless, under the guns Of the castle of Calais; so, close-hauled, he drew Out of the line to take her, while the rest Swung smart to starboard, hoping thus to run Between Sidonia and Dunkirk and throw His left wing on his centre, driving both Upon the Flemish sandbanks. But Sidonia, Albeit a lame seaman, had no lack Of manhood, and stood firm till the _Revenge_ Came within musket-shot, shattering his forecastle With her bow-guns, then luffed, poured in her broadside, And so bore on into the very midst Of the huddled rearguard beating up to aid him; While Hawkins, Winter, Seymour and Frobisher, Swept past the great _San Martin_ one by one, Pounding her with their cannon till she heaved With yards and rigging torn, and hull shot through By one great ball of fifty pounds that holed Her bowels upon the waterline. Yet still She fought them off undaunted; and the squadrons Of Lisbon, Guipuscoa, and Andalusia Gathered about her in a huge half-moon That slowly beat to the North Westward, striving Not to o’ershoot Dunkirk, where Parma’s force Lay fretting (as they reckoned) to embark For the assault on England; and so stoutly Did they persist that, ere the sun had soared Half way towards the zenith, fifty ships Had gained their battle-stations—with Recalde In the _San Juan_ keeping the weather flank, Sidonia in the centre, and, to leeward, Oquendo and Leyva in the Levantiscas And Guipuscoans. Thus, while Hawkins held Sidonia’s mainguard, where the great _St. Martin_, Shaken, but dauntless, thundered through the smoke Of her own sullen broadsides, Seymour’s squadron Harried the wing to windward, and sheared off Two ships, the _San Felipe_ and _San Matteo_, Which, though Recalde strove to cover them, Lay so shot-riddled they could neither hold Water nor wind, and, helpless, fell astern Crippling two more—_Our Lady of Begona_ And the _San Juan of Sicily_; and these four With yards and ropes entangled drifted down Under the fire of Winter, in the _Vanguard_, Whose nimble squadron charged in and went about Like dancers in a galliard. Twice the _Matteo_ Shook herself free and turned on them; twice more They closed upon her, firing their culverins Point-blank at musket-range—but the _San Juan_ Had no fight left in her, being so shattered That through her gaping portholes one could see Her decks awash with blood. Nor could Sidonia Come to her aid, being even more bitterly Beset, with Drake and Hawkins placed athwart Both bows and stern, and hanging on his flanks Like grim bear-baiting mastiffs in the pit At Southwark, while the wind, suddenly veering Into the West, brought up three more great ships, The _Ark_, the _Bonaventure_, and the _White Bear_, Which, having sacked their crippled galeasse Upon the beach at Calais, now bore down Like monstrous phantoms towering through the reek Of battle—which having seen, Drake put about, Leaving the great _St. Martin_ to their charge, And while the _San Matteo_, and _San Felipe_ With the _San Marcos_, drifted to their doom On the deadly Zealand sandbanks, the _Revenge_, Like to a cunning sheepdog, singled out The stragglers of their left wing, one by one, And shed them on the shoalings: fifteen ships Out of Sidonia’s fifty—the bold remnant, Outpaced, outsailed, outnumbered and outgunned By four to one, and, in God’s grace, delivered Into our hands by such a miracle As we had prayed for! Yet, in the article Of victory, that same wind that had so blessed us Snatched from our mortal hands the means to strike The death-blow—for suddenly a black squall leapt From the South-West and beat upon the sails Of both embattled fleets, heeling them over; And every captain cried: “All hands aloft! Reef topsails, or we founder!” And we who served The reeking culverins cast away our tinder To be sodden by the rain, and clomb the shrouds To shorten sail, as our ships held to the wind; And from the lofty stations where we swayed Like wind-tossed rooks, through sheets of icy rain And stinging spindrift, our bleared eyes beheld A sight most strange and terrible; all that was left Of that proud Armada, the pomp and boast of Spain, Scudding like windlestraws upon the foam Of the Zealand banks—a mightier hand than ours Having compassed their destruction. Yet, even as we watched Those doomed ships driven to their end, the wind Veered to full South, and, as they gybed, it spewed them Out of the very throat of death to seaward, Nor could we overhaul them or come to grips Again that day: for now they had sea-room, And we no press of sail to clip their heels As they fled before us. Nor had we any comfort But that their spite was foiled, and that no Spaniard Could now set foot on England. Of the rest I can but speak by hearsay—for we were set To guard the straits again and keep a watch On Parma at Dunkirk. But I have heard That, on the morrow, an even mightier gale Rose from the West and drove them on the coasts Of Norway; that there the foulest pestilence Raged in their sweltering down-battened holds And stinking cockpits, where the wounded lay Festering above the dead, and that the lack Of water and food so weakened them that few Had strength to man the ropes. Therefore Sidonia Decreed the Northern course to Spain, and led them Through the fierce Pentland Firth, rounding Cape Wrath And slinking through the Hebrides, where some Were cast upon those iron coasts and gutted Of life and treasure, while others staggering Westward of Ireland, and falling on the fangs Of Connemara, sank in sight of land; And the sorry remnant of starved, sullen men, In their maimed galleons, brought their anguish home To Lisbon and to Vigo and the Groyne And Port St. Mary, where Sidonia Sulked in his orange-groves until he died, A broken, ageing man . . . As for the memory Of this great mercy: men may read the medal That the Queen stamped, saying—_He blew with His wind_ _And they were scattered_: and doubtless it is just To give to God the glory—yet I do reckon That we, her seamen, had some small part in it. XXI Interlude AN ENGLISH GARLAND Musing Meleáger once In Gádara a garland made Of herbs and blossoms that the suns Of envious Time shall never fade: Gifts of the Galilean meads And Hermon’s lonely hill, where slain Adonis in the springtime bleeds, With drifts of fierce anemones Staining anew the Syrian plain. Thus I, with neither grace nor powers To match that orient music, twine A chaplet lowlier than his: A coronal of English flowers The more beloved that they are mine. Pluck first those eager Celandines Whose gay, new-minted metal shines In February hedgerows where Hooded Lords and Ladies peer From out their pallid wimples. Next Gather me catkins of wind-vext Hazel, and, ere the petal-snow Be shed, a sprig of thorny sloe, Scentless though it be. To these Marry me frail Anemones Ruffled in the copse when March Crimsons the tassels of the Larch And the first venturous Primrose frees Her frozen heart. Now search the leys For mealy Cowslip-bells that fill Poor pastures, where the Daffodil Dances, with perfumes headier yet Than wafts of the White Violet That shyly droops her head within Grass-tussocks newly-fledged; and when In glimmering pools the Bluebells lie (But pluck not these, because they die So soon) and turbulent Hawthorn floods The air with spices—from the woods Bear me one branch of living snow From the Wild Cherry’s bridal-show; And see you tarry not—for now The warm earth’s bounties spring so fast, They are no sooner seen than past Their prime: so haste, before June suck May’s moisture from the marsh, to pluck The valiant King-cup’s globes of gold, And in her sappy leaves enfold Flags and Forgetmenots, and heads Of plumy Meadowsweet that sheds High Summer’s drowsiest incense Over the musky hayfield. Thence Skirt me the standing wheat to glean Black-pollen’d Poppies, and, between, Cornflowers, whose royal azures dim The Speedwell’s bright eyes till they seem Lustreless as the cooler blues Of Alkanet. Next I bid you choose From the dank ditch Hemp-Agrimony And pungent Horse-Mint; from the sunny Verges, where Broom-pods in the heat Of noonday snap, bring honey-sweet Claws of White Clover—nor despise The Scarlet Pimpernel whose eyes, Widened in sunlight, blink in shade, With silvery Mulleins arrayed In silk sleek as a leveret’s ear, And spendthrift Ragwort-stems that wear Their gold like harlots; dock and sorrel Decked in their panicles of coral, And brittle Teazle-heads that slake Their drought with dewdrops. Now forsake The trampled verge’s needy sward To gather Foxglove spires that guard Rampant hedgerows flaunting high Their ivory trophies of July: Where hemlocks, and the greeny-white Elder-flowers conspire at night With feathery kexes to imprison Moonlight ere the moon be risen And starshine when the stars have set In Summer’s timeless twilight; yet I pray you let not evening end In these enchantments ere you bend One trailer of the Briar down— And see her buds be not o’erblown, Lest the faint-flushed petals fall From the arching spray, and all Her attar waste. Here, too, untwine The rosy fingers of Woodbine That, though her waxen trumpets breathe Ravishment, will crush to death The Hazel-rods round which they climb. Next, from bare downlands, gather Thyme, And, from their beechen hangers, green Flowers of pallid Helleborine, And, stippled on the high sheep-walk, Orchises that love the chalk; While from granite moors aglow With the imperial lava-flow Of August’s Tyrian, you shall bring Bunches of purple Heath and Ling And Harebells, dim as dusk, that seem To dance when no wind stirreth them: Yet cull not these till you have found By peaty pools on marish ground Nodding above the emerald moss Grass of Parnassus and the floss Of milk-white Cotton-grass, where, bent To pick them, you may catch the scent Of Buck-bean and Bog Asphodels, Or stoop to pick the violet bells Of frosted Butterwort; and descending Toward the plain at the day’s ending See meadows mantled in a mist Of the Sheep-bit’s amethyst, Or lawns with lilac Saffron strewn To cup September dews. Too soon, Alas! my hedgerows tarnish now; The sap sinks, and the fires burn low; Yet growths that in the sober green Of Summer dressed were hardly seen, Now, tinged by Autumn’s icy breath, Flame in the article of death So fiercely we forget almost To mourn the blossoms that are lost; And, though their earlier wealth be spent, Stand laden with such increment Of splendour that beholding eyes Are dazzled. So, before their dyes Be faded, and their mortal gold Blacken in the common mould, From hanging boughs I pray you reach One bright fan of the flagrant Beech, And from the Cherry’s funeral-pyre That sets the smouldering woods on fire A brighter guerdon. Gather too The crimson cuplets of the Yew Brimmed with sweet mucilage; and bring Translucent Nightshade-drops that cling Like Bryony’s to the naked bine, Shaming the Spindle-tree’s carmine As doth the fruited Rose eclipse The Hawthorn with her flaming hips. Next, from the tangled thicket, tear Reluctant Bramble-shoots that bear Clusters of dew-bright berries, dark As a young gipsy’s eyes; and mark How now the moon-pale Elder shows Berries jettier than the Sloe’s; And last, from Winter’s sodden weeds Pluck Gladwins and the poison-seeds Of Cuckoo-pints, whose fires will glow When leafless woods are laid with snow, And through their blackened boughs the sun Fades like an ember. . . . I have done! O Meleáger, wistful ghost Roaming amid the ashen flowers Of Acheron, couldst thou ever boast A garland goodlier than ours? XXII THE TALE OF THE FAINT-HEARTED PILGRIM PLYMOUTH HOE: A.D. 1620 I, Robert Cushman, wool-comber of Canterbury And lately of Leyden, in Holland, having been seized With an infirmity of body that I fear Will carry me to my burial, and afflicted With manifold reproaches and revilements Wholly unmerited, at the cruel hands Of most unloving brethren, do now rehearse The truth of what befell. Of how our Church Came first to Amsterdam, being driven forth From our own dear country by the persecutions Of prelates and their clergy; of how there A further schism reft us; of how we settled In the sweet city of Leyden, and abode there Ten years in peace and piety, having won The right to worship God in our own way Unhindered by contentions, though oppressed By toil and poverty—of all these matters I will not tell, but rather how one evening In Winter, when the Leyden waterways Were locked in ice, and the bare lindens shivered Beside them, pinched and naked as ourselves, John Robinson, our pastor, summoned all To the house we had bought in Cloch Staech, by the belfry Of St. Peter’s church, wherein we had our meetings, There, after prayers and fastings, to debate The adventure of Virginia that had warmed Our shrinking souls a twelvemonth with the promise Of comfort and of freedom. For, though the Dutch Kindly entreated us, and gave our people Full praise for industry, sobriety, And godly living, yet were we ever irked By certain discontents: how that our poorer folk Lived scantlier than in England; how the rich Had ate up all their means, and could no more Succour their needy brethren; how it seemed A grievous thing that we must bend our necks To the yoke of foreign regiment, and so lose Our speech and name of English; how, alas, Our ghostly husbandry was vain, the seed Being scattered on a stony soil and falling To waste, in that our neighbours were so steeped In carnal sin and fain to desecrate God’s Sabbath, that our children, for the lack Of proper tutelage, ran the risk to catch These foul contagions; how of our brotherhood Many grew aged, and, if they went not soon, Must lay their bones in Babylon, and the Church Fail of their wisdom; last, how the ten-year truce Twixt the States General and the tyrannies Of Spain was near to end—and, with that day, The broken dykes of Holland would let in A welter of bloody warfare, or, at best, A popish persecution. Now, to these things, The major part consented; yet some that prized Their bodies above their souls were loth to leave The scant fleshpots of Leyden, and afraid Of the sea’s casualties—not for themselves (As they protested) but for the weaker vessels, Their wives and children. “For what else,” they cried, “Waits us in the Virginias but want, Famine, and nakedness, with the dubious change Of diet, air and water—and what neighbours But heathen savages that shall devour Our living flesh in collops?” Or again: “How shall our dwindled means support the cost Of this portentous voyage, and provide Our needs when landed? Is it not ill enough That we came to Holland, a near-by country, rich In gold and civility?” But others said, (And these the weightier) that no worthy deed Nor honourable action ever was done But with great hindrance; and these carking fears Might never come to pass, or, being met, Prove antic scarecrows flapping in the mist Of ignorance, by their affrighted eyes Magnified beyond measure, as are mites Seen through a burning-glass. For those fierce cannibals They feared: Were they so deaf they could not hear The muttered throbbing of the angry drums And clank of deadly weapons that foretold War pestilence and famine in the streets Of Holland—and were the Spanish soldiery Kinder than savages? So they that feared Were silent, and we fell to the debate Of whither we should go. Now some were earnest For voyaging to Guiana, where, they said, Spring smiled for ever on wide valleys blest With a perpetual greenness, bringing forth Nature’s abundant fruits without the labour Or art of Man—and, in that radiant clime, The poor would soon grow rich, having no need For costly raiment or the kindling Of hearths in Winter; nor had the jealous Spaniards Planted yet in Guiana, having all The colonies they could keep. But others said: Such lands, uncleansed by cold, were pestified By manifold diseases and impediments Noisome to English bodies, as a tilth Whose clods no frost hath powdered, yields a crop Throttled by tare and bindweed. For the Spaniards: These would but wait till we grew fat to filch Our gains and so displant us, as they did With the poor French in Florida, and we Too feeble to resist. Then they that pressed The project of Guiana murmured, complaining That were we landed in the settled parts Of the Virginias we were like to suffer No lesser whips and scorpions for the cause Of our religion than we had known in England— And maybe greater. So it was resolved By the larger number that we should acknowledge The general governance of Virginia, Yet settle by ourselves, and sue the King, By godly friends at court, to grant us freedom Of worship and belief—unto which end We framed a Declaration of our Faith, Showing in what slight measure we dissented From that established; and it was agreed That Master Brewster and I set forth to London, There to spy out the land and seek the favour Of Sir Edwin Sandys, the chief and treasurer Of the Virginia Company, whom Brewster Counted his friend, having held the Manor of Scrooby From his father, the Archbishop, and kept him company In the embassy of Holland. I deem it just That the lot fell on Brewster, a grave elder Of weighty means and learning; but why their voices Were cast for me I know not; for I had small Pretence save humble probity. Yet I do think This choice occasioned envy, some preferring Young Master Winslow, who was the better bred; A gentleman of Worcestershire, whose father Boiled salt at Droitwich, and was familiar With Sir Edwin’s brother, Samuel Sandys, that dwelt Nearby at Ambresley . . . But of this no more— Save that, had he been chosen, I had been spared A grievous cross to carry, and the sharp thorns Of cruel crimination. So we two sailed To London, and Sir Edwin Sandys received us As a loving brother, promising to bring Our suit to the King’s ears—which, when he heard His Grace approved our purpose, yea, and called it A good and honest motion, shrewdly asking What profits we attended. And when Sir Edwin Told him we would be fishermen, he cried: “So God have my soul, this is an honest trade! Such was the Apostles’ calling.” And instantly It seemed the wind blew fair; but the King’s mind Spun like a flighty weathercock, and he said: “Let them advise with the Bishop of Canterbury And the Bishop of London”—which was an ill turn, For no prelate could abide us. So we determined To leave that prickly path and to draw back Upon our former course, begging a patent Of the Virginia Company, which, by the care Of our loving friend, was granted at their court Sitting in his house by Aldersgate. Thus were we freed To settle in Virginia, and this progress Momently dazzled us, so that we saw not The darkness of our venture. But when we begged The Company for craft to make the voyage, They put us off, saying they had neither ships Nor yet the means to furnish them, having been brought To the brink of failing by the ill-success Of earlier ventures and their servants’ greed. So turned we to the Dutch, craving the use Of warships that might bear us to the port They had named New Amsterdam, or a rough passage In the fur-traders’ barks. But the States General Would have none of us, and, in this pass, we saw Our project blighted, and the lively hopes We had engendered blacken in the bud. For, mark you well, we were but humble folk Of poor condition that had only scratched A bare living; and that the wealthier sort (Though none was rich) had fret away their substance In charity—so who could find provision To float so vast a venture? In such a strait Perplexed and daunted, there came to us at Leyden A merchant, Master Weston, who, having heard Our charter had been sealed, enheartened us Not to be downcast, neither to lament Our want of ships and money—for that himself, And others that were his friends, would find us both, Adventuring their fortunes and our slight means In a common stock. And cheerfully he bade us Think no more of Virginia, and have no truck With the stingy Dutch—for that a new Plantation Was planned, without the bounds and governance Of the Virginias, to be called New England, And thither we should go. So we took heart, Subscribing the Articles that Master Weston And his friends set before us, putting off Our properties in Leyden; and though some few Still hankering for Virginia, withheld Their monies and themselves, we heaped together Twelve hundred pounds, the Adventurers promising Six thousand more. Thus, once again, they sent me To England with Master Carver, there to make Provision for the voyage—he in Hampton To seek a proper ship, and I in London To keep the common purse. There Master Weston Came to me, with a face long as a fiddle, Saying the Adventurers had grown ill-content With our agreed conditions, and would draw back Were they not more advantaged, two small things Sticking in their throats: the first that, at the end Of seven years, the dwellings we had built Were not accounted common property In which they had their several shares; the second That, by these articles, they had no surety That men would sweat but for themselves, neglecting The general good. Therefore they now demanded Their part, proportionate, in all we builded And, of each labouring week, two days allotted To serve the common wealth. And when I asked What they would do if we refused, he said: “Then all is likely to be dashed, for none Will stake a single farthing—though myself, Having pledged my promise for five hundred pounds, Will stick to it—albeit it were a pity That such a goodly project should be sunk By cavilling at trifles when the voyage Is under way, and, if we sail not soon, The season will be lost.” Then was I put In a sad quandary, being so far removed From the counsels of my brethren and invested With such a heavy trust. But now, since time And season pressed, and since their claims appeared Not without rightness, oh, most unhappily And rashly, I gave way—though not before I had acquainted both my fellow-agents, Carver and Martin, who, alike, consented Unto the changed conditions, and conjured me To doubt no more. Therefore I wrote to Leyden Telling what I had done, in confidence Of their approval, and moreover told them How swiftly all matured, good Master Carver Having hired a ship, the _Mayflower_, fit to carry All to America, while I had treated With a Pilot of repute, one Master Reynolds, To lift them out of Holland in the _Speedwell_ That had been bought in Leyden, and that the rest Might wait our joyful meeting. But there came back From Leyden a stern missive of reproach And accusation: that I had overstept The bounds of my commission and had acted With levity and negligence—not as the man Of wisdom they had thought me, but the gudgeon Of couzeners that with a specious bait Had tricked my silly wits! Then, then indeed My stomach rose in anger! Negligence? Negligence? Negligence? Was I then negligent Who, dazed with cyphering, had lain awake Night after night, while antic figures skipt Like inky mountebanks through my fuddled brain Taunting my will to take them? I, who had clamped The belt about my belly to compress The fretful void of hunger, lest a penny That I could save be spent? I, who had trudged These London streets until their cobbles corned My aching feet to serve them? Negligent, I, who had neither thought nor spoke nor dreamed These many months of aught but what could further This darling enterprise? Why, if they deemed me So faint a fool, had they not sent one better Instructed and more zealous? Negligence? Enough, enough! Even as I speak my head Weakens and whirls! Yet stay—for now my breath Heaves less tempestuous, and the headlong blood Answers the curb of reason. Let me be calm . . . I tell you, sirs, I am a simple man, A wool-comber of Canterbury, and I wrought According to my conscience. If I erred, Theirs was the fault that sent me—and so I told them Answering their cruel charge. Further, I said That since they had so miscalled me I would lief Be quit of the whole business, keeping nothing But the poor clothes on my back. But no reply Came to my comfort ere the _Speedwell_ dropt Her anchor at Southampton. On the morrow Our Ruling Elder, Master Brewster, haled me Before the assembled church, there to be judged Like a bawd in a white sheet or malefactor Clapt in the stocks for pelting; and when I rose In that hushed gathering I saw men nod And nudge and shoot their lips, and seemed to hear Malicious whispers: _Cushman . . . This is Cushman . . ._ _See this vile serpent Cushman that hath sold_ _Our bodies into servitude! Robert Cushman:_ _This is the man!_ But when, at last, I spake, My voice dried in my throat, so that they craned With leering looks to hear my plea, and smirked To see me so discomfited. At which My lips moved soundless, and all I would have urged In my defence fled from my mind, while tears Dripped down my cheeks. Then silently I turned, Gazing at Master Carver and Master Martin Who had been my partners; but neither of them spoke, And the cock crew not . . . And though I was assoiled Of criminous intent or wilful error, Yet, ever afterwards, I was the butt Of pointing fingers and wry looks that told Of scorn, not charity. And when, at length, We were put forth from Hampton, contrary winds Having hindered us a week, then I was lodged In the lesser ship, under the regiment Of a tormentor: that same Master Martin Who lately had forsook me. Of this man I will speak as little as I may, for fear My tongue should master me; but of the ship And her false captain, Reynolds, I must tell The truth, and fear not. Know, then, that the _Speedwell_ Was bought in Leyden, and the Hollanders— For lust of gain, and in the certitude Our folk knew not the sea—had overmasted Her hull so grievously that, ere she made Southampton, she was leaking. And Master Reynolds (Or so he said) durst not put out to sea In such a sieve till she was searched and mended, At a sore charge to our scanty purses. Next, When we put forth under a press of sail, He said the leak was worsened, and took us in To Dartmouth for new scrutinies that showed The Hampton shipwrights had as little honour As they of Holland—for in the bilge was found A piece of planking that a man could shift With his fingers, and salt water pouring in As through a mole-hole. So, once more, we trimmed The vessel, and to meet the reckoning sold Of butter four score firkins, ill to spare On such a lengthy voyage, and, having lost Of the favourable season ten more days, Put forth in hope. But when she met the waves That Westward of the Scilly Islands swell Out of the main Atlantic, this poor ship Sprang yet another leak; and the sea flowed Into her hold so fiercely that the captain Feared she would founder straight. Little cared I (But for my luckless brethren) whether she sank Or swam! So foully had the heaving sea Misused my stomach, and the cunning spite Of Master Martin racked my bruiséd mind With brags and insults, that when the captain cried For hands to man the pumps I could not raise My quivering limbs, but like a carcase lay Lifting and falling as the _Speedwell_ groaned And shuddered as in anguish, and the bilge Soused my insensible body. Gladly then Had I given up the ghost, freely committing That body to the deep, and to my Maker A trustful soul that in humility Looked for the Resurrection. There, beside me, Lay Master William King; and oft we wondered Which of us twain should first be thrown to feed The fishes; yet, so wondering, sank at last Into a profound nescience that was nearer To death than sleep. But when, at last, I woke, And Master Martin rudely summoned me To mount the ladder to the deck, I saw The _Mayflower_ close beside us, and the roofs Of a grey city rising from the verge Of quiet waters, that the seamen said Was Plymouth. And though I fell upon my knees To thank God for the miracle that had brought us Out of those ravening waves, yet did I shudder To think of setting forth once more. But that Was not to be; for Reynolds, who I know Had no liking for the venture and his promise To bide with us a year, now flatly swore He would never take the _Speedwell_, were she trimmed A hundred times! Therefore it was determined (And I too faint to question) that such of us As had the courage should be put aboard The _Mayflower_ and continue on the voyage. But I, alas! had none—my sufferings Having utterly undone me—and was carried To land upon the Barbican, where I lay Nine days light-headed; for when my eyes were shut The bed still heaved beneath me as though swayed By the storm’s groundswell. Thither, on the tenth, Came Master King, who told me that the _Mayflower_ Had weighed and put to sea, and led me forth, Leaning upon his arm, with painful steps To climb the Hoe. As fair a sight it was As Moses from the Mount of Pisgah saw Gazing on Palestine: beneath our feet The close-packed roofs of Plymouth; before our eyes The firth, within its greening girdle, flecked With tawny wings of fishing-craft that skimmed The crinkled waves like seamews—and far, far, Dipped in the watery horizont, a tower Of lonely canvas, alabaster-white In the seaward sun’s pure radiance; a ship Transfigured, yet so far away she seemed Moveless and visionary. But I knew This was indeed the _Mayflower_, and that she moved With crowded sail to Westward on the course Of the Virginias—yea, and that all my heart And hopes had gone aboard her, with the friends I had loved and served so faithfully, yet was I cast Away like a worn clout, and so abandoned To miserable emptiness . . . Forgive me, Sirs, I can speak no more. XXIII Interlude ATLANTIC CHARTER A.D. 1620-1942 What were you carrying, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What did you carry beyond the sea? _We carried the Book, we carried the Sword,_ _A steadfast heart in the fear of the Lord,_ _And a living faith in His plighted word_ _That all men should be free._ What were your memories, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What of the dreams you bore away? _We carried the songs our fathers sung_ _By the hearths of home when they were young,_ _And the comely words of the mother-tongue_ _In which they learnt to pray._ What did you find there, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What did you find beyond the waves? _A stubborn land and a barren shore,_ _Hunger and want and sickness sore:_ _All these we found and gladly bore_ _Rather than be slaves._ How did you fare there, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? What did you build in that stubborn land? _We felled the forest and tilled the sod_ _Of a continent no man had trod_ _And we stablished there, in the Grace of God,_ _The rights whereby we stand._ What are you bringing us, Pilgrims, Pilgrims? Bringing us back in this bitter day? _The selfsame things we carried away:_ _The Book, the Sword,_ _The fear of the Lord,_ _And the boons our fathers dearly bought:_ _Freedom of Worship, Speech and Thought,_ _Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear,_ _The Liberties we hold most dear,_ _And who shall say us Nay?_ XXIV THE TAVERNER’S TALE A.D. 1653 The plain tale of Bill Shelton, taverner, At the sign of the Talbot (which most men call ‘the Dog’) In the city of Worcester, where I was born and bred And still, thank God, continue—having endured More changeful fortunes in these ten short years Than most men in their lives—though, now they are past, I would not change my lot for any other’s, Nor yet regret them. Well do I remember How first the word of War came to my ears By the mouth of young Sam Butler, whom I had known As a boy at Bartonbridge, and now abode At Strensham, where his father leased a farm Of Sir William Russell. Sam was a strong-set fellow, High-coloured, with a head of sorrel hair, And a tart tongue that lapped my sack more gladly Than his dad’s buttermilk, yet so fanciful I never knew whether he spoke in jest Or earnest. And Sam winked at me and said: “Well, William, so ’tis war.” And I, mistrusting His vein, laughed in his face, till he, more gravely, Told how the festering dissidence that had grown ’Twixt King and Commons, now had reached a head, And with a wilful lancet-thrust the King Had pricked it, leaving Windsor to set up His flag at Nottingham, whence he had called On all men of goodwill to arm themselves And prove their lealty, and on all the sheriffs To muster their militias. But when I swore I was glad we dwelt in Worcester, where no harm Could come to us, Sam Butler laughed again And slapped me on the back and went his way, Leaving me in a ferment. For strange it is That this very syllable of War has power To whip the pulses and inflame the thoughts Of ordinary folk, who have no liking For violence, yet will run a hundred yards To watch a dogfight or a drunken bout Of fisticuffs, yea, and take sides. Thus I, Who cared nothing for the Parliament, and little For the King’s Majesty, found myself stirred To sudden excitation, and ran indoors Breathless to tell my good wife, Kate, who stood A-scouring of the pewter, and, when she saw me Red-faced and bivering, bade me souse my head Under the pump to cool it, saying that this Was but another of Sam’s fooleries, And I an oaf to credit him. But, for once, Hers was the greater folly, as we knew Within a week when ten troops of dragoons Rode clanking through the Sidbury Gate, and some Were billeted upon us: Sir John Byron, Their colonel, and his lieutenant usurping Our very bed. And in Kate’s buttery They locked some hundredweight of silver brought From the colleges at Oxford. Many have said That the King’s cavalry were a vile crew Of profligate pillagers; but most that came To Worcester with Sir John were simple lads, Small farmers’ sons and country gentlemen Of the lesser quality, who brought the Talbot Good custom—yea, and paid their reckonings In ready money, nor ever laid a hand On wife or maid unwilling; though some few Were roaring blades bred in the insolence Of foreign wars, whose braggart manners changed When once they found I had learnt to use my fists In the boxing-booth of Pitchcroft at the fair Of Barnabas. So, a full month, we lived Right prosperous and merry, till word came That Lord Essex, with some twenty thousand men, Was marching upon Worcester. That same night We woke to hear the rattle of musketry And a battering on the Sidbury Gate, a stonesthrow From where we slept: whereat I leapt from bed And clutched my sword, determined to defend My native city; but Kate snatched at the tail Of my shirt and hauled me back, miscalling me A fool to make or meddle in a business That was none of ours—and since I knew no sword (Once it was drawn) was sharper than Kate’s tongue, I got me back to bed and lay there, strained To listen, while the musket-shots and the hammerings On Sidbury Gate died down, and the great bell We call Hautclere in the cathedral rang At the first hour for Matins. All that night I slept no wink; but early on the morrow Heard how a body of Roundhead cavalry Under Nathaniel Fiennes, thrusting in front Of Essex’s main force, had hoped to find The gate unguarded, but, their courage failing In the event, had faltered and ridden on By Pixham Ford or Clevelode to the West Of Severn, where now they sate astride the road To Shrewsbury, waiting for the rest to close On Worcester from the East. And next we heard, By messengers from Bewdley, that Prince Rupert Was pressing South to succour Sir John Byron And pluck him forth ere he was ground to meal Between two millstones. But we little knew, When Byron’s trumpet called his men to horse, That Rupert was already come and bivouacked By Powick in the Wickfield. Here as he lay Beneath a thorn, and his horse grazed beside him Knee-haltered, suddenly there rose a cry: “The enemy is upon us!”—Fiennes’s troop Having crossed in double file the narrow bridge That spans the Teme at Powick, and straggled through A narrower lane that skirts the Chequers Inn To spread abroad in Wickfield. Instantly Prince Rupert and his brother Maurice leapt Into their saddles—and a short space behind Came Wilmot, Digby, and Sir Lewis Dives, Launched on a charge; and these five cavaliers Tore like a thunderbolt into the midst Of those bewildered Roundheads, while the rest Of Rupert’s horsemen, swiftly following, Fell on the scattered van and hurled them back On their advancing comrades, crowding all Into the sunken track that, to this day, Is known as Cut-throat Lane. Ay, many throats Were slit in this encounter, but even more Bodies and limbs down-trampled in the mellay Of plunging horses that crashed through the hedge On either hand to crush them. And the remnant That reached the bridge to Powick, fled flock-meal Till they were safe in Pershore! Such was the first Battle of Worcester: a rousing victory For the King’s cause, and, to my simple mind, A husk blown from the threshing-floor to show How moved the wind. For surely now, I thought, We might sleep in our own comfortable bed Until the war was over; but Kate, more prone To see things darkly, said they must be worse Ere they were better—and God in heaven knows She was right for once: no sooner had Rupert gone With Byron and his precious plate to Shrewsbury, Than out we went again—our bed being filled By a renegade cousin of Sir Samuel Sandys Wounded at Powick; and next day at noon Essex’s army, of twenty thousand men, Poured in through Sidbury Gate and overflowed Our streets and dwellings, like the locust-plague That ate up Egypt; and these Parliament men Were not as Byron’s lads, who spoke our tongue And knew our ways, but an unbridled host Of Cambridge and East Anglia, that reckoned Worcester a conquered Canaan, and its people Idolatrous Amalekites to be harried And smitten, hip and thigh. There was not a house In the city left unpillaged, not a man Of worth not held to ransom, not a church Unrobbed or undefiled; and when these brutes That labelled themselves godly men had rifled The taverns of the city, and reeled forth O’erflown with drunken arrogance, they broke down The doors of the cathedral, where they turned The nave into a camp, lighted by fires Fed from the organ-casing; and they made The choir and aisles their privies, and the cloisters A stable for their horses, with a midden Heaped in the garth—while some, that deemed themselves Most righteous, fell upon our monuments And sacred images, hacking off the noses Of prelate and of saint, and shattering The painted windows, till the polluted aisles Were paved with splintered glass. And the dragoons Of Essex, in their orange scarves, put on The canons’ vestments, prancing on College Green In blasphemous buffoonery, and mocked Service and sacrament. It has been said That Oliver did these injuries; but I know, Having seen with my own eyes, that they were wrought By the rabble of Lord Essex. From that day I have hated every Roundhead—and Kate, my wife, Was bitterer than I. For three hard months They battened on our substance, till defeat At Edgehill made them fearful, so Lord Essex Abandoned Worcester to the King, and left us To lick our sores in peace. Peace, did I say? Ay, there is peace in death—and Worcester now Was but a fly-blown carcase, or an oak Blasted by lightning, that, when Spring returns, Puts forth a feeble show of wonted leaf Though hollow at the heart. So, when that tempest Had rolled away from Worcester, she was left A hungry, sullen city, on every hand Compassed by neighbouring tumult, and within So rent by civil faction that none dared Speak his mind openly—nor could one venture Beyond the gates for fear of roving bands Of either party, that now profited By the storm’s aftermath to make a prey Of hapless travellers. Now no provision Of wine or victuals reached us: for the roads Were mired by trampling horsemen and the wheels Of heavy guns and limbers, and every bridge Was cracked or broken down. Therefore my wife, Wise in her generation, did conjure me To bide indoors and keep my blabbing mouth Tight-padlocked—which was irksome for a man Companionable by nature, and no less For the purpose of his trade! Thus we abode, Shut in the Talbot, while the bloody tides Swung to and fro about us; and though it seemed The royal cause went ill, no rebel force Dared touch us for a twelvemonth, till, at last, They sent Sir William Waller—him they called The Night-owl—with three thousand horse and foot To take the city; and his trumpeter Rode to the Sidbury Gate, and sounded there His summons to surrender. But William Sandys Gave back a scornful answer, telling him: “This was not Hereford.” Whereat the Gloucester Blues Charged on the Friary Gate, but were thrown back, While Waller’s cannon loosed their fire on Sidbury, Nor could we answer them—for Will Berkeley’s house, Without the gate, covered their batteries— Till, in the night, we sallied forth and razed That hindrance to the ground; and all our women, My wife among them, with mattock, spade and shovel, Levelled our field of fire, uprooting hedges Fences and mounds to give the gunners ease. And Waller, hearing that Prince Maurice came From Oxford to relieve us, slunk away With his tail between his legs—for, as he said, He had no luck in Worcestershire—and left us Unfallen, if not unscathed. In the fourth year Of this lamentable war our plight grew graver, Dudley and Hartlebury and Madresfield Having fallen to the Roundheads, one by one, Like over-ripened choke-pears, and at last, No loyal garrison in all Worcestershire Save ours surviving, Fairfax, who then beset The City of Oxford, sent forth Colonel Whalley To make an end of us. Two woeful months, All but one day, we were besieged and bore The weight of Whalley’s cannon that cast their shot Whither they would, till every second house In Sidbury was riddled like a colander, And many fired. Little do I remember What happened day by day. There is a measure In human torment when the mind grows void Of feeling and is numbed, and, though the body Goes through the actions of a living man, The heart is mortified—when pain and hunger Nay, even death itself, seem incidents That have no power to move us. But this I know: That, on the day Prince Maurice sent us word Oxford was fallen, and we could no longer Hope to resist, and when our gates, so boldly Defended, were thrown open to the enemy, We hardly knew the import, but stood dazed And staring on the street as they marched in. And this I know: that those who stood beside me, My neighbours and familiars, seemed shrunken To gaunt anatomies; and I, not guessing How I was withered too, looked at my wife And found her an old woman. Then a wave Of pity overcame me, and fierce anger Against the crass stupidity of the passions That had set us by the ears—so that I cared Neither for King nor Parliament, but only That we might go about our ways in peace And die in our own bed. But when I spoke My mind, my wife’s eyes quickened, and she chid me For a despicable chicken-hearted recreant, Saying that while the King was yet alive We were bounden to stand by him and to serve His cause, no matter what the cost. So I, Rather than vex her (for I loved this woman Most dearly) did consent, and locked my grudge Within my breast. Three miserable winters The war dragged on, while we grew spare and wan With waiting, till the Scots betrayed the King To Cromwell, and his bloody-handed crew Condemned their hapless prisoner to suffer A traitor’s death. At this a dreadful shudder Shook the whole body of England; for even they Who had borne arms against him never had looked For such a monstrous ending. My poor Kate Wept for a week, inconsolate, and I Who had seen him in his glory, could not but feel Compassion for this little man—no bigger He looked, than a child’s puppet—yet withal So rich in majesty, who had been dragged To the shambles by such butchers. Yet, for myself, I must own I was less shaken—this sacrifice Foreshadowing the end, that blessed day When men with God’s name on their lips would cease From the slaughter of their brethren. But my wife Rated me through her tears: “True, they have slain Our King, but not his Kingship; that lives on In Charles, his son.” Whereat I held my peace And let her have her say, knowing, alas! How bloodshed breedeth bloodshed without end, And nothing but exhaustion can abort This foul fecundity—till, at length, we heard That the Prince was landed in the North and marching Hot foot on London, with an avenging host Of eighteen thousand Scots; and, as he came, The great Lords of the North and loyal gentry Of Wales and Westmorland and Lancashire Flocked to his banners. So speedily they moved We could not count their progress, hearing one day He was at Kendal, the next at Lancaster, And in a week at Warrington, where we reckoned He would turn aside to Shrewsbury, but instead He held straight on for Worcester, confident Of our proven loyalty. That joyful eve The bells clanged ceaselessly, and bonfires lit The venerable cathedral that had lain Cold as a tomb and sightless since the Roundheads Shattered the painted glass—but now it seemed To be warmed to life once more; and on the morrow, When I saw the King go there to pray, I thought him More manly than his father, and little less Majestic in his mien; a swarthy fellow Who laughed like any other when he was pleased, And had a jest for all, and a bold eye To make a maiden blush—which common manhood, In one that was so great, kindled my loyalty Anew—though I confess it burned less briskly Than my poor wife’s, who would have given her soul To please him. What is this strange emanation Of royalty, that beclouds the sight and dizzies The brain like liquor? Who was this lanky lad Black-browed and dusky-visaged, that I should risk My skin to honour him? Yet it is true I liked him well enough—but for the Scots, Now camped on Pitchcroft, I had neither liking Nor reverence: for sorrier soldiery I never saw—the very lees and leavings Of an impoverished land, as ill-equipped In spirit as in raiment, more uncouth Than the Welsh drovers whose bedraggled ewes Limp into Hereford! For body-armour They had naught but buff-coats, and for weapons, durk, Cleaver, half-pike and cutlass; as for their horses: They had no more sinew in their spavined hocks Than would drag them to the knacker’s. So, when I thought Of the well-fettled steeds and tough cuirasses Of Cromwell’s redcoat Ironsides, my heart fell, Boding disaster—though I little guessed How, at that very moment, Oliver, Having spurred southward on a parallel road, Had ridden into Evesham, where, reinforced By Lambert and Fleetwood, he lay between the King And London. Thus the chequerboard was set For the Second Battle of Worcester, and the last Of this insensate strife, whereof the issue Was never in doubt: for they outnumbered us By two to one, of these the greater part Toughened by war and tempered by the will Of a famous captain—while the wayworn Scots And levies of the North were far from home, Ill-armed, ill-horsed, ill-nourished, and worse-fed, With little spunk for fighting in the face Of insufferable numbers, and consumed By intestine jealousies. Only the King, Serene and sunlike, smiled above the gloom Of his faint-hearted followers, whether deluded By flatterers or in deliberate despite Of dooms foreseen, I know not; but he moved Gaily among them, sedulous to compose Their differences, and with a glancing wit Rallying the doubtful. Ere the battle broke, On the Second of September, he clomb the tower Of the cathedral, where we saw him strut— A manikin, no bigger than a fly That specks the ceiling—with his optic-glass Propped on the parapet. But what he saw (And we saw not) had daunted stouter heart Than his: the city caught in a snare of steel, Made visible where glinting metal flashed Through summer’s heavy leafage or between The stocks of ripened cornfields. On the hills To eastward, from the verge of Perry Wood To Severnside, the regiments of Fairfax And Cromwell in a drooping crescent closed The roads to Bath and Evesham. Beyond Severn, Where Keith held Powick and Piscotty’s foot The hams above Teme’s confluence, he espied Fleetwood, with Deane and Lambert, who had straddled The broken bridge at Upton, and, advancing Northward by night, now menaced the main line Of his defences: the deep-sunken channel By which Teme, slinking through the marly meads, Empties herself in Severn. Thus it appeared That Cromwell’s purpose was a double drive Along both banks of Severn: and thereby He courted mischief—for, if either thrust Faltered, the King could hurry his reserves Across the bridge at Worcester, and press home The immediate mastery, while the Roundheads wasted Inestimable hours in crossing Severn Six miles downstream over the broken bridge At Upton. But this Cromwell, who had learnt War in the school of failure, was no dunce; And on the morn of battle—which was the Third Day of September, and the sun more fierce Than midsummer—he threw a bridge of boats Over the deeps of Severn, a pistol-shot Above the mouth of Teme; and Fleetwood cast Another over Teme, thereby contriving To cancel our advantage; and, at the signal That both were passable, then, East and West The double thrust began. First Fleetwood launched A hot assault on Powick, driving back Keith’s outposts from the church, while Lambert crossed The second bridge to fall upon Piscotty, And, East of Severn, Cromwell’s culverins Opened upon the earthwork of Fort Royal That guards the Sidbury Gate, foreshadowing An attempt upon the city. But though Keith Gave ground awhile, and fierce Piscotty’s highlanders Momently wavered, yet they held their lines Unbroken, and fought back so valiantly That Fleetwood first, then Lambert, each was fain To give them best, and sullenly withdrew To whence they came. Then was the mystery Of Cromwell’s battle-craft made plain: for now, Seeing his generals on the westward bank Repulsed, he gathered to him three brigades Of his own invincible Ironsides, and led them Over the creaking bridge of boats, impetuous As a hedge-skimming sparrow-hawk, and his van Smote on Piscotty’s flank, right shoulder forward, Scattering the highlanders, and by this rout Uncovering Keith, whom, caught upon two sides, Deane overpowered and drove him out of Powick Fighting from bank to bank, over the bridge Into that very Wickfield where Prince Rupert First thrashed Nathaniel Fiennes! When the King saw How ill Keith fared, he fervently besought Leslie, on Pitchcroft, to throw the Scottish horse Into the wavering battle; but Leslie said: That, “well as they might look, they would not fight”; Whereon this royal youth, with greater gallantry And more resource than had been credited, Burst forth from Sidbury Gate into the teeth Of the roundhead cannon, hoping thus to breach Their eastern lines now weakened by the lack Of Cromwell’s Ironsides. As he rode out, With a recklessness not Rupert’s self had equalled, The Duke of Hamilton swerved left, and carried The guns in Perry Wood, while the young King Charged in the van full on their centre, driving Lord Fairfax from the crest. Then, then indeed, Had Leslie’s cavalry been worth their keep, Or shown one spark of loyalty to follow Their King, the battle had been won, and Britain Vowed to a different destiny! But none Budged from his tent; and as the doubtful fight Swayed on the hill-top, Cromwell’s Ironsides Came thundering back from Powick and rode through The faltering ranks of foot, which, taking heart From this mighty reinforcement, now surged back Over the bloody crest and then swept down Upon Fort Royal, irresistible As the foam-capped bore of Severn that in a wall Of angry water, when the moon is full, Roars from the brimming estuary to be spent On Diglis Weir. So that resistless tide Of men engulphed Fort Royal; and as the flow Of Severn is heaped upon itself and whirled Backward, so now the very pith and flower Of the King’s army, in a direful rout, Poured through the conduit of the Sidbury Gate Into the city’s heart—and where of late The Lion of Scotland had flaunted on the fort Fluttered the rebel blue, while from the scarp The parliament gunners turned the captured cannon To blast a way before. Yet, even now, The King fought on, fearlessly rallying A handful of his bravest—and had been taken At the Commandery door, but that Will Bagnall, A simple waggoner, lugged his plunging team Betwixt him and the rebels, while he slipped Within the gate to safety, and, once again, Rallied the fugitives to turn and face His enemies. Yet no sooner had he gathered A faithful few about him, than he heard A clatter of galloping hooves, and turned to see The winnowed remnant of his cavalry Whirling like chaff down Lich Street in full flight From Fleetwood’s men and Lambert’s, that had carried The Severn Bridge. Then, then, alas, he knew The battle lost—and only then bethought him Of his own safety, though whither he should flee ’Twas hard to tell: the Foregate being blocked With stones, and Bridge Gate, Friar’s Gate and Sidbury Held by the Roundheads! But one loyal soul (Whose name, for his skin’s sake, I will not utter, Though you may guess it) led him roundabout Back of the Cornmarket to St. Martin’s Gate And a green lane running northward. From that hour This man hath heard no word of him, though it is said He is safe in France; but of our city’s fate Much may be told: for now we knew the difference Between a city ceded and one sacked. All day, till it was dark, the roundheads hewed Their way through teeming streets and wet their blades In the bodies of the innocent, and by nightfall Sidbury was strewn with powder-blackened dead Lying in swathes like beanstraw, and the gutters Smelt like a shambles smoking with warm blood. A body of braggart redcoats took the Talbot For their Lord General’s quarters, whither he came At midnight, and there slept, if such a man Could close his eyelids after such a deed As was the sack of Worcester! Now that night We did not see him, for neither Kate nor I Could bear to look upon him; but next morning They told us he was hungered, and commanded That we should give him meat—whereon my wife Swore we had not a morsel; but they brandished Their swords so threateningly that I, to save her From worse, consented, saying that all we had Was a stale crust and a tankard of small beer, Which I set upon a platter and bore upstairs To the Lord General’s chamber. Thrice I knocked, But had no answer; then, with shrunken courage, Entered, and saw there were but two men within: The one, a clerk or secretary, sate With a paper on his knees, and in his hand A quill, intently listening. The other Stood with his back to me: a thickset man Of middling height, in a buff doublet, girt With a scabbard-belt—and when he stirred, his sword Clanked on the floorboards. And this man, I guessed, Was the Lord General Cromwell—but neither he Nor the clerk heeded me as I stood waiting And the platter dithered in my hands. At last He spoke, in a harsh voice: “What hast thou written?” And the penman, softly: “_Great fruit of the success_ . . .” “Ay, that was it: “_Great fruit of the success_ . . .” _Of the success_ . . . Now dip thy pen again: _The dimensions of this Mercy are above_ _My thoughts_. . . . My thoughts. . . . _It is, for all I know,_ _A crowning Mercy. Lord God Almighty, frame_ _Our hearts to real thankfulness for this_ _Which is alone his doing!_” Then he paused While the pen creaked, and pausing, looked on me Who stood abashed and quaking. But I doubt He saw me; for his melancholy eyes, Deep-sunken in the blotched and furrowed face Of an ailing, ageing, weary man, stared forth As blank as lightless windows—nor could I guess What dark impenetrable brooding filled The sombre brain behind them. But those eyes, And that face, so sad in victory, are stamped Upon my vision yet; and still I see That craggy frame, whose shape might have been hewn From a block of Malvern granite, stand before me, Not as a ruthless conqueror, but a man Of sorrows. And this also I perceived, That the presence of this commoner breathed forth A majesty so awful and a power So palpable that the King, for all his valour, Seemed only pitiful, and the princely graces That had won my heart, mere gauds and ornaments Beside this homespun greatness. Suddenly Cromwell’s eyes fastened on me, and his face Flushed as he clutched his sword-hilt: “Who art thou? Who gave thee leave to enter?” Then, seeing me Unarmed and stammering, he shot back the sword Into the scabbard and laughed aloud. And now His voice seemed kindly, and the saddened eyes Good-humoured. “What?” said he. “Hast brought me breakfast? Then art thou welcome! This is the first bread I ever broke in this malignant city! Who knows if it be poisoned?” But when I said I could swear there was no harm in it, he frowned, Bidding me not to swear after the manner Of the ungodly; but this reproof, I reckon, Was not unfriendly meant, for then he smiled And took the platter, bidding me be gone And strive to mend my speech. But when my wife Waylaid me on the stair and badgered me To tell her all, and I, poor fool, affirmed That this monster (as she called him) was a gentleman Humane and kindly, then she rated me For a giddling weathercock, saying she rued The day that we were wed, and from that hour Never forgave me. Yet I still maintain— And none shall shake me—that the Lord Protector Was an honest man, who, having set his hand To the plough, scorned to turn back, but drove his furrow Straight to the end foreseen, and that the harvest Of our present peace would never have been garnered But for the coulter of this ruthless ploughman: For he that sows in tears, the Psalmist saith Shall reap in joy, and doubtless come again Bringing his sheaves with him. . . . XXV ORDEAL BY FIRE A.D. 1666-1940 _Twice in the fires of sacrifice_ _Consumed has London lain:_ _Twice has London burned, and twice_ _Has London lived again._ First there came the lustral flame That in a woeful day Was sent to cleanse the pestilence And burn her sins away; When through her crumbling tinder Winged by the frenzied East The fire that none could hinder Ran like a ravening beast. From East to West the wildfire swept, It flew from street to street; It carried Temple Bar and leapt The Tyburn and the Fleet; Then, wheeling back in the wind’s teeth, It licked the city’s walls And kindled with its panting breath The roof of old St. Paul’s, Whose fragments flown from white-hot stone Like plunging round-shot fell, While molten lead from overhead Flowed fast down Ludgate Hill, And shepherds from the lonely height Of Hampstead gazing down Saw heaving in a lake of light The heart of London town, And heard, like distant thunder, Roofs, towers and temples crash, As London’s heart sank under A shroud of smoking ash. Yet on that charred and cindery shard Of ash and calcined stone There rose a London lovelier Than ever man had known, Of towers and spires and pinnacles Whiter than cloud or foam: And over all the church of Paul Upreared its kingly dome. From chambered spire and steeple Each with a different voice Her belfries called her people To mourn or to rejoice; Their chime and change and clanging peals The risen city crowned, And wove above her roaring wheels Their fabric of sweet sound. Their voices sang of shine and gloom, Of triumph and of rue; Men heard them boom o’er Nelson’s tomb And peal for Waterloo. But in the end there came a day With darker boding filled, When the wings of hate were at her gate And London’s bells were stilled; When from Penzance to John o’Groats The bells no longer swung— For a seal was set upon their throats And clamped each iron tongue; When on the chimeless chantries, On steeple dome and spire, The Prussian’s dread fire-raisers shed A night-long rain of fire That kindled rafters overhead And cleft the graves below, Thrusting the unremembered dead Into the furnace-glow; When soaring sparks whirled through the dark, And towering billows tossed Their crimson foam where Paul’s grey dome Rose like a deathless ghost. Night after night in droning flight We heard the raiders come; Our steeples crashed about our feet But still their bells were dumb; And still we wait, for soon or late Those bells will speak once more, And the belfries reel with such a peal As never was rung before, To give these folk who never broke The guerdon of their pain: That the peace they earned when London burned Has come to her again; And on the soil they loved so well, Their gay and dauntless eyes Shall see from out that blackened shell A phœnix city rise. _Twice in the fires of sacrifice_ _Consumed has London lain:_ _Twice has London burned—and twice_ _Shall London rise again!_ XXVI Interlude THE ISLE OF VOICES Ours is an isle of voices whose mild air And gentle skies are sweetened everywhere With a winged music that by day and night Instils an essence of supreme delight Or secret rapture on the listening ear, Where is no season of the changing year But hath its meed of song. Often in days Of midmost Winter when the miry ways Crinkle with cat-ice and the ebon thorn Is sheathed in crystal shall a cloudy morn Ring with the rapid notes the redbreast throws To skies o’erburdened with unfallen snows, When over frosty furrow and sere steep One hears the whirring flocks of fieldfares sweep With harsh, exultant clamour as they glean Their beggarly harvest: often have I seen The missel-thrush his stormy challenge cast Full in the teeth of Winter’s foulest blast, While brindled dunnocks humbly chirp and stir In starveling bushes of grey lavender; While in the crannied wood-pile the wren flirts His tail and frees his song in fiery spurts, And the tiny goldcrest, like a flittermouse, Cheeps in the swarthy cedar’s topmost boughs. And when at midnight the cold catalyst Of arctic air has cleared the enshrouding mist To star-shot crystal, and the earth revealed Lies wan and desolate as a lunar field, Out of that spectral stillness, beyond view, Ripples the mellow quavering halloo Of snow-soft owls that from the luminous dark Answer the mating vixen’s peevish bark. Oft when grim days of February gird The chastened brooks with iron have I heard The chuckle of garrulous rooks that prize and peer Within their ragged homes of yester-year, Or lighting on the wind-swayed trivets test The strength of twigs to bear the new year’s nest; Oft over seaward crags, where thrift and thyme Are mingled, watched the pairing ravens climb In widening circles, while the curlew pours That liquid laughter which shall wake the moors When snows are gone—and heard the whimbrel shrill O’er saltings where dun estuaries spill Their tidal fringe. Yet these disjointed cries Are but the prelude of the pæans that rise When the South West unseals the frozen springs, And every bush is quick with whimperings And flutings, as each tiny instrument Strives to perfect the theme that shall be blent In April’s airy counterpoint. How sweet The morn when the first chiff-chaff doth repeat His tenuous distich that is pure and frail As blackthorn petals that a whiff of hail Or sleet can tarnish! How far richer then The limpid cadence of the willow-wren, And those clear torrents of excited song The spiring whitethroat sheds! How blithe and strong Waxes the blackbird’s whistle as he weaves His leisurely melismas—though he leaves The spendthrift phrase unfinished in despite Of laboured artifice! With what rich delight, Ere the first gleam of orient amber breaks, The throstle’s jubilant reveille wakes A multitudinous chorus to proclaim Unclouded hope, sheer bliss without a name Or reason—save that it is doubly sweet To live and love in April, and to greet The first-created miracle of light As it were unfamiliar. There’s no night In April now but wafts upon their way New clouds of witnesses—no dawn of day But brings its new diversity of notes To swell this ambient music from the throats Of new-come singers, while from overhead The sunlit carolings of the lark are shed Like glancing raindrops, silvered as they fall. Now from bare orchards bursts the clarion call Of the bold chaffinch, where the firetail flits With anxious chirpings; now the ox-eye whets His rasping scissors, and the reedy plaint Of the yellow-hammer wheezes far and faint; Now, in shy coverts, where translucent leaves Half hide her nestling, the green linnet weaves Her heart-subduing tissue of soft trills And inward murmurs; now on windy hills The curlew whinnies wild, and tawny springs Feed the fierce torrents where the ouzel sings His wren-like snatch; now over upland vales In wide-winged majesty the buzzard sails— So high, his feeble melancholy call Scarce reaches earth; now pewits swoop or fall Harrying the air with frenzied catlike cry Far from the nests where their pied fledgelings lie; Now on the brambly waste, when eve is still The blackcap and the garden-warbler thrill The brake with flutings that the prentice ear Deems the first nightingale’s—but when we hear That mastersong of May, without a peer, In the swift lapsing of the lover’s moon We smile to think the blackcap’s artless tune Could ever have bewitched us, and remain Rapt in mute ravishment as that golden strain Rises and falls . . . and rises once again. And oft we wonder how the sounds that shower From that small syrinx can transcend the power Of the mightiest music-makers to express, In one brief burst of song, despair, distress, Exultant joy, serenest happiness, Hope, triumph, dread, inconsolable woe, And pity such as none but angels know— Till, with one exquisite note, more finely drawn, The lingering cadenza fades on dawn Or moonless dusk, and in our ears bereft Of that ineffable beauty naught is left But the craking of shy landrails as they cower Couched in the dewy grass and hour on hour Utter their rasping plaint—until the skies Of May are mellowed by the cuckoo’s cries Gladdening the mists of morning as he floats From elm to elm—and in these wayward notes, So richly confident, we seem to hear The authentic theme of Summer, though the ear Grows weary of his clamours before June Has cracked his voice—when, in the heat of noon, Only the croonings of the ringdove lull The leafy woods, and hedgerows that were full Of song are silent as their singers lie Mute in the tired contentment of July: For now their greedy fledgelings are all flown, And who should sing of love that sings alone? These are the deeps of silence; never more Returns the tenderness we knew before The wild rose shed its petals: now we hear Naught but harsh notes of petulance and fear Or angry chattering as the magpies break Their cover, and the jay’s excited shriek Startles the stillness, while from orchards bowed Beneath their luscious burden rings the loud Wild laughter of the yaffle, when between Dark boughs he flashes in a streak of green More brilliant than the hues of any bird Save halcyon’s azure. Now no more are heard The swallow’s twitterings as her fledgeling leaves Her cup of dabbled clay beneath the eaves; For the first brood is sunward flown, and they That linger grow more venturous, day by day Fettling weak wings for their prodigious flight To the far South, as in the dwindling light Of August evenings, when thin clouds of gnats Dance in the dusk, they vie with flickering bats To hawk this gauzy carrion—while on high Shrill storms of swifts whirl through the darkened sky Circling their dizzy steeple till no gleam Of day is left, and, faint as in a dream, We hear the nightlong clouds of waders pass To their warm sands and saltings. Now, alas, Dawn brings no murmurs of content nor songs Of hope—but hurried wing-beats as the throngs Of frightened linnets, scurrying overhead, Whirr to the silken-seeded thistle-bed, With greenfinch, twite, and amoret to dispute Its plumy granaries; now from the scarlet fruit Of yews and rowans, stealthy throstles gulp Mouthfuls of sapid nectar and sweet pulp, And from the berried elder blackbirds cull Vinous ambrosia till their craws are full; Now, on the new-turned tilth, wide-ranging flocks Of daws and starlings feed, and patient rooks Explore each furrow with deliberate care And awkward gait—yet, when the cooling air Of eve with risen vapours rings the sun These hordes of silent foragers rise as one: Slowly the rooks flap homeward, while the stares In myriads gather, till the sky appears Black with their cloudy cohorts as they sink To their foul roosts upon the river’s brink Amid the shivering reeds and withy-beds, Where from their hidden multitude there spreads A babble of wild water . . . Long before September lawns are spangled with the hoar Of silvery cobweb where the spider spins His weft of dewy gossamer, begins The secret flight of singers that by day Have long been silent, but now steal away Borne on invisible wafts of air that glide For ever Southward, like a soundless tide That ebbs in darkness—till of those bright strains That thrilled the prime of April, none remains But the first-come, last-lingering chiff-chaff’s call, Fitful and feeble now—and with the fall Of the first yellowing leaf, he, too, is fled. Yet sometimes, in the opulent drowsihead Of Luke’s or Martin’s Summer, comes a day Of golden stillness, when the woods that lay Bemused in deep autumnal slumber wake To hear a flood of sudden music break From out their tangled thickets—and it seems That Spring has come again, and Winter’s dreams Are surely ended. Never rings more clear The redbreast’s voice than when the dying year Chastens his ardour. Never did throstle sing Louder in the green lustihood of Spring Than when the glory of the stricken leaf Lightens the glooms of Winter! Brief, too brief Are these enchanted moments: soon dun floods Shall drown the valleys, and November woods Stripped of their mortal raiment naked stand: Yet, even when December’s leprous hand Blanches our garden walks, the robin flits With bright eyes peering at the frozen spits Of tawny mould turned from the gardener’s spade, And, like a gay familiar, unafraid, Perches on his bent shoulders as he breaks The crumbling clod, and, fluttering downward, takes His morsel. But, at last, a season comes When birds and men alike must keep their homes; When, in still night, the flying snowflakes sift Upon the dying year her funeral shift; When, from our breath-bleared windows, we espy A silent earth beneath a songless sky— And of the vanished singers naught may know But their starry signets printed on soft snow. XXVII DIASPORA Salute we now the first adventurers Of those storm-clouded or unsullied seas That in their jewelled ambience enclasp This many-coloured island: yet remember How these were ever bred in cognisance Of the sea’s neighbourhood: there is no brook Of midmost Mercia but can taste the brine Of Trent or Severn, when the tidal floods Of bore and eagre meet their lapsing flow Of mountain-waters—no lark-haunted down Nor upland arable but the sea-mew’s wings Whiten the ploughman’s furrow, no native blood Unstirred by those salt savours that beguiled Celt, Saxon, Dane and Norman to forsake Their homely garths and fields, and to explore Mysterious oceans! So John Cabote sailed From Bristol in the _Matthew_; so the _Mayflower_ Westward to barren Massachusetts bore The zealots of a sterner creed; so Drake, Half poet and half pirate, wholly brave, Girdled the watery globe, and ballasted With spice and silver, brought the _Golden Hind_, By the Horn’s perilous seaways and the Cape Of Storms, safe home to Plymouth; so Chancellor, In the _Edward Bonaventure_, braved the fangs Of the fabled North-east Passage to Cathay, And thwarted of that icy enterprise, Over frore steppe and snowy tundra trudged To Muscovy’s drear heart, there to unveil An empery undreamed of; so Ralph Fitch In the _Tiger_, out of London, disembarked At Tripolis in Lebanon, and bewitched By the lure of beckoning distances, fared on To fierce Aleppo, where the caravans Of Babylon were gathered, and from thence, Launched on the huge Euphrates, drifted down To Bussorah, whose burning gulf divides Desert Arabia from the ochreous isle Of Hormuz—yet, provoked by discontent Of such tame voyaging, must set forth anew To Bantam, where the slant-eyed Javanese Crawled to their hideous gods; so Frobisher, Probing the deadly icepack on the coasts Of arctic Labrador, furled his frozen sails In Hudson’s Bay, and with squat Eskimos Trafficked his English wares for the sleek pelts Of fox and sable; so a hundred more Anonymous voyagers followed in their wake Down the far vistas of a widening world— Not of a settled purpose, nor in lust Of treasure, like the Spaniard, but constrained By mysterious compulsions to seek out Strange climes and customs. Thus, when the dead hand Of grudgeful Spain, loosened at Gravelines, Relaxed its grip, then did the energy Pent in this plodding island breed burst forth Strong as a snow-fed torrent in the prime Of lusty Spring, and, by that generous flood Nursed and refreshed, a new-born nation rose Sudden to its full stature. Never before Was such a blossoming: heart hand and brain Nerved by such ardour that the very skies Seemed to be lifted and earth’s bounds dissolved, As, from imagination’s loftiest peaks, Their eyes, undazzled, saw a world in fee To their bright daring, and in seas unknown Their natural birthright. Now, from cove and creek, These venturous islanders put forth, their holds Crammed with the product of a nation rich In handicraft and husbandry, for gold, Silver and fragrant spices and soft silks, Bartering their homespun fleeces from the looms Of Cotswold—till there was no landfall left In the known world but saw their topsails float Like clouds on the horizon as they stole Shoreward to anchor, no dusky race but knew The uncouth accents of their island speech And their bluff island ways. From the storm-vexed Antilles to the tideless seas that lave Old Tyre and Sidon, from the Golden Horn To ageless Egypt, from the Baltic ice To sweltering Madagascar and the flats Of Mozambique, from the Arabian gulf To jealous Goa and the coralline sands Of the palm-fringed Moluccas forth they fared, Wafted on tireless sails—and where they went, Shrewd merchants followed after, stablishing Marts for their musky trade, and from excess Of unimaginable wealth, sent home Fleets of fantastic lading and rich wares That made this thrifty isle the cynosure Of envious nations and chief counting-house Of the old world, luring ambitious youth To stranger voyaging. Many there were Cut loose the ties that held them and forsook Their motherland, transported by the zest Of obstinate endeavour to subdue The spite of stubborn nature and remould Their chosen wilderness—yet gave their dreams Familiar forms and substance, in the void Shaping another England; and when their strength Faltered, their progeny took up the task Left by their fathers’ fingers, to maintain Their heritage of custom, faith and speech Inviolate. But of all the alien lands Wooed by these daring wanderers there was one Most consonant with their nature, and most kind— For all its rigours—to a blood that craved The salt Atlantic air. It was a land Hard on the coulter, where reluctant soil Yielded a niggard harvest, and the fruits Of earth were few; it was a treacherous land Of tangled forests and swift waters, haunted By fierce elusive enemies; a land Vast and impenetrable, whose farthest bounds No human strength could compass; a mute land Of silences more terrible than sound; A land of harsh extremes—of durable snow Alternate with insufferable heat; Of calms and hurricanes; of drought and flood; Yet here these English settled, and here throve, Their senses quickened with adversity, Their sinew steeled by hazard, and their hopes Buoyed by unfading visions of a bourn Infinite in promise, ever beckoning Yet ever unfulfilled; and, of their loins, Within one toilful century, was begotten A nation of a million souls, diverse In creed and polity, yet one in race, Custom and speech—their ancient blood refreshed By the strange soil’s infusions, yet the same In virtue and defect. Thus, from the bounds Of French Acadia, where St. Lawrence pours His lake-fed torrents; from the woods of Maine And Massachusetts to the palisades Of Hudson and New Jersey; from the creeks Of Maryland, where the great Delaware Flows full from Pennsylvania, to the swamps Of old Virginia and the coastal sands Of southmost Carolina—there this breed Gathered their strength, forgetful of the seas That drew their fathers forth, their landward eyes For ever brooding on the wealth that lay Westward beyond the ranges, challenging Their stalwart thews and spirits to forestall The subtler Frenchmen who from North and South Bade fair to fill their marches in the plains Of Mississippi. Such was America: Such were her sons . . . Toward our island too In that same hour, stole an imperious shade Cast by the Sun-King’s glory. Little her wealth Availed her, should the predatory power Of rising France and fallen Spain be joined In enmity—for now her pride of bloom Seemed over and her branches overburdened With rotten fruit; her ancient pieties Relaxed in greed and luxury, her crown Pledged in the dynast’s pawnshop, while the fleets Launched by the great Protector lay dispersed Abandoned or unmanned. Yet, in those days Of shame and peril, when that shadow stole Across the plains of Flanders, menacing Her narrow seas that were both livelihood And safeguard, suddenly our land awoke; Brushed from his throne the last of that light race Whose perjuries had abased her, and sought out Two saviours: first Dutch William, a dour man Who loved her little and was less beloved Save that he stood for liberty—the second, War’s matchless chieftain, Marlborough, mightiest Of all her native warriors, whose cool mind, Patient beyond belief, serene, humane, Clear, swift, dispassionate, neither the guiles Of labyrinthine Europe nor the malice Of envious faction could confuse or turn From his appointed task, that was to free The coasts of Flanders from the dominance Of overweening France, and this dear isle From fierce aggressions. Four and twenty years He waged unceasing war, time and again Victorious, though frustrated by the doubt Or sloth of timorous allies, yet returning Patient as toilful Sisyphus to surmount The pinnacles of hope—and, in the end Gave back to the faint hearts that sent him forth The peace they craved, the honour they had lost, And with his palsied fingers turned a page Bright with the glories of the Augustan Age. XXVIII SONG OF THE BRITISH GRENADIERS A.D. 1713 From plough and cart, from byre and mart, From hamlet, heath and town, They pressed us out to swell the rout And pull the French king down; From jail and tavern, doss and ditch We heard the fifers squeal: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ In distant lands our clumsy hands Took to the butcher’s trade; They learnt the use of flint and fuse And smouldering grenade— To keep the firelock’s tinder dry And whet the bayonet’s steel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ We crossed the reedy Maas and freed The marches of Brabant; We laid our siege about Liège And drove Boufflers to Ghent; We loosed Venloo and Ruremond From the invader’s heel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ ’Twas in the pride of cherry-tide They turned us from the Rhine By mountain roads that overflowed With honey-coloured wine; Through the soft vale where Neckar’s stream Turns many a water-wheel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ When fruit hung low on the August bough And the corn was in the ear, From Nevel’s banks our red-coat ranks Swept round on Tallard’s rear From Blenheim to the Danube’s brink In a ring of fire and steel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ When Flanders ways were mired in May And the Whitsun fog lay white For mile on mile along the Dyle, Villeroi came out to fight; Through the green rye to Ramillies We made his whitecoats reel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ When earth grew dry in a hot July The Frenchmen stole about Our rearward guard at Oudenarde, And turned to fight it out; But we beat Vendôme and chased him home To lick his wounds in Lille: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ September rain had drenched the plain When Marlborough met Villars On the bitter day of Malplaquet In the bloody wood of Sars— When we drove the French from hedge to trench And brought their king to heel: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ But now this grudgeful land we trudge, Forgotten as our dead; And we that freed the world must needs Cringe for a crust of bread From folk who cheered us when they heard The bells for Blenheim peal: _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guer-re_ _Mais quand reviendra-t-il?_ XXIX PASTORAL SYMPHONY A.D. 1743 _Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes_ _Angulus ridet_ . . . _The Scene, again, is Worcestershire: this time the extreme North of the county, where the main watershed of middle England divides the sources of streams flowing into Severn and the Atlantic Ocean from those which feed the tributaries of Trent and are discharged into the North Sea. This is a countryside very different from the vales of Severn and Avon, which, when we last saw them, a hundred years ago, consisted either of aboriginal oak-forest or hedgeless fields. Here one might imagine oneself on the borders of Wales; for the landscape is wild and tumbled and (as its politer inhabitants would call it) ‘bosky’: a country of combe and coppice, sparsely cultivated, and cloven by deep valleys through which flow the numerous brooks that are joined to form the Stour. Though English agriculture has not yet been ‘regulated’ by general enclosure, there are many hedged fields, of small size and irregular shape, of the kind that characterise Herefordshire and Shropshire to-day. Indeed, the little market town of Hales Owen, which lies in the cup of the Stour valley, is actually attached to the County of Salop. On a shelving slope half-way down the face of this well-wooded escarpment, stands an undistinguished farmhouse, which, during the seventeen years of its present occupancy, has become (according to Dr. Johnson) ‘the envy of the great and the admiration of the skilful.’ At this moment ‘the great’ are doing it the honour of a visit: a distinguished company having just alighted from the horses which have carried them over the rough road from Hagley, the seat of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, past the graceful spire of Hales Owen church and the nailmakers’ tinkling anvils, to view Mr. Shenstone’s walks and inspect his improvements. A chaise, drawn by a tandem, and carrying a plump, middle-aged man with a solemn face and large, sleepy eyes, brings up the rear of the cavalcade. The leader of the party is George Lyttelton: a tall, thin loose-limbed man of thirty-four. He is dressed, with slovenly elegance, in a full wig, which frames his long, serious features, a purple riding-coat, tight breeches, and silver-buckled shoes: his attire a compromise between that of a courtier or clubman and that of a rustic squire, and a contrast, in any case, to that of Mr. Shenstone, whose ill-fitting grey coat and red waistcoat, unbuttoned and dusted with snuff, do not add to the grace of a figure already going to seed. Mr. Shenstone, moreover, ‘wears his own hair’, and has apparently paid little attention to it. The other visitors are a robust, jolly-looking fellow, with a rubicund face and lively eyes; a young sailor, a lad of sixteen, to whom he appears to be much attached; and a figure of far greater distinction, in a tie-wig: small headed, grey-eyed and thin-lipped, with a prominent aquiline nose. From a cage above the front door, a dishevelled blackbird surveys the scene without interest, while Mr. Lyttelton makes apologies and introductions in a mellifluous voice and measured phrases which largely mitigate his physical awkwardness._ Lyttelton: Dear Mr. Shenstone, I pray you will forgive This sudden visitation; for my guests Would have thought little of my entertainment Had they not seen your Leasowes, and paid homage To its creator. You know my sailor brother, Tom Smith? (_The rubicund gentleman smiles and bows._) His young companion’s Alec Hood, His servant in the _Romney_. (_The boy grins and bows awkwardly._) Mr. Pitt You surely must remember? We had the privilege Of coming here ten years ago—since when The world has heard much more of him—_and_ you, Sir. Shenstone: A name and face not easily forgotten. Lyttelton: But wait! My chief surprise! (_The plump gentleman has dismounted, with difficulty, from the tandem chaise, and strolls aimlessly towards them, pausing to look at the view._) Another servant Of the Sacred Nine: my good friend Mr. Thomson. Jamie, for heaven’s sake wake up! Our host Awaits your pleasure. Thomson: (_With a start_) Sir I beg your pardon And Mr. Shenstone’s. I am quite bemused With the languor of a prospect that would turn A clod into a poet: a Parnassus Whose very air breathes music. Mr. Shenstone, I envy you your heritage. Capt. Smith: (_With a mischievous twinkle_) Do you reckon It equals Hagley, Jamie? Thomson: (_With a strong Scots accent_) Sir, comparisons May sometimes illustrate, but never prove, And seldom edify. (_He sighs._) My indolent Muse, Inspired by such environs, might have ventured On more ambitious wings. Shenstone: Sir, she has soared Beyond my sight already in your _Seasons_. If she flew higher still, she would be lost In heaven—and we the poorer. But your envy Seems disingenuous in one who dwells At Kew Foot Lane, within an hour of town, Where wits are tempered by the Social Flame And sharpened by the talk of Men of Taste, While mine grow dull and rusty. If a man Could eat his cake and have it, I would choose Your lot rather than mine, Sir; but, alas! My fare’s but bread and water, as becomes My rural hermitage, and nothing varies Its plainness but the occasional condescensions Of cultivated neighbours, who convey Their friends to view my walks. This happy day Shall mark the lonely Shepherd’s calendar With a red letter, long to be remembered In his tedious annals. Pitt: I think you undervalue Your blessings, Sir. Indeed, Nature has done Everything for you. Shenstone: I dare to hope I, too, Have done something for Nature. I shall be honoured If you will judge the improvements I have made In my _ferme ornée_. . . . Smith: (_Glancing at his watch_) Ay, ay, Sir: Let’s weigh anchor, Or we shall miss the tide and spoil our dinner. Eight bells, upon my soul! Hood: (_In a whisper_) What is that bird, Sir? Shenstone: My blackbird: a poor fledgeling my man Tom Found fluttering near the nest: a quill of spirit And elegance, both masculine and musical. But, like his modest master, he don’t sing To order or in company. A true poet! Eh, Mr. Thomson? Thomson: Then he’s like to starve For lack of patronage. Send him to London, And he’ll soon learn that lesson! Shenstone: If Master Hood Fancies a cage-bird, I have little doubt My man could find another that would bring His native woodnotes to an ear that knows Only the roaring seas. Smith: What say you, Alec? Hood: Thank you, Sir. But I’ld rather have a parrot That swears in Spanish, like the bo’sun had On board the _Romney_—or the blue mockaw He got from Pernambuco. Shenstone: Then, by your leave, I will precede you, gentlemen. Mr. Pitt, Doubtless you will perceive how I have wound This walk, to cheat the eye, lest it foresee The ground the foot must travel? At this alcove It opens on an avenue composed By smooth transitions to produce the effect Of distancing. Pitt: How so, Sir? Shenstone: You will observe This end is planted wider, with black yews, Then firs, then oaks and alders, by degrees Passing through greens more fadey—till, at length, Birch, almond-willow, and silver-osier close A nebulous visto that appears to end Remotely. Pitt: (_Enthusiastically_) Most ingenious! You combine The hues of Nature as Zuccarelli blends His pigments! Shenstone: By the sad necessity Of my _angusta res_. Had I the scope Of Hagley’s ampler acres, such devices Of Art would not constrain me . . . (_He pauses, the flow of his period disturbed by a burst of philistine laughter from behind him._) Captain Smith, May we not share your merriment? Smith: (_Still chuckling_) Egad, Sir, It was this young limb of Satan who suggested That jealous folk might show your avenue From the wrong end. Shenstone: I fear he is not the first To have discerned my weaknesses and made them The butt of malice. (_With a significant glance at_ Lyttelton.) Some have even shown My walks in Winter, when ruffian Boreas Denudes their Fauns and Dryads. Pitt: (_With corrective courtesy_) Pray proceed. I am all attention. Your Philosophy Of Gardening enchants me. Shenstone: (_Encouraged by the compliment_) As a Poet Rather than as a Painter, I regard My landscape as an Epick, where the sublime And pleasing are commingled, or succeed With gradual alternation. Yet, in my faith, There is one cardinal tenet: to respect The forms of Nature. Every Artifice That thwarts her is high treason; every trick That makes discovery of Art an outrage. _Ars est celare artem._ You observe This shaven sward we traverse? Ten years since It was a wilderness, thick with horrid thorns And brambles. Now, the unimpeded eye Has gained the liberty it loves to reach That belt of noble beeches, where the axe Has cleft a ruthless passage to disclose The shine of water. In a windless air You may hear the babbling of the rivulet That falls to feed it. Once my lazy rill Flowed mute; but I have coaxed it into song With gifts of pebbles—and now it never stays An artificial prattle that enchants The ears of bashful Naiads. From this seat, Sacred to silvan Pan, Imagination Can watch their watery frolic. Smith: (_Loudly_) May we know What hour they bathe, Sir? Shenstone: (_Archly_) _Procul_, Captain Smith, _Este profani!_ Lyttelton: (_With a smile_) Mr. Shenstone means He wants no Peeping Toms. You, as a sailor, Might ask with equal aptness: _Festo quid potius_ _Die Neptuni faciam?_ Thomson: (_His fat paunch shaken with chuckles_) Verra neat, George: Prettily capped. (_To_ Shenstone) There’s only one ingredient Mars this delightful landscape. Yonder cot Should be made habitable or pulled down. If it were mine I’ld raze it. Shenstone: (_Even more hurt than indignant_) That, Mr. Thomson, Is a Romantick Ruin, only built Last Autumn! I have pointed it with care To variegate the visto where it seemed To want diversity. I have always held That rural scenes are lifeless and imperfect Lacking the mark of Man, and that the charms Of a ruinated structure woo the mind To pensive sadness. Thomson: Think no more of it: I’m a mere townsman with no claims to Taste In Rural Elegance. Shenstone: (_Still rather hurt_) Had I the advantages Of my friend Lyttelton, I might have planned A more ambitious edifice, and begged Some arches from his Abbey; but my means May not presume to vie with Stowe or Hagley. My ruin fits my purse. (_To_ Lyttelton) Sir, it is whispered You contemplate a Temple in your park? Lyttelton: We think to build a Rotund, in the style Of the Temple of Vesta. It’s a dainty foible Of Mr. Pitt’s, to memorize our friendship And family alliances. He himself Has marked the chosen site—but you must see The drawings, Mr. Shenstone. Pitt: Yes, indeed. We should be most gratified. Shenstone: And I most honoured. But let’s proceed . . . This gentle glade I call The Lovers’ Walk. My assignation-seats And mottoes mark its nature, as do the urns To faithful lovers. A certain Noble Lady Considers it my masterpiece . . . Smith: (_In an amused whisper_) Who’s that, George? Lyttelton: That black-maned gorgon Henrietta Luxborough Bolingbroke’s sister. Smith: Is _she_ his ‘Delia’? Lyttelton: No. I’ve seen his Delia—and what a Delia! I’ll tell you later . . . Shenstone: For myself, I’ld choose These more funereal shades, through which my brook Steals voiceless under pendent tapestries Of beech: a spot conducive to sweet sessions Of meditative thought and soft regret. I call it Virgil’s Grove: and yonder urn Of marble, in its alcove of dark yews, Commemorates the Mantuan’s lordly name. Hood: (_In an awed whisper_) Sir, are his bones inside it? Shenstone: (_Disregarding the general laughter_) No, my young friend, It is a cenotaph, planned to suggest The melancholy aspects of mortality Rather than its horrors. Here the mind may brood On elegiac themes. The very paths Are pledged to silence; for the strewn beech-mast Muffles our footfalls. Here, when I am gone, Another urn shall bear a humbler name Than Maro’s, and the sentimental eye Grudge not the tribute of a casual tear: I sometimes think my urns and obelisks May well outlast my verses . . . Pitt: Why, my friend, Pursue this dreary subject? You and I Are somewhat of an age—and neither of us Need think of urns as yet. Shenstone: (_Shaking his head_) Ah, Mr. Pitt, Your fame may light the future, and your voice Direct the destinies of nations: mine Dies with my fading laurels . . . Smith: (_Impatiently_) What’s all this talk Of death and burial? The man’s a hypochondriack Who’ll never hear a shot fired, and will die Of ripe old age, in bed. All that he needs Is a blue pill once a week. He’s much too fat— And so is Jamie Thomson. What’s the time, George? I’m famished. Lyttelton: So am I. I’ll do my best To rescue Billy from his tentacles— But give me time: the fellow’s most fastidious, And prone to take offence. Dear Mr. Shenstone, I fear we have deranged you . . . Shenstone: On the contrary, I find the converse of such company As yours exhilarating. Had I but known This honour was in store, my frugal board Had been prepared to greet your guests. Lyttelton: Alas! We are bespoke at Hagley—so I fear We must drag ourselves away from the delights Of your exquisite Arcadia. Can you tell me The hour, Tom? Smith: (_Taking out his watch_) By my stomach it’s past one. Egad! It’s nearly two, George! We must scamper. Dinner’s at three. Shenstone: (_Regretfully_) And I have hardly spoken A word with Mr. Thomson! Thomson: Let’s not repine. We have communed in the spirit, Sir. Moreover I have seen your famous Leasowes—and the half Had not been told me! When you come to town We must forgather at Richmond: all our wits Will flock to meet a master in the realm Of Landscape as in Letters. Lyttelton: (_Firmly_) By your leave then We will retrace our steps. (_The whole company follow their host, who has attached himself to_ Thomson. Lyttelton _and_ Pitt _walk arm in arm_. Captain Smith _and the_ Boy _bring up the rear. After a series of elaborate courtesies, the visitors depart—last of all_ Mr. Thomson, _who turns to wave his farewells from his seat in the tandem. When_ Shenstone _has watched them out of sight, he enters the house. His face is flushed, and he is still too much excited to consider the meal that awaits him. With an impatient gesture he sweeps back the dirty tablecloth and sits down to write. First a letter._) Shenstone: (_Writing and speaking as he writes_). ‘To the Right Hon. Lady Luxborough. ’Tis now somewhere about September the Tenth, and I write from The Leasowes. Madam, I believe I shall write very incoherently. _Mens turbidum laetatur_. . . . (_He stops, lays the sheet aside, and begins again: this time in verse._) Ev’n Pitt, whose fervent periods roll Resistless thro’ the kindling soul Of Senates, Councils, Kings, Though form’d for Courts, vouchsafed to rove Inglorious through the shepherd’s grove . . . (_For a long time he hesitates; then adds, with evident satisfaction_:) And ope his bashful springs.’ (_The reluctant blackbird has also suddenly burst into song_ . . .) XXX AUGUSTAN INTERLUDE A.D. 1713-1743 Marlbrouk is gone and will not come again. His laurels wither. There’s a subtle bane Mingled in victory’s vintage, that betrays All but the wisest, when their rearward gaze Dwells with contentment on the dizzy slopes Their toil has conquered—and delusive hopes Bedazzle every eye that looks before, Bidding the victor pause, and toil no more. Oh, happy island! Never had our race Reaped in such measure the rewards of peace And sober industry; never had known More ample freedoms or a kindlier throne; Never, in all our story, since the flood, Of the fierce Roses drowned our fields in blood, Or Rupert’s careless cavalry laid low The standing corn upon the trampled plough, Had simple folk so prospered, or the great Feared less the storms of faction or the hate Of envious neighbours! Now a paradise Of ungrudged plenty this green island lies Within her watery moat, whereon no sail Threatens her peace. Now, in each fertile vale Striped by the linchets of her village-fields, Unravished earth a bounteous harvest yields: Green grows the bearded wheat; her barley pale Shall brim the vats with brown October ale To dull the edge of Winter; high above Her valleys, on the dappled downland, move Flocks of innumerable fleece; where furze And bramble shag the waste, her cottagers Pasture their heath-fed cattle without heed Or hindrance, and with wind-torn faggots feed The crackling hearths, where February’s flitch Smokes in the chimney till ’tis black as pitch. Now from her noisy belfries clang no more The exultant peals or harsh alarms of war, But mellower tones that measure with their chime The tranquil flow of unregarded time, Which, like a quiet river, carries all From birth and love to death and burial; Or, wavering on drowsy sabbath airs, Summon plain folk to say their simple prayers, Unvexed by doubt, in humble certitude That life is bountiful and God is good: That, even when doctrinal schism rends His holy Church, His children may be friends: That—though legitimists are prone to mix A pinch of Popery in their politics— The greater part stand firm for Church and State, And martyrologies are out of date, Since Priest and Presbyter alike may praise And worship the same God in different ways; For these are reasonable times, that need The licence of a more elastic creed. First, let’s be tolerant, while the world’s trade Sticks to our hands, and markets can be had Without contention. Let the foreign fool Prate about Glory: give us Wheat and Wool. Snug country-seats and comfortable farms Outweigh the most resounding feat of arms. Let us have ease with dignity—but pray note That he who gives us both will get our vote: And votes still count in England, though we’re told A rotten borough costs a mint of gold. Yet what is gold to-day? A thing of naught, When power and patronage can both be bought, And twenty fortunes lost or won on nights When play runs high at Newmarket or White’s. For tact, no less than charity, should abate Our judgement on the foibles of the great; Since Ministers who live in mortal sin Can still make Bishops or prefer a Dean; And why should dubious origins debase The coinage of a pension or a place, Or puritanic moralisms perplex The generous instincts of the frailer sex? Let us be strict—but never over-nice In judging what is virtue and what’s vice; Our weaker vessels ever have been brittle, And virtue’s price has altered precious little Since Mother Eve discovered—and deplored— The fact that Virtue is its own reward! Let’s be abstemious—and seldom take More than three bottles for the stomach’s sake, And with the pleasures of a casual bout Forestall the pains and penalties of gout! Let us be Men of Taste—and exorcize The errors that bedimmed our forebears’ eyes; Remould their uncouth Gothic, and replace Its wayward fancy with a formal grace; Unbuild the ancestral fortalice that bore A six-week siege in Cromwell’s rebel war, And on Plantagenet foundations raise An edifice to suit more civil days, Whose chaste façade and generous glazing show Our taste for fighting left us long ago; Indulge in ampler space and loftier height; Let all within be graciousness and light; Roll up the moth-worn tapestries, and line The rough-cast walls with panels of smooth pine; Fill up the yawning ingles grimed with smoke, And change the massive board of British oak Neath which your grandsire sank in Charles’s reign For choice mahogany from the Spanish Main; And, where their Spartan mothers sate austere Sewing their samplers in a high-backed chair, Let your sophisticated ladies lie On silken sophas—where they often sigh To think how fondly poor Clarissa strove Against the stratagems of unlawful love, And hope some Lovelace yet may cross their path While their good husbands cure the gout at Bath! Let us be Men of Judgement, and maintain The classic maxim of the Golden Mean! Let us be learn’d—and since we have become Presumptive heirs of Athens and of Rome, Affect an Attic diction undefiled By any strain of native woodnotes wild, And, soundly whipped at Eton, learn by rote Just so much Horace as a peer should quote! In short, let all be comely—as beseems The balanced mind that shrinks from rude extremes: So let Life’s reasonable tenour flow, Too high for diffidence, for pride too low, Unruffled by despair, unswoll’n by hope: Smooth as a couplet penned by _Mr. Pope_. An Age of Matter, you may say—and yet It boasts some virtues Time will not forget. What though venality and vice abound In court and senate? England’s heart is sound; And through her ardent pulses runs apace The vigour of a sane, full-blooded race: A race by proven strength and prowess steeled To hold its own and not an atom yield; A race by industry and shrewdness grown To wealth unmeasured, civilities unknown, Which, in one sovereign city, has combined God’s greatest gifts of matter and of mind: The widening world’s pantechnicon and mart, The hub of Commerce and the goal of Art: London!—a murky microcosm, lit By _Johnson’s_ common sense and _Garrick’s_ wit; London, whose squalor _Hogarth’s_ pencil flayed, Where _Wesley_ preached and saintly _Whitefield_ prayed, Where _Purcell’s_ native tenderness was drowned By _Handel’s_ torrents of majestic sound; Where _Reynolds’_ glowing canvasses portrayed The masters of an Empire newly-made— Faces of men not easily beguiled (With something of the look of a spoilt child) Whose confident lips and sanguine eyes protest That, of all worlds, their own small world’s the best, And that the climax of Creation’s plan Is, beyond doubt, an English Gentleman, Soothed by the present, pampered by the past, In days—if he but knew!—too good to last. Thus to a nation surfeited with wealth, Comes Nature’s reckoning—and it comes by stealth. There is a moment in the Northern year When the o’erburdened earth can hardly bear The wealth of her own bounties; when the wheel Of the slow-circling seasons seems to feel A drag upon its felloe—as though the sun, Impatient of long constancy, had grown Aweary of earth’s wandering and loth To turn his jolly face on the frore South When he might stay and with warm fingers brush The velvet-winged vanessas that outblush Full Summer’s brightest bloom. How can one sing Of this illusive hour, this mimic Spring That, like a strayed lamb, frisks her innocence On Autumn’s drear and draughty threshold, whence There steals by night a waft of icier airs? And see—one bough in the dark woodland wears Tinges of leprous pallor that forecast The ravishment of all; and though at last The sun smiles forth undaunted, yet we know That glory is departed. It was so With England in this tranquil age bedecked With grace and opulence; but few men recked That melancholy stigma, since it shone Not in her native woods but in the lone Forests of savage Pennsylvania And Canada, four thousand miles away. XXXI FIRST EMPIRE A.D. 1753-1776 Four thousand miles away . . . But first observe This young colonial, George Washington; Born in Virginia, of a sound yeoman stock Uprooted from the lias of Northamptonshire Twixt Banbury and Towcester; sparely bred On his father’s farm above the tidal creeks Of the Rappahannock: a lanky, likeable lad, Six-foot-three in his stockinged feet; of a countenance Ruddy and cheerful, with a masterful eye, Long arms and monstrous hands—says Lafayette: “The biggest ever I saw.” Small wonder the Governor, That dour, shrewd Scot, Dinwiddie, fancied him For a ticklish errand beyond the Alleghanies, Where those damned Frenchmen, friendly Indians said, Were trickling South from Canada to join hands With their kinsmen in Louisiana. “Just go and see What they’re up to,” Dinwiddie said, “and what can be done To scare them off the Ohio.” Major George Washington Rode West—the eyes of Virginians always looked West— Over the rolling waves of foothills whitened With dogwood-blossom and flushed with the Judas-bloom Of April; over the great ribbed ranges shagged With pine and hemlock; through break-neck ravines Clogged with dense woods of hickory, oak and sassafras, To a willowy vale where sluggish water seeped Through squelching swamps to feed Monangahela And Alleghenny, where their confluence swelled The fierce Ohio. There he found the French Housed snug as beavers within the charred stockade Of Fort le Bœuf—but, having not their tongue, Nor a liking for captivity, turned back And told what he had seen, urging his chief To hold that frontier firmly, and keep watch Against further penetration. So, next Spring, A force of forty tough Virginians, tanned Swart as sun-dried tobacco, hacked a clearing And laid Fort Trent’s foundations; but the French, A thousand strong, fell on them as they worked And drove them to the East. Now, once again, The name of Washington, like a meteor, burns Momently on the horizon—to be quenched In the blackness of defeat, when Fort Necessity Capitulates, and its beaten garrison Trails back into Virginia. This war— For war it is, open or undeclared— Demands more competent handling than the shifts Of mere provincials. Therefore, let General Braddock, A veteran (of the barrack-square) newly-landed At Hampton Roads, instruct them in the elements Of Military Art, and teach John Frenchman The lesson he deserves! So Braddock marches West from Potomac, with twelve hundred redcoats, All spit and polish; crosses Monangahela With colours flying and regimental bands Blaring forth martial music, to deliver A copy-book assault on Fort Duquesne, Light-heartedly neglecting to secure His flanks. Result: incredible confusion, And a panic-stricken rout! George Washington, Unwounded, has four shot-holes in his coat, And of his three full companies of rangers Not more than thirty left. As for poor Braddock: “We shall know better how to deal with them Next time,” he gasps. There will be no ‘next time’ For General Braddock . . . They buried him next day At the halt they called Great Meadows. Over his bones The transport of his beaten remnant rolled Waggons and limbers to conceal his grave From desecration; while the three Northern columns His clerkly pen had launched marched on Niagara, Crown Point and Nova Scotia—to be lost In the drip of endless forests; and the French Still hold their own. Ten thousand miles away, In Hindustan, the prospect looks no better. Here, too, Dupleix is nibbling at the fringes Of a nabob-ridden Empire more corrupt Than Westminster itself; while, nearer home, Dunkirk, still undismantled since the peace, Threatens the narrow seas. Brest, Havre and Rochefort, Crammed with flat-bottomed barges, only wait For the signal of invasion to be broken When de la Clue shall bring his Toulon fleet To join Conflans at Brest. One is reminded Of the ‘Forty-five,’ when gentlemen at White’s Laid wagers on the wind, and the Pretender Lay fretting at Dunkirk; but then, at least, Our coasts were stoutly guarded, and the veterans Of Marlborough’s wars still lived—while now the Government, Floating on seas of claret, idly drifts Without a helm, lulled by the siren-songs Of vanished glory, deaf to the only voice That speaks unwelcome truth: “We have provoked Before we can defend; we have neglected The inevitable results of provocation; In every quarter of the globe we are found Inferior to the French, and forced to buy Defence and courage, when it is our duty To raise a strong militia!” But Pitt’s words Fell on besotted ears, until the storm Breaks in a thunder-clap: Minorca lost— And with it the whole trade of the Levant; Ticonderoga and Oswego seized By the French Canadians; Calcutta sacked In scenes of unspeakable horror; at Versailles Habsburg and Bourbon in devilish compact bound To share the spoils of Europe and divide The loot of decadent England! There is one man, And one alone, of stature to surmount This human tempest, equally detested By Court and Council. “I am heart and hand For Mr. Pitt,” poor Newcastle protests. “But Mr. Pitt won’t come,” the King maintains With evident satisfaction. Mr. Pitt Does come . . . in his own time, on his own terms; “I know, my lord,” he says, “that I can save This country, and that nobody else can!” (2) He was forty-eight years old when he kissed hands, Austere and arrogant, outwardly little changed From the elegant figure who, thirteen years ago, Vouchsafed to rove (as Mr. Shenstone put it) Inglorious through his groves. Such men are born To spiritual loneliness: in their brains The flame of confident purpose burns too fiercely For casual human intimacies to survive Its heat. Yet when a universal danger Blackens the sky, it shines forth like a beacon To gladden all the land, and to enkindle Faith, Hope, and Courage in the anxious hearts Of unknown millions. Such a beacon flamed In the King’s Speech, revealing, without mercy The damnable drift of unpreparedness And bland futility that had abased This most distressful realm—at every turn Confronted by the insolent aggressions Of her ancient enemy. Then came a call to arms And self-defence: the standing army strengthened By fifteen new battalions; new formations Of gunners and marines; a new militia Thirty-two thousand strong, and two new regiments Raised in the Highlands by Montgomery And Fraser. The House gasped. It was but a breath Since Butcher Cumberland had won Culloden, And Lovat, Fraser’s father, lost his head On Tower Hill! Pitt brushed their doubts aside: “I have sought for merit wherever it could be found; I found it in the mountains of the North And called it forth, from an intrepid race Whose valour and hardihood well nigh overturned The State twelve years ago. To-day their loyalty Is no more questionable than the eagerness Of our American brethren to maintain Their vast and vulnerable frontier Of fifteen hundred miles. I have one object, Plain and unalterable: to fight the French Wherever we may find them—in America, Africa, India, Corsica, on the Rhine, On every ocean of the globe—relying Upon this House’s wisdom to prefer More vigorous efforts to a less effectual And so more frugal warfare, my heart being fixed First on the succour and the preservation Of our American colonies. That is a debt Of honour to our kinsmen.” In this man So vehement by nature, action followed Fast on the heels of thought. “He will come in As a conqueror,” poor Newcastle complained. Pitt came in like a whirlwind, fluttering The dusty files and dossiers of Whitehall Into a paper snowstorm; rapping out Questions and orders in a _feu de joie_: “The American establishment? Eight thousand? Send them eight thousand more, backed by a fleet To keep the St. Lawrence open and attack First Louisburg, then Quebec! Loudoun reports The colonial levies are unreliable? This means they’re badly handled. Let each province Know how we value them. Beg them not to clog The flow of men and money simply to salve Their tender feelings. Tell them we are all subjects Of the same Crown, and serve on equal terms Against a common enemy! India? There the mere distance baulks us: all we can do Is help the Company to hold their stations By tardy reinforcements. What of Mauritius? A swift stroke on his bases there might cut Dupleix’s communications! The West Indies? Bring up the island garrisons to full strength, Beginning with Jamaica! Home Defence? That rests on my Militia, seconded By one strong squadron stationed at Spithead To watch the French in Rochefort, and another Shadowing the coast of Flanders. Hanover? Send back His Majesty’s Hessians: that will please The Militiamen, and put them on their mettle; Pay Prussia a fat subsidy, and bribe The Danes into neutrality with a treaty Of trade to their advantage!” Now the moment Grows ripe for action: it grew even riper For vengeance. How could comfortable placemen Who had battened on corruption and intrigue Abide this cleansing tempest? How could a King, Bred in an air of flattery, tolerate This exigent upstart commoner who perplexes His wits with such long speeches? At one blow Pitt, with his kinsman Temple, is dismissed— And the Court breathes once more—but in the City The stocks fall with a crash, and from the boroughs It rains gold boxes. Even the most obtuse Of monarchs now can read the nation’s will, Plain-writ on civic parchment. With reluctance He summons Pitt. Eleven weeks have passed, Eleven precious weeks ineptly squandered In idleness: the urgent expeditions To Senegal and India countermanded; The force that sailed for Canada still anchored At Halifax, two months late—while at Calcutta The Black Hole claims its hideous toll of thirst And suffocation, and through the Caribbean The French sails pass unhindered. Worst of all, The King of Prussia’s beaten at Kolin With crushing loss, and Hanover uncovered By Cumberland’s retreat. To this scene, darkened By new threats of invasion—how that nightmare Hag-rides our island’s slumbers!—Pitt returns With energies unabated, nay, refreshed By forced inaction. First of all, America— America always first! He reinforces Holburne, delayed at Halifax, with drafts Of Highlanders and Artillery; calls Boscawen From his watchdog’s duty at Brest to intercept The French fleet, homeward-bound from the St. Lawrence To cover the invaders—ten thousand strong, And strung out from St. Valéry to Bordeaux. Defence is not enough. Far better strike A sudden blow at Lorient or Rochefort And throw them off their balance. This demands Strong naval escort. Admiral Anson pleads A dearth of ships. “Why, then, you’ll have to find them: Otherwise I’ll impeach you, Sir.” Such language To a senior officer! But Anson finds enough To make a swoop on Rochefort. Sir John Mordaunt Commands the raid: his Quartermaster General A young officer of promise with red hair And a receding chin—by name, James Wolfe; And though the raiders fail to land in force, The French are rattled, and the immediate menace Of an invasion lifted . . . Meanwhile, at Halifax, Loudoun does nothing but squabble with the colonies Over their levies, building a few sham forts And planting a few cabbages—while Montcalm Attacks Ticonderoga. Admiral Holburne, Finding the French have one more ship than he, Sheers off from Louisburg—and when he sails, On Pitt’s implicit orders, to waylay them Upon their homeward course, is blown to pieces To windward of Cape Breton. So the year ends In mere frustration. “I fear we do not stand,” Pitt warns the Commons, “in the smile of Heaven. May a degenerate nation take some profit From these misfortunes: its present state is fitter For meditation than discourse . . .” Suddenly The picture changes. First, the King of Prussia Shatters Soubise at Rossbach. Clive, at Plassy, Regains Calcutta. Keppel takes Goree, And Hobson Guadeloupe—all the West Indies Falling like rotten mangoes, one by one! Even in America the disgruntled colonists Forget their grievances, swiftly retaking Niagara, Ticonderoga, Fort Duquesne. Boscawen, Marlborough’s nephew, now redeems The shame of Louisburg; then, sweeping Eastward, Falls on the Toulon fleet in Lagos Bay And cuts them off from Brest, while Rodney’s cannon Splinter the invasion-barges in the roads Of Havre to matchwood, and the British infantry, Unblooded since their stubborn squares were broken At Fontenoy, on the field of Minden wither The flower of France’s cavalry. Such was this year Of wonders! Now naught but unconquered Canada And the immutable threat of a hostile Flanders Envenomed Victory’s cup. (3) It was after Rochefort That, combing the welter of reputations wrecked In that lamentable fiasco for any fragment Of martial merit, Pitt had singled out The name of Wolfe. Now, with that lively instinct Which leavens his cool reason, he invites This young officer to meet him. There is a tale Told at third-hand, a generation later, How Pitt was staggered by the gasconades Of this fragile fire-eater; but even so He must have liked him—for within a month Wolfe sails for Halifax, under his personal orders To take Quebec: a formidable task For an ailing, nervous man of thirty-two, Inferior in age and social standing To his own Brigadiers, and handicapped By an unfriendly staff! One friend he had: The new admiral, Charles Saunders, a sound sailor, Who groped his deft way through the changeable channels Of the St. Lawrence—a stream more treacherous Than its own Indians. It was sheer devilry, Canadian pilots said, that any foreigner Could have brought ships of the line so far upstream Without a scratch. There, for three idle months, James Wolfe lay gazing at Quebec, a citadel By nature made impregnable: his ranks Thinned by desertion and disease, himself Coughing his lungs out in a hectic fever, The butt of his subordinates, the scorn Of his own baffled mind. Landings were made And landed troops withdrawn with heavy casualties From the fire of floating batteries and snipers Hidden in the forest. Rations were running short. The days, too, shortened: in the maple-woods That bordered the St. Lawrence soon would flare A crimson flag of warning—soon the ice Would clamp his transports in its iron fetters, Cutting off reinforcement or relief. It was surely now or never . . . but Wolfe’s sick mind, Sapped by his wasting body, momently Lost faith in its own powers; and in an agony Of doubt, and fear of imminent death, he begged His jealous Brigadiers to frame a plan That might bring Montcalm to action. It is strange How often genius finds an inspiration In violent disagreement. As Wolfe read This laboured product of pedestrian minds, His own caught fire—and instantly he saw, By the fierce light of scorn made crystal-clear, The master-plan, the inevitable design, Which, under clouds of sickness, had been woven Deep in his anxious thoughts—and, from that moment, Doubt vanished. “I know well you cannot cure me,” He told his surgeon, “but if you can patch me up To do my duty for the next few days, I shall be quite content.” With a sad prescience He makes his will (it is witnessed by Barré And Bell, his aides-de-camp): a few small legacies To friends and servants, and the pitiful residue “To my dear mother.” Then, a last dispatch To Pitt in England. It is a sober document, Void of the old _panache_, and gives no details Of the new ‘desperate plan.’ Secrecy, secrecy . . . That is its mainspring. Not even to his generals Will he breathe a word of it; but on the morrow The watchmen in the citadel are perplexed, No less than they, to see the English ships Moved upstream through the narrows, towing boats And barges. Beyond doubt the Frenchmen judged it A prelude to new landings north of the city, Or an attempt to cut their waterline With Montreal. Not till the very eve Of battle were his jealous Brigadiers Made privy to his secret. Junior officers And rank and file knew nothing till they found themselves Afloat . . . It was a cool September night, Moonless and overcast. At half-past one A lantern blinked from the main-topmast shrouds Of Saunders’ ship, the _Sutherland_. Then the boats Cast off in absolute silence, and lay hidden Between her and the shore. At half-past two A second light appeared. The _Sutherland’s_ long-boat, With Wolfe aboard her, swung into the stream That washed the southern bank. It was a passage Tranquil and soundless, with no plash of oars, For a three-knot current and a following breeze Assured their course. There is another story— Such names breed legends—that, as the leading boat Drifted downstream, a voice, no man knows whose, Murmured Gray’s Elegy; and, when it fell to silence, Wolfe whispered: “I would rather have written that poem Than take Quebec to-morrow.” All we can say For sure is this: that, when his brother-officers Divided his belongings, there was found A volume of Gray’s Poems, much bethumbed And underscored—one line prophetically: _The paths of Glory lead but to the Grave._ Perhaps he guessed . . . One thing at least is certain: That, as they floated past, a British sloop, Forewarned by two deserters of a French convoy Likely to pass that night, levelled her guns And would have opened fire and given the alarm But that they rowed alongside, thus averting Disaster by a hairsbreadth. A little later, A French post on Point Sillery snapped out Its challenge: _Qui va là?_ _France!_ _A quel regiment?_ _A la Reine!_ (It was a lucky guess!) _Pourquoi_ _Est-ce que vous ne parlez pas plus haut?_ _Tais-toi_ _Pour l’amour de Dieu! Nous serions entendus!_ And the sentry let them pass . . . At half-past four They ran aground in Foulon Cove. The general Himself leapt first ashore. There was less need For silence now: the nervous batteries Of the fort on _Pointe des Pères_ were thundering An aimless cannonade. Above the landing-place, Mysterious in the grey of dawn, arose Tremendous cliffs, shagged with dense undergrowth, Through which one winding gully gave faint promise Of a precarious foothold. Wolfe himself Probed this forbidding track. “I doubt,” he said, “If we can possibly get up; but we must try.” And up they scrambled: first a forlorn hope Of two dozen volunteers, and then two hundred Light infantry. Luckily they found the crest Fringed with a wood that gave the climbers cover While they regained their breath, re-formed their ranks. Another challenge from a sentry, answered Again in muttered French, gave them a moment To fix their bayonets. Then on they went With a hoarse cheer which told their friends below That the heights were firmly held. Within an hour Five hundred men had scaled them; in another A thousand more; and, as the ships dropped down St. Lawrence one by one, the cove of Foulon Was crammed with landing barges, hurriedly Off-loading shot and cannon to be hauled Over the wheel-churned beach, and then man-handled Up the sheer precipices to the open plain West of Quebec, while from the southern shore, Under the covering fire of Saunders’ guns, Twelve hundred infantry were ferried over From Goreham’s Point to Foulon Cove. By sunrise The whole force had been landed: six battalions Of British regulars, and in reserve Two more of Royal Americans: in all Forty-eight hundred men . . . Too few, indeed, To hold both front and flanks—so Wolfe was forced To spin them out two-deep (a flagrant breach Of martial usage!) trusting to atone For lack of numbers by superior discipline And accuracy of aim. These were his orders: “Stand firm at all costs. Let the enemy Do all the attacking. Not a single shot To be fired until they come within forty paces: Then let them have it!” It was pretty hard To make no reply when snipers and skirmishers Enfiladed the British line from a wood on their left: Yet no shot was fired. When men in the front line fell, The gaps were instantly filled from the second rank. Wolfe himself was hit in the wrist: he merely smiled And bound up the gash with a handkerchief—more concerned, As it seemed, for his brand-new uniform. (One is reminded Of Nelson insisting on wearing his orders) Once more He was wounded—this time in the groin—and limped away To the point he had chosen, in front of the Twenty-eighth And the Louisburg Grenadiers. It was ten o’clock When Montcalm, on his great black stallion, splendidly sheathed In a shining cuirass of steel, gave his order: Advance! And the French, with a shout, moved forward. Observers say That Wolfe’s face, as he saw them, glowed with a joy and radiance Beyond description. They made an imposing sight The white uniforms of their line-regiments mingled With the blue of the Royal Roussillon and iron-grey Of the local levies. On they came, at a double; Then slowed down—as though puzzled to see the British standing Stock-still, with shouldered arms. At three hundred paces Some few Canadians nervously opened fire, Then threw themselves down on the ground to reload, thus upsetting The general alignment; while others, with little stomach For a frontal attack, slunk off to the flanks to fall in With the skirmishers, leaving a ragged gap to be filled. The well-trained whitecoats closed it; but now the attack Had lost cohesion. A desultory crackle of musketry Broke out from their foremost rank. Again and again They halted and fired without orders, straggling on A few score yards at a time—until they had come Within forty paces . . . Then, from the British ranks, Came a shattering double volley—so nicely timed That the sounds of two thousand musket-shots merged in one Tremendous detonation. Then two more volleys At point-blank range . . . The Languedoc Regiment wavered: They broke—as the Forty-Seventh went in with the bayonet, The Highlanders with the claymore. Only the Blues Of the Royal Roussillon stood up to that torrent of steel. Then they, too, cracked and fled. It was only ten minutes Since the British first opened fire . . . and the battle was won! But Wolfe fell, mortally wounded. They carried him through To the rear, where he lay with closed eyes, breathing heavily, With a musket-shot in the lung. When they told him the French Were running, he gasped one order: “Tell Colonel Burton To cut them off from the bridge over Charles’s River.” Then he turned on his side and said: “Now I die content.” He was thirty-two years old . . . Let us not forget How this ailing Englishman, with British arms And British lives, once saved America For the Americans . . . (4) The news of Quebec reached London In mid-October. Within a month her belfries Clanged for a great sea-victory that dispelled The last threat of invasion—when Admiral Hawke Stooped like a peregrine on the Breton coast; When, in a nightlong hurricane that drowned The din of battle, the engrappled fleets Of France and England poured through the narrow throat Of Quiberon, and stormy daylight saw The French burnt-out or broken. Little wonder The Bourbons longed for peace, and lesser Englishmen Were eager to placate them! Pitt, like a rock, Stood in appeasement’s path, the more determined To keep soft, mischievous hands from bartering His hard-won conquests. “Some are for keeping Canada,” He taunted them, “some Guadeloupe. Who will tell me Which I shall be hanged for ceding? The West Indies Nourish us with their produce? Ay, but America Buys what we manufacture. I affirm The importance of America—not merely As a market of consumption and supply, But as fountain of our fealty, nerve of our strength, Nursery and basis of our naval power. Some time ago I should have been content To bring France to her knees: now I’ll not rest Till I’ve put her on her back! We are confronted By a second enemy. These defeats have driven her Into the arms of Spain, who brazenly Supports her wounded sister, covers her trade, Aids and abets her in the worst kind of war— War undeclared. It is time this country realized That France is Spain, Spain France: we are at odds With the whole House of Bourbon—but remember: For open war with Spain we are prepared, And she is not. If, Sir, this House prefers An untimely, a humiliating peace, I will lay down the vast and dangerous load That bows my shoulders: I will go on no longer. But, being responsible, I will direct; And for whatever I do not direct I will not be responsible.” His challenge Fell on a hostile House. The pampered placemen Were sick of his heroics and of a war That touched their purses. Pitt was no easy bedfellow For time-servers or sluggards. His very virtues Stuck in the throats of meaner men. The Court— His ‘good old King’ was dead—detested him As an unbearable upstart, an embodiment Of all they feared and hated most: Democracy. _Single, imperious, proud, enthusiastick,_ _Impetuous_ . . . Ay, and arrogant, too. His arrogance Was unforgiveable. It had made enemies Of his old friends and kinsmen. Grenville, Lyttelton— The famous ‘cousinhood’ who, in the prime Of his cometary magnificence had soared Like a fiery tail behind him—were now shed And sunk in jealous darkness, while his star Blazed at the zenith. It was mortifying For statesmen who had ruled the realm to brook His fierce impatience: “Fewer words, my lord; Your words have long lost weight with me!”—for officers Nursed in routine’s procedure to keep pace With his swift decisions: “Impossible? Impossible? I walk on impossibilities!” as he brandished The crutch that eased his gout—for humbler men Who questioned his least whim to bear the sting Of withering irony, or the fire that flashed From those commanding eyes. Now, when he threw This haughty gage, coupling a war with Spain And a personal ultimatum, in their faces, They picked it up with glee, knowing full well With what sweet persuasiveness the word of Peace Flatters war-wearied ears. The King, no less, Snatched at this heaven-sent chance to rid himself Of this overbearing commoner . . . and Pitt fell, Gloriously as Lucifer! They offered him— Perhaps to salve his pride, perhaps to wound it— The Governorship of Canada: odd employment For one whose lightest words were gravely pondered In the chanceries of all Europe! He declined it With ironical humility. (Courtiers said He bowed so low to the King that his bony nose Could be seen between his breeches). Then they tempted him, The incorruptible commoner, with the bait Of a pension, and a peerage for his wife. Surprisingly, he took it—he who had thrown Such baubles to his comrades with the contempt Their vanity deserved. It showed a strain Of inexplicable weakness, and his enemies Were quick to find his principles dishonoured By such vain honours—his bewildered friends To see their idol fallen. One suspects That the bearing of that ‘vast and dangerous load’ Had over-reached his powers, already sapped By paroxysms of pain; that, when the tension Was once relaxed, his weary mind and body Demanded instant rest. So Mr. Pitt And the Lady Chatham gracefully retire To their country seat in Somerset. (5) Burton Pynsent Was a sheer gift of fortune: the legacy Of an obscure Somersetshire baronet To the Saviour of his Country. No distraction Could have been more opportune. It carried back Pitt’s mind to those rich days of youthful promise, Far sweeter than fulfilment, when George Lyttelton And he had planned their classical rotunda In Hagley Park, and solemnly discussed The Philosophy of Landscape at the Leasowes With Mr. Shenstone. Burton Pynsent stood On a high, semicircular plateau, looking North Over the Sedgemoor flats, where Alfred’s Athelny Rose from a sea of land, to the dim firth Of Severn and the cloudy hills of Wales: A soft and somnolent prospect, more conducive To dreams of past achievement than to action. Yet, even here, the inveterate energy That had shaped an Empire calls Pitt to remould His miniature kingdom. He must needs demolish His benefactor’s mansion, and rebuild The left wing for a library. Lady Chatham Must have her bird-room; Capability Brown, Shenstone’s successor in the hierarchy Of Landscape, plant new avenues and devise New vistas—such as would fill poor Lyttelton (His friend, alas, no longer) with despair. Cypress and Cedar of Lebanon by the thousand Must mark or shade his walks; deep-sunken roads, Delved at incalculable cost, insure A lordly privacy; stables and cowsheds, Graced with Corinthian pilasters, house Horses and herds of pedigree. The expense Might beggar Crœsus—but what does money mean To one who in the exigences of war Has thought in millions? The Georgian Cincinnatus Enjoys this pastoral holiday, engrossed In a more luxurious rusticity Than his rude exemplar, savouring the delights Of haymaking and coursing in the midst Of an adoring family, immersed In Somerset’s Lethe. . . . (6) Through those quiet airs There runs a disquieting whisper: America— His beloved America! Things are going wrong: George Grenville grubbing up every root of commerce And planting taxes. His latest imposition Is a Stamp Tax, burdening every legal document With a petty charge. The moment is ill-timed; For America is touchy, and embarrassed By an Indian revolt. George Grenville’s officers Are seized, and their stamps burnt. Next, the Assemblies Of Massachusetts and New York submit A reasoned protest to the Privy Council, Which is duly pigeon-holed. Then a General Congress, While acknowledging allegiance and submission To the British Crown and Parliament, asserts, With admirable propriety, its right To levy its own taxes. In the meantime American barristers refuse to plead In cases that involve stamped instruments, And American merchants solemnly engage To buy no goods from England. At a glance Pitt sees the fatal drift. Wincing with pain And swathed in flannels, he drags himself to town To urge the Act’s repeal in a debate On the King’s Speech: “Sir, I cannot be silent On a question that may mortally wound three millions Of brave and virtuous subjects. In my opinion This kingdom has no power to lay a tax On men as much entitled as ourselves To human rights and the particular privileges Of Englishmen. These men are England’s sons, Not England’s bastards! As subjects, they can claim The common right of being represented In Parliament. Not being represented, They are not bound to pay a single farthing Without consent. The Commons of America, By their Assemblies, have enjoyed the right Of granting their own money: they had been slaves If they had not enjoyed it. But all taxes Granted to the Crown are voluntary gifts: We give what is our own; we cannot give The property of others. If the House Suffer this Stamp Act to remain in force, France will gain more of us by our own colonies Than if, by force of arms, she had been triumphant In the late war.” A querulous Grenville makes The lamest of apologies, taking cover Behind the Crown’s prerogative, and recounting His own innumerable generosities To the ungrateful colonies. He deplores America’s obstinacy, and charges Pitt With fostering sedition. Instantly Pitt’s on his gouty feet again (“Order! Order!” No member may speak twice in one debate.) But, as he hesitates, St. Stephen’s Chapel Rings with another cry: “Go on! Go on!” And he goes on . . . so hotly that he forgets Even to address the Chair! “Gentlemen . . . Sir, The House has heard me charged with giving birth To sedition in America. I regret to hear Liberty of speech imputed as a crime In this tribunal. It is a liberty I mean to exercise. Next we are told That America is obstinate—nay, that America Is almost in open rebellion. I rejoice That America has resisted. I come not here Armed at all points with precedents—the statute-book Doubled down in dog’s-ears—to defend the cause Of Liberty! For the defence of Liberty Upon a general principle, I stand firm, And dare meet any man! The gentleman boasts Of his bounties to America. Are not his bounties Intended for the benefit of this kingdom? (If he can’t understand the difference Between internal and external taxes, I cannot help him.) He asks: “When were the colonies Emancipated?” I desire to know When they were slaves. Our profits by their commerce Are two million pounds a year. This is the fund That carried us to victory: this is the price They have paid for our protection. Yet he boasts He has brought a peppercorn to the exchequer Against the loss of millions! Much has been said About American strength. In a good cause, On a sound bottom, I doubt not we could crush America to atoms—but in this cause Success is hazardous. If America fell, She would fall like a strong man—she would embrace The pillars of the state and, falling, wreck The constitution. Is this your boasted peace: To sheathe the sword of victory not in its scabbard But in the bowels of your American brethren? Will you quarrel with yourselves, when the whole House Of Bourbon stands against you? It is true That, in all things, the Americans have not acted With prudence and temper. But they have been wronged; They have been driven to madness by injustice. Rather let prudence and temper be displayed On our side first! It is my firm opinion That this lamentable tax should be repealed Totally, absolutely, and immediately.” Twice more, with dwindling bodily strength, he fought The selfsame battle—and within a month The Stamp Act is repealed. America, More generous than her enemies, celebrates Her victory without rancour. In the South Charleston flares up in fireworks; at New York An ox is roasted in the street, and banners Bearing the legend “Pitt, George and Liberty!” Carried in triumph. (7) Pitt would have been shocked At his arbitrary precedence; but by now He had shot his bolt: the cumulative strains Of unremitting war had overtaxed Even that titanic spirit; and though the King Recalls him—since no lesser reputation Can prop his selfish purpose—the Earl of Chatham Is but a shadow cast by the setting sun Of the Great Commoner’s fame. That shadow soon A darker cloud obscures. It is a changeling Who dreams at Burton Pynsent: the falcon eyes No longer bright; the brooding mind oppressed By months of utter nescience; the ancient pride Humbled by mountainous debts. And while his name Shelters their mischiefs, Chatham’s Ministry— “That tesselated pavement,” as Burke calls it, “Of Patriots and Courtiers, treacherous Friends And open Enemies.”—undermine the fabric Pitt’s wisdom built. George Grenville and the King Burn for revenge—and in the featherpate Of Townshend find an instrument to bring America to heel, with a sly series Of irritating pin-pricks: customs-duties To take the place of taxes; the forced billeting Of British soldiers—and not only British But Hanoverian. (“Why should a foreign garrison Be needed, now that Canada is ours? Why, above all, in Boston? Do they think We should be intimidated?”) Jeering crowds Pester the innocent redcoats; shots are fired, Civilians wounded. The Assembly of Massachusetts Refuses to find billets for any garrison Within the town: the British Government Rakes up an obsolete statute that compels The deportation of political prisoners For trial in England. Townshend’s custom-duties Prove useless and are dropped—save only one, A trivial duty on tea. This is retained As a matter of principle. Americans, too, Are interested in principles: so three cargoes Of the East India Company’s choice Bohea Are soused in Boston harbour. As a penalty The port is closed; the charter of Massachusetts Suspended—and then remodelled in such a manner As gives the Crown control. This is the end Of bickering: now these obstinate colonials Shall taste coercion . . . As the ominous sky Blackened above New England, that other cloud Of nescience which had lowered on Chatham’s mind Suddenly lifted, and his eyes beheld The gathering human tempest. Within a week He is jolted up to London to consult That wise American, Franklin. His liveried servants And crested chariot are observed outside The Doctor’s lodgings in Craven Street. Franklin listens To four hours of magnificent monologue. Each of these men, So great in their several ways, is quick to see The other’s greatness: Chatham recognizes The protest of the Continental Congress As ‘decent, manly, and properly expressed’: Franklin, with no less courtesy, affirms Its intrinsic loyalty. Both are conciliatory; Yet neither (and this is strange) appears to realize That a wider breach than the Atlantic separates America and England; so Chatham presents A Provisional Act for the Immediate Settlement Of the Troubles in America. Their lordships Refuse it a first reading, and Sandwich suggests That Franklin has had a hand in it. Chatham rises In a blaze of anger: “I am not much astonished That men who scoff at Liberty should detest Others who prize it. The conduct of this Government Is one long tale of weakness, despotism, Temerity, ignorance, negligence, futility, Servility, incapacity and corruption!” The flame burns out . . . Now, thickened by the smoke Of that conflagration, the old cloud descends On its exhausted embers. Two years must pass Before that cloud be lifted: two tragic years Of needless civil warfare. Lexington, Bunker’s Hill, Trenton and Ticonderoga— These are the names that mark the decadence Of British arms, the utter bankruptcy Of British statecraft! When he wakes again, He knows it is too late. He sees himself, A frail and aged man, amid the ruins Of the proud Empire he alone had built: America, darling of his hopes, allied With France, the inveterate enemy, from whose toils His will had saved her. With prophetic words And faltering voice he pleads for peace; “My lords, If this struggle be not ended before France Confirms this treaty, then England will be ended. You talk of forces gathering to disperse The rebels: I might as easily talk myself Of driving them before me with this crutch! If you conquer them—what then? You cannot make them Respect you. You have said: “Lay down your arms!” America returns the Spartan answer: “Come, take!” You cannot take. We are the aggressors: We have invaded them, even as the Great Armada Invaded England. If I were an American, As I am English, while a foreign troop Was landed in my country, I would never Lay down my arms! No . . . Never—never—_never_!” Five times he crawled to Westminster to plead For that lost cause of peace with the Americans, Of war with France and Spain. When last he rose Within the Painted Chamber, he stood propped On either side, by William Pitt, his son, And Mahon, his son-in-law: an antic shape Swathed in black flannel; his great aquiline nose And flashing eyes were all that could be seen Beneath his bushy wig. He raised himself Painfully to his feet. The whole House rose In tribute to his majesty. Then he lifted The hand from off his crutch, and spoke so feebly As hardly to be heard: “I thank God,” he said, “I have been enabled to come here this day To perform my duty. I am old, infirm; I have one foot—more than one foot—in the grave, And have risen from my bed but to stand up In the cause of my country. My lords, His Majesty Succeeded to an Empire in extent As great as in its reputation Unsullied. Shall we sully that repute By an ignominious surrender of our rights And fairest provinces? Shall this great kingdom, That has survived the Danish depredations, The Scottish inroads, and the Norman conquest, Fall prostrate now before the House of Bourbon? Shall a people that only fifteen years ago Was the terror of the world, now stoop so low As to tell its ancient and inveterate enemy: “Take all we have—but give us peace!”? I say That any state is better than despair. If we must fall, then let us fall like men.” He ceased—and with the last inaudible word Sank backward, helplessly, into the arms Of Mahon and William. A more terrible silence Fell as they carried his insensate frame Forth from that august chamber which had echoed So often with the impassioned eloquence Of that tremendous voice which never more Would sway the will and steel the wavering faith Of his beloved land. His living eyes Saw not the loss of all his pride had won, Nor that far prouder England that would rise To greater glories builded by his son. XXXII Interlude BIRTH OF A MONSTER A.D. 1776 Over this moonstruck world the tidal flow Of warring dynasties swirls to and fro, While underneath the fury and the sound Of tumult stirs a portent more profound Than causes lost or won: a monstrous birth Risen from Time’s teeming womb to rack the earth In throes more fateful than the rise or fall Of envious empires—destined to enthrall Victor no less than vanquished, and to bind In equal servitude all humankind! In Matthew Boulton’s foundry at Soho, Where sweltering puddlers tend the lava-flow Of molten ores, and clanging hammers beat On airs that faint and quaver with fierce heat, The new-born monster stands: an uncouth mass Of cold insensate metal—iron and brass Shaped by the cunning of Man’s eager brain And shrewd inventive fingers to contain The marriage of discordant elements, Water and Fire, and from unthrottled vents Unloose their mightier offspring: the supreme Slave of Man’s will, his new-tamed genie, Steam. Master or slave? The question well might flout Less confident minds! Its makers have no doubt That, in one leap, the feet of patient Man Have scaled a summit whence his eyes may scan Realms of unbounded conquest fading far Beyond imagination. A new star Burns over England to proclaim the hour Of a new dispensation. Power . . . Power! The plunging piston sinks, and the vast beam Tilts to its task as in the hiss of steam The wheel turns on its axis. We behold A calculable energy, controlled To the last ounce of pressure. Motive force Is measured with precision. (A draught horse Exerts a strength—so Mr. Watt has reckoned— Can raise five hundredweight in every second Twelve inches from the ground; therefore we call Our unit Horse-power.) Gone, for good and all, Are those hard days when industry was bound To seek the hills where water could be found And turn machinery from the running leat! That source of power’s completely out of date, Now there’s no inch of England that need lack The heartening vista of a chimney-stack Whose pillared smoke or flame shall lead a band Of trustful pilgrims to a promised land Where energy no longer need be rated In terms of toil. It has been calculated That Mr. Watt’s steam-engine supersedes The bulk of manual labour: all it needs Is fuel, lubrication, and an eye To keep a watch when pressure runs too high Or bearings stiffen. For the rest, it works Untended; and your engine neither shirks (Like indolent mankind) the weightier task, Nor tires with toil. None but a fool could ask What other crafts shall claim the idle hands Steam-power displaces, when in countless lands, Famished by warfare, naked multitudes Stand yearning for the innumerable goods Our frames and spindles furnish. There’s no room In this economy for the cottage loom Where homespun fleece is woven on the fells By rustic fingers. Now the factory-bells With harsh, impatient clamour summon all— Man, wife and child—to swell the carnival Of dumb, inhuman labour that shall turn Green fields into foul cities. All can earn Some kind of pittance from the spilth of gold That crams our bursting pockets. None’s too old, Too weak, too young: mere children in their teens And shaky crones can tend our new machines. The spinning-jenny and the patent mule Make better scholars than the village school. Since Man (the Scriptures tell) is born to toil And trouble, it were sacrilege to spoil Creation’s plan. So surely God will bless Child-labour. Incidentally, it costs less, And spares our manufacturers the means To build new factories—and still more machines! There’s no skilled craft plied by a human hand But steel and steam can mimic and expand A hundredfold. Our engines gape for food To stoke their fires: here, also, God is good. Was it not Providence that underspread The living green of England with the dead Bones of primeval forests, and compressed Their ooze to coal? Was it mere chance that laced Those buried coal-beds with the limey silt Of vanished seas, and on their margins spilt Grains of volcanic iron-ore to blend In the red furnace? There shall be no end To these God-given benefits until The coal-seams dwindle. Then—go deeper still! Engines shall sink new shafts, and engines lift From sunken galleries the blear-eyed shift; Engines shall pump the oozy bilge that seeps Through fissured rock to swamp those sunless deeps No glimpse of day has lighted since the time When giant lizards foundered in black slime. What matter that a free and forthright race Toil sixteen hours a day at the coal-face For fourteen pence? The modern troglodyte, Damned, for our profit, to perpetual night, Must learn that mills and factories overhead Need engines—and those engines must be fed; That life, in mill and factory, will be found No sweeter than the miner’s underground; For unskilled labour’s even more poorly paid, And competition is the salt of trade. How can we flood the world with English ware, If ignorant factory-hands and miners dare To calculate, to argue, or to think? Time presses. Give the working-classes drink To stive their empty stomachs. Gin will keep Reason benumbed—and gin, thank God, is cheap! We’ve other problems knocking at our door: To house—and where to house—the Labouring Poor. But these are easy; any hutch will do For folk whose hours of leisure should be few— (Just long enough to booze and breed and sleep, Then limp back to the mill like foot-rot sheep) And any building-site will suit us well So long as they can hear the Factory Bell Clang through their dreams. Build walls of noggin-brick— (But take good care that these be not too thick, For bricks cost money!) and to cure the lack Of warmth in Winter, build them back to back: Warped doors and broken windows will admit Sufficient air at night to keep men fit For labour on the morrow. Water-mains Are needless luxuries, no less than drains: So, in each noisome courtyard, sink a pump— And if the cesspit leaks into the sump Of surface water that their children drink, So much the worse for them! We cannot think Of everything. Enough that we can give Wages to hungry millions. How they live Or how they die is no concern of ours— Provided they put in sufficient hours To keep the fly-wheels spinning, and the flow Of steam-power so profuse that we can show In our shop-windows wares to tempt the eyes Of needier nations: piece-work merchandise From Manchester and Bolton; coals from Shields; Woollens from Bradford; silks from Spitalfields; Steel from our Sheffield forges to lay low Primeval forests, and to arm the plough; Cannon and coulter, mattock and grenade; Brummagem pinchbeck for the trinket-trade— The beads we cast for rosaries serve as well For barter with the naked infidel, And any glittering metal that we mix Will make an idol—or a crucifix! Thus, from our workshops, we supply the need Of every culture, climate, race or creed— Except, of course, our own: for everywhere In Britain meat is scarce and bread grows dear. But that’s their fault. How can the common field, That barely fed a backward hamlet, yield Grist for our teeming cities? Times have changed: Those heath-fed geese and cattle, that once ranged The village waste, have been the basic source Of rural idleness, and—what’s far worse— Of stiff-necked independence. The new State Decrees that grazing-rights are out of date, Nay, even immoral! Nothing will avail But well-planned husbandry on a larger scale. Therefore enclose the commons, and proclaim The landlord’s right to shoot or snare all game; Pull down the squatter’s hovels, and condemn The idle cottager to work or clem! Such is the Law of Nature. Large estates May need less labour. But our factory-gates Stand open. The unwanted overplus Should lay the blame on Adam—not on us! So, from the windy hills and quiet vales Of this green isle, a sad procession trails Like waters of the desert that are spent In thirsty sands: uprooted, ill-content, Hungry, bewildered—never more to hear The lark at dawn, or sniff the morning air Fragrant with meadow-sweet or mountain thyme, Or honeyed wafts of hawthorn in the prime Of June, when cuckoos call and landrails crake Lost in lush mowing-grass; no more to slake Midsummer’s drought in limpid brooks that run Ambered with peat and sparkle in the sun! The sun shines rarely now, with sickly beams Halo’d in soot and sulphur; the clear streams Of Mersey, Aire and Irwell, now run thick With ordure through straight culverts of slimed brick: Waters of Babylon . . . but no willows lean Beside those banks forlorn; no blade of green Unwithered can survive the searing breath Blown from the furnace, or the silt of death Fallen from the mournful sky that with a pall Of acrid dust and carbon smothers all. No more through magic meadows shall the feet Of children stray: their playground is the street, And idleness breeds vice. A child of five Can earn enough at least to keep alive. No more shall aged men whose days of toil Seemed ended pore on the sweet-smelling soil Of homely garden-plots, or watch their seed Break into leaf: wage-earners have no need Of gardens when the tommy-shops supply Far more stale produce than their wage can buy. Seed-time and harvest? Each is but a name In streets where every season smells the same, And flowers are useless. You should know, my friend, The rose has never paid a dividend. So, in soft Midland vales, where surface coal Lies thick, and on the shelving plains that roll Seaward from Pennine sheepwalks, there arose Prisons of hope abandoned: rows on rows Of courts and houses, crowding street on street, Whose cobbled causeways echoed with clog’d feet; Cities whose only gods were steel and steam, The nightmare terrors of a drunkard’s dream, By Greed begotten in the womb of Haste, That, like slow cancers, gnawed into a waste Of slag and cinder—cities that were doomed To suffocate in denser smoke than plumed The falling towers of Sodom when the rain Of fire consumed the Cities of the Plain. And where their phallic smokestacks fouled the sky Burned those unholy fires that never die: Fierce furnace-throats—not only fed with coals, But with the agonies of bewildered souls And aching limbs, damped with the tears and sweat Of those who, even in sleep, could not forget The bondage of the foundry, mine or mill, And woke to hear the pitiless siren shrill As monster Moloch from his iron throne Howled for his toll of human blood and bone, And skinflint Mammon, with a leery grin, Rubbed his thin hands and checked the stragglers in: Workers of England, mistress of the earth: A merry England that has lost her mirth. Ah, would that the Almighty had seen fit To grant mankind the sense to match their wit! XXXIII ON WINDMILL DOWN A.D. 1789 _The scene is open downland in South Hampshire. Neither the Enclosures, which have already alienated a good deal of common land in this county, nor Mr Watt’s steam-engine have made much difference to the landscape of the pleasant countryside which lies between the chalk of the South Downs and the marls of the Forest of Bere. If is a morning of late August in the year 1789, a day of blue and white, with a warm breeze stirring the heads of cumulus cloud that drift in from sea. On Windmill Hill a cricket match is in progress—the last of the season, and a large crowd of rustic folk, clad in smock-frocks or gaberdines, encircles the field of play on which the local side are bringing their visitors’ first innings to an untimely close. On the dry turf, immediately behind the wickets, a middle-aged labourer, evidently crippled with rheumatism, leans on a blackthorn stick and watches every ball that is bowled with an expert intentness. A younger man, wearing his hair in a pigtail and carrying a bundle of dunnage over his shoulder, comes panting up the slope and accosts him._ Sailor: Can you tell me the name of yon village, master? Labourer: Surelye: I’d ought to, for ’tis my native. Only to think There be anyone don’t know Hambledon! Mayhap you’re a foreigner? Sailor: A foreigner? _Me?_ Labourer: Nay, ’tis only our Hampshire fashion Of speaking of upalong folk. Bi’st come from the sea? Sailor: Ay, landed last night from the frigate _Boreas_, Captain Nelson, at Portsmouth. Now I’m homeward-bound On a No’therly course. The navy has no more use for me: They’re paying men off at Spithead a hundred a day And laying-up ships by the score. Labourer: There can’t be no call For you chaps now we’re all at peace. Sailor: (_Indignantly_) Ay, that’s what they said Before the last war broke out—and they’ll say it again When the next war’s ended. But what is a man to do Who’s been bred to the sea? Go sweat in a factory? Not me! Turn back to the land, like my dad? You can’t learn a new trade At my time of life. I’m an able-bodied seaman, And good for naught else. You’ll see a sight more like me Set adrift before they’ve finished. Labourer: If you aim to go North You’d ought to be making for Alton. How come you to stray So far from the turnpike? Sailor: I’ll tell thee straight: when I sighted All you folk on the hills, I reckoned it must be a prize-fight, Or a fairing or some such frolic, and come about On a reach to starboard. You South-country chaps Must have brass to spare to waste good harvest weather Watching men play ball like lads! Labourer: This bean’t no child’s-play. Were you Hampshire-born you’ld know better nor talk so foolish. I do ’low there’s no schooling like cricket for making a man Stand up and sharpen his wits. Hast ever played? Sailor: Not me! I come from Yorkshire. Up in the North We reckon to work for a living. The only game They learnt us at sea was long bowls with twenty-four pounders, And we plays that one hot enough to give the Johnnies A bellyful, I can tell thee! Labourer: (_Not impressed_) Just look at that, now! T’were a beautiful ball. Didst mark how she turned in the air And broke off the bent? That happens this time of the year, After sokey nights, when the wicket be starked-up on top And brick-hard underneath. I reckon old Mr Nyren Must ’a counted on that when he chose the pitch and ardained To put them in first. By the time the sun’s full overhead ’Twill play sweet and easy. Ay, he be foxy-headed, Be old Mr Nyren! Many’s the time I’ve a’see’d en Traipse up to Broad Halfpenny at six o’clock of a marnin’ For to choose a pitch to his likin’! Sailor: (_Indulgently_) Who’s old Mr Nyren? Labourer: Who’s Mr Nyren? Sailor: Was that him bowling? Labourer: Nay, nay That’s Tom Brett—as steady a bowler as ever us had, But he be getting past of it now. You’d ought to ’a see’d en Twelve years agone, when Hambledon larruped All England By a hundred and sixty-eight and an innings to spare. _That_ was bowling! Five wickets he took: the Duke of Darset, Lumpy Stevens, Jack Wood, Stock White and Gamekeeper Miller— And ’a caught out two more! There was nothing fancy about en: Just length and straightness. Tom Brett, mind, was never so furious, Not even in his pride, as Dave Harris. Sailor: And who was _he_? Labourer: An Odiham chap, a potter by trade. At the start He was apt to give tosses; but Nyren soon took’en in hand And made him keep down. When once he had gotten the knack He skittled ’em out like ninepins. Dave loosed the ball From up here—right under the armpit—and liked to pitch it On rising ground. It used to come up like a cannon-shot, With a nasty curl on it too, as would grind a chap’s fingers On the haft of the bat. ’Twas as good as a picture to see Where Dave had scrazed ’em. I’ve heard Lord Frederick say Dave’s bowling was one of the grandest things he’d a’ seen In his natural life. Sailor: (_With affected interest_) Could he bat as well as he bowled? Labourer: Nay, Dave were no batter. (_Severely_) You can’t have everything, And Hambledon never wanted for runs in them days. There was Aylward—another farmer from Farnham way: Him that notched a hundred and sixty-seven not out In the match I was telling you on—the Hambledon Club Agen All England, five hundred pounds a side. Arter that, Sir Horace, he tooked’en up into Sussex And made’en his bailey; but Jim never done no good When he played agen we. Mr Nyren knew all his faults And foxed’en out in no time. Then there was Beldham, William Beldham—Silver Billy us always called’en, For his hair was so white as a wheatfield, come October. Harry Hall, the gingerbread-maker, learnt’en the game: Hall were no great player himself, but he made young Beldham Keep his left elbow up and hold his bat plumb-strajght In the line of the ball when he swung. ’Twere a gallant sight To see Silver Billy smack ’em all over the field, And never lift one. That lad, he danced on his toes Like Jack Broughton, the boxer. And run! He could lance like a deer To pick up the ball full-pelt, so neat as a swallow Nips gnats in the air! You’d ought to a’see’d’en cut Off the point of the bat, with a crack like a pistol-shot, The ball shaving daisies all way to the boundary, And shepherds a’lepping like lambs of an April evenin’ To save their old shins—not one of ’em could a’stopped it Howsomever he tried. But I ’low the best of all Was when him and Lord Frederick Beauclerk was in together: Lord Frederick had royal blood in’en, so ’twere said, For his grammer were Nelly Gwynn, King Charles’s fancy, But when Billy and him walked out to the pitch, side by side, You couldn’t tell which were the farmer and which the gentleman, The pair on ’em looked that majestic. And when they got set You’ld a’thought they was brothers born, the way they gloried In basting the bowling between ’em. There wasn’t a ball, Long or short, high or low, but Lord Frederick went into it Wrist and shoulder. And Billy the same. They looked something grander Than human mortals, them two—so light on their feet As hobby-hawks skimmin’ a hedge, or pewits a’runnin’ Afore they do light on the down. I can see them now: Billy Beldham’s silvery head and his lordship’s white hat Thridding to and thro like shuttles: the crowd on their feet Hollerin’ out: “Go hard . . . go hard! Tich and turn, tich and turn! Try another! One more!”—and the fielders runnin’ like hares On every side of the wicket. Ay, that was music! Afore now I’ve a’see’d Silver Billy notch ten runs Off one snick past slip and an overthrow. Them was the days! The Duke was a good’un too—as jolly a sportsman As ever stripped for cricket—and so was Sir Horace: He be gettin’ upalong now, but you’ll likely see him This marnin’. Ay . . . there he be! Look over your shoulder— Short and black as a gipsy, a’ swipin’ off daisy-heads With the tip of his cane. Sailor: I reckon the company You cricketers keep is too high for me! In the _Boreas_ The officers’ cuddy was one thing, the fo’c’s’le another: We knew our place and kept it. Labourer: I do know mine So well as thee, lad. But that be the beauty of cricket: A batsman’s a batsman, be he a lord or a labourer, And the flick of the ball, her do come as hard to white hands As to horny ones. I do ’low ’tis the same as the graveyard, Where one honest corpse be as good as the next, trick and tie. And after the stumps were drawn, it were just the same Round a casty of beer at the _Bat and Ball_, when you told What you’d ought to ’a done and didn’t when you got out. Talk? It used to run on by the hour; and then, maybe, George Lear—Little George we called ’en—would strike up a song And John Small start scrapin’ his fiddle. But that’s not all: There’s no end to cricket: for when you be done with play, The last ball bowled and the sheep drove back for to graze On the lattermath, your mind do still smell so sweet As an apple-loft in November; and Winter nights, When the snow-blossom’s fell and ice-candles hang from the thack, You can set by the fire, like a dog, with your eyes a’blink And go over the Summer again—match by match, ball by ball, Stroke by stroke. . . . (_He suddenly throws his hat in the air._) I’ll be drattled! He’s caught! That’s the last man out; And I’ll wager your throat be adry same as mine. Come your ways, And we’ll give ’em both a wet with a pint of fresh. _The_ Sailor _accompanies him willingly. As they stroll towards the bough-house, which has been set up on the edge of the field, a smart yellow chariot comes lurching over the down like a ship on a choppy sea. The driver throws the reins to his groom and dismounts._ John Sackville, _Third Duke of_ Dorset, _his Majesty’s Ambassador at the court of Versailles, is a tall, dark man in the late forties, with the short arms which may so often be remarked in the anatomy of a great hitter. He is fashionably dressed in a full-skirted coat, knee-breeches, and a white beaver hat. As the players trip off the field he waves cheerily, greeting several of them by name. Then he sees_ Sir Horatio Mann, _still busy with the daisies, and advances rapidly towards him, with hand out-stretched_. Dorset: Good morning, Horace. I half expected to see you. Mann: Jack Dorset? Well, I’ll be damned! What are you doing here? I thought you were still in Paris. To tell you the truth, We were rather anxious. Dorset: I made up my mind that discretion Was the better part of valour, and made myself scarce. Things were getting too hot for my liking. The French have gone mad. ’Twas like living in Bedlam, after they’d sacked the Bastille. Mann: The Bastille? What’s that? Dorset: An old castle, half prison, half fortress, In the middle of Paris. I happened to know the governor, A pleasant old man named de Launay. The mob swept in, Hauled him out and hacked off his head. The unfortunate Swiss Were trampled and torn piecemeal—their _disjecta membra_ Thrown into the gutter like garbage. Mann: But how the devil Did these fellows get arms? Dorset: They broke into the _Invalides_ And took all they wanted. Mann: But this is a regular revolt! Dorset: That’s just what the poor King called it. My friend Liancourt Put it better. “No, sir,” says he, “it’s a Revolution.” And by God you’ld have thought so yourself if you’d seen that rabble From my Embassy window! They poured through the narrow street Like a river in flood—torn limbs and heads on pikes Bobbing up and down like driftwood. All that night You could hear Paris throb and hum like an angry beehive. Sometimes, when the bells broke out, it rose to a roar Of hoarse cries, with sabots pattering over the _pavé_ Like a cavalry charge. I never slept a damned wink. Next morning ’twas still as death: they’d had their fling And were sleeping it off, I suppose; but the cobbles were crimson With blood and wine—you couldn’t tell which—and the city Smelt like a burnt-out shambles. Mann: What are they after? Dorset: I doubt if they know. Their obvious taste, at the moment, Is blood—and the bluer the better. France has flared up Of itself, like a damp-hot hayrick. Paris was bad enough; But the country, I’m told, is far worse. All the way to Calais My road was lit by the flames of burning _châteaux_; And when I got to the coast, I found the quays crammed With hundreds of fugitives, people like you and me, Who’d run from their homes in wild panic—all scrambling For a passage to England. Terror’s an ugly thing. Every man for himself! ’Twas a picture of human nature Old Voltaire would have relished. For myself, I confess It revolted my stomach. Mann: But had you any idea That such troubles were brewing? Dorset: I wasn’t precisely happy. Day by day, as I drove to and fro between Versailles And Paris, the contrast leapt to the eye: on one hand The most brilliant court in Europe—a glittering surface Stiffened by protocols that made poor old St. James’s Look dowdy—yet all as flimsy and artificial As a piece of puff-pastry: nothing whatever beneath it But empty frivolity. One felt that France was bankrupt In body and spirit. And then, on the other side, That grim city, _terre à terre_, if you will, but simmering With frothy ideas like a brewer’s vat. You could feel The perpetual ferment. I used to stroll through the streets (French noblemen never walk anywhere, but you know I can’t do without exercise)—and the coffee-houses Of the _Palais Royal_ were clamorous, night and day, With excited talk—political orators Jumping up on chairs and tables, haranguing the customers, And a crowd, outside on the pavement, straining to listen _A gorge déployée_. How any business gets done In Paris is quite beyond me. And then, the deluge Of printed pamphlets—more than a dozen a day! The booksellers can’t keep count of them. Stockdale’s shop Or Debrett’s may seem crowded to you: they’re the merest deserts Compared with Desein’s. Every literate person in Paris Reads and talks incessantly. Sometimes I used to go down To the poorer quarters, in spite of the stench, to ease My bewildered ears. They don’t talk in the _Faubourg St. Antoine_: But they look at you—God, how they look at you—and their eyes Make you think of rats in a corner. You have the feeling That they’re measuring you up and wondering what you’d look like With your clean clothes stripped from your back and your well-fed carcase Swung from a lantern-bracket. You know, my dear Horace, I’ve always liked the French—but there’s ‘summat about ’em’, As Nyren would say, ‘that froughts me’, something cruel and cold, Clear and brittle as ice, combined with a temper of tinder: One spark, and they’re all on fire! Their very humour Is whetted so razor-keen that the edge draws blood Before you’ve felt it. On my honour, it gave me the shivers To walk through those grudging streets, so utterly different From England, where every soul you meet by the way Will touch his cap and give you good-day with a smile. These people just stared. It took me a goodish time To realize that they were starving—not merely hungry, But starving, Horace! France has had two bad years Of harvest; and then, to make matters worse, the crops Were bought up by speculators. Fortunes were made By a small group of greedy men, and the millions of peasants Who’d tilled the soil left to starve. Their best arable Is nibbled as close as a Winter sheepwalk. Of course These poor devils flocked to the towns, because they imagined ’Twas there that the grain had gone—and found them as bare As the countryside. Half of the mob that stormed the Bastille Was made up of homeless peasants: rag-draped skeletons With straw tied round their bleeding feet. Mann: I know very well That you can’t trust townsmen, Jack. But I don’t understand Country folk behaving like that. They’ve too much horse-sense And balance and natural decency. Only imagine Men like Lumpy or Small or the Walkers losing their heads And brandishing ours on pikestaves—or leading a mob To storm Farnham Castle! If ever I found myself On a nasty wicket, there’s no-one I’d sooner have On my side than our Hambledon lads—and every man jack of them Save Nyren is peasant-born. Dorset: In France, my dear Horace, The peasantry don’t play cricket—and as for the gentry, Their tenants rarely set eyes on them: they’re too busy Playing parlour-games at Versailles. The labourer’s lot Is that of a mere beast of burden, bowed to the ground By feudal dues and taxes that haven’t been dreamt of In England since Magna Carta. The money that paid For their wars against us, the fabulous wealth that’s squandered On empty pomp at Versailles, has been drained drop by drop From a wasting countryside. Now they have nothing left— Not even bread for their brats; and you can’t draw blood From a stone. Mann: Then surely it’s time for the Government To wake up and do something about it? Dorset: I’ve told you already: The country is bankrupt. What is their Government? A weak, well-meaning King; a frivolous Queen, Who happens to wear the breeches; a handful of ministers Each jockeying his next-door neighbour to grab what he can Of the crumbs of patronage—or so much as is left By a gluttonous, decadent nobility Battening like maggots on the living flesh Of France. Mann: Have they no Parliament? Dorset: The King Has summoned the Estates: they’re now in session, Like our long Parliament, at Versailles, and wrangling Over their several rights. But that won’t save Their country from starvation. Nothing less Than a miracle can save her. Mann: So much the better! I’m no great hand at history, but I reckon She’s given us more trouble than all the rest Of Europe put together! Dorset: Ay, there speaks The true-blue Englishman! But there are others Who might profit by her downfall. Nature, alas, Abhors a vacuum; and, should France fall, We might find ourselves with enemies as formidable Uncomfortably near. Mann: I say: “Thank God For the English Channel!” Dorset: There are deadlier things Than arms can cross salt water. Revolutions Are like the plague: they travel on the air And sow their spores unseen. If this contagion Of discontent and violence should take wing Across your channel, you and I might find ourselves Running from Knole and Linton like the poor devils I saw at Calais. Mann: No, no. . . . I won’t believe it. England’s too sound at heart and too well fed To stomach all these windy theories Frothed-up by foreigners. God in heaven knows Where their damned nonsense comes from. Dorset: I can tell you. It comes from England. Mann: England? Dorset: The seed was sown At Runnymede; flowered in the Bill of Rights, Watered with blood by Oliver, and transplanted To Massachusetts—where we’ve lately tasted Its bitter fruits at Yorktown. The ‘liberation’— As the French call it—of America Fires them to emulate it. Lafayette Is a popular hero. Mann: Surely you don’t think . . . Dorset: I make no prophecies, Horace, but rely On the known principles of inoculation: We’ve had the small-pox once, and if we take it Again, the new infection may be mild And not disfiguring. My Whig friends at Brooks’s Welcome this revolution. Charley Fox Is rapturously excited; and even Pitt, In his dry way, condones it with a sort Of shy benevolence. We must wait and see How the cat jumps. For my part, I’m content To watch a game of cricket and thank God England’s still England. Nothing is more delicious Than these last days of Summer, when the elms Have just begun to turn. This blessed landscape, So gentle and so moderate, always brings A lump into my throat when I come home From foreign service, and hear the friendly clack Of leather on willow. . . . Mann: (_Anxiously surveying the field_) I shall have to leave you. My chaps are coming out. We’ve a new bowler, A garden-boy from Linton—devilish fast, But Nyren says he throws. I wish you’ld watch him And tell me what you think. Dorset: I’ll keep an eye on him. (Sir Horace Mann _strips off his coat, sets his hat at a rakish angle, and walks determinedly to the centre of the field. The_ Duke _waves his hand and smiles, throws back his coat-tails, and sprawls on the grass. The_ Sailor _and his new friend return from the bough-house. Farnham hops and barley-malt have done their work, and both are ‘concerned’ in liquor. Even the discharged seaman’s face has lost its morosity, and the other appears to be glad of the support of his blackthorn stick. They are indeed so deeply engrossed in some private joke that he almost stumbles over the Duke’s outstretched legs._) Labourer: Beg pardon, Sir. . . . I should say Your Grace! Dorset: No matter. . . . No matter. . . . Don’t I know your face? Labourer: You ought to, Sir, Seeing as I bowled you out twice, near twenty year ago. Dorset: By God, you’ve a long memory! Labourer: I shan’t forget That there match to my dying day, Sir. Dorset: What’s your name? Labourer: Hogsflesh, Your Grace. Dorset: Of course I remember you. I remember the match as well. It was up on Broad Halfpenny. I was off my game that day. Labourer: Howsomever that be, I bowled Your Grace out twice. Dorset: You did indeed. But that’s an old story now. Tell me, what do you think Of Sir Horace’s new bowler? Labourer: I think he do throw. Dorset: I’m inclined to agree with you. He comes off the pitch Devilish fast. Labourer: Ay, Your Grace; but he bean’t so fast as Dave Harris, Nor nobody ever will be. Those were the days! Dorset: Yes, those were the days! No doubt of it. Good luck to you. Labourer: The same to you, Sir. (_He doffs his cap. He and the_ Sailor _move off uncertainly. As soon as they are out of earshot be seizes his companion by the arm and declares emphatically_): Now that’s what I call a gentleman! XXXIV RED INTERLUDE. A.D. 1789-1803 Now, like spores launched on the mysterious flow Of ocean-currents, the seeds of Revolution, Ripened in Massachusetts, then dispersed By civil war’s rash winnowing, are upcast On Europe’s tidemarks; and in the fiercer soil Of France, hotbed of hunger, germinate With more prodigious zest—until her wastes Are reddened like a fallow poppy-sown In August. Now behold the fettered French Shake loose their feudal chains, and stagger forth Drunk with new freedom. Naught but blood can quench Their orgiastic thirst; and by that draught Purged and exalted, a gigantic shape Looms through the smoke of carnage and the mirk Of conflagration: France—the cynosure Of all who toil in servitude; France, the bane Of privilege, the incubus that mars The sleep of Kings and Prelates. On her marches A vulture-flock of dynasts wait the hour When famine shall prevail, and the wild ardour Fade from her haggard eyes. First Brunswick fends The cause of injured Royalty, his anger Fed by the fury of the dispossessed, Yet dares not strike alone, lest failure open His frontiers to infection. Austria And Russia pay lip-service. At Coblenz French emigrants plead for a coalition Of all monarchic Europe. Only Britain, Safe in her salty moat, dares contemplate The havoc with complacence—a weak France Being somewhat to her liking! Why, indeed, Should a free, full-grown folk, that has enjoyed The fruits of Revolution, be concerned With the teething-troubles of Democracy Beyond the sea? Who but a hypocrite Could ape dissatisfaction at the downfall Of her Bourbon enemies? Who but a fool Would plunge into a needless war, his wounds Being still unhealed? Let the French have their fling And bleed themselves to death; or, if they live, Learn wisdom in exhaustion. They who fear This feverish infection would be wise To put their house in order. As for us: Paris is worth a Mass; and, red or white, France is a valued customer. The French, Sullen and sobered now, with wary eyes Survey the gathering legions of reaction Camped on their frontiers. This is a matter Of pride no less than safety—and France is proud For all her rags and vermin. Better grasp The Sword of Damocles! Brissot demands Disbandment of the horde of Royalists Camped at Coblenz in Treves; Danton will show How much France cares for kings! Two royal heads Roll in the basket of the guillotine, And the world shudders. Even England feels That things have gone too fast and far—forgetting Charles Stuart’s blood-stained scaffold in Whitehall. So vengeful Brunswick marches. . . . At Jemappes And Valmy, the undisciplined rabble of France, Ill-armed, ill-fed, yet desperately inspired By the passion for survival, overwhelms The Prussian Guard; then, dazzled by the glory Of such an incredible victory, surges on Through Flanders to the Scheldt, where Holland hails The banners of Revolution. This is no longer An army of defence, but a whole nation Risen in arms, quixotically pledged To liberate its neighbours and establish The Rights of Man. Britain’s benevolence Is coloured with disquiet: this infant Demos Has not merely cut his teeth, but seems disposed To flesh them greedily. Our ancient grudge Of every militant might that may command The coast of Flanders—fount and origin Of all her foreign wars—is reawakened; And when France, flushed with confidence, proclaims The Freedom of the Scheldt (thus challenging London’s preeminence) that long-smouldering grudge, Fanned by new tales of terror, suddenly Flares into righteous anger. These damned Jacobins Have overstepped all bounds of decency, And must be brought to heel—or British trade Will surely suffer. Even the sacred rights Of property are endangered. None need fear A long-drawn war; for France, thank God, is starved And bankrupt: her immediate success A mere flash in the pan, or the last flicker Of a guttering candle. So this war began. It raged for twenty years, to change the shape And mind of Europe and the world. . . . At first Reaction prospers, and the ragged French Are flurried out of Flanders: British gold, Broadcast in lavish subsidies, providing Mouthfuls of mercenary cannon-food To choke the guns of Valmy. England’s fleet Tautens the noose that grips the throat of France— Though English dead, victims of greed, may rot In the French sugar-islands. Holland, tempted By lust of booty, joins the vulture-flocks Of Austria and Prussia to pick bare The bones of France—till her accomplices, Sniffing the taint of richer carrion, wing Eastward to where the Russian eagle gloats On a dismembered Poland. Thus the French, Stricken and reeling, gain a moment’s respite To gauge the forces of a hateful world Arrayed against them. Now no more they cry “The Revolution is in danger!” Now ’Tis France, proud France herself, that is beset And persecuted: her beloved soil, Birthright of glorious generations, threatened With alien dominance. Faction and Terror Alike must be forsworn. The guillotine Rusts with disuse; while France’s crumbling fabric, Cemented by external pressure, sets In a new, adamantine nationhood Such as the Sun King’s self had never seen In his noonday radiance. Lazare Carnot Shall organize the incoherent strength Of twenty million Frenchmen. None may shirk His civic duties: and all France becomes One arsenal of deadly weapons forged, Not for the hands of hirelings, but to arm A militant nation. What mercenary might Can stem this human torrent? Now it flows Over reconquered Flanders; soon the dykes Of Holland crack and crumble. The Duke of York, Mangled at Hondschoete, falls back from Dunkirk Leaving his guns behind him. At Wattignies The Austrians are routed, and recoil In panic to the Rhine, abandoning Alsace and the Palatinate. In the South, Last foothold of reaction, the massed cannon Of an obscure Corsican captain, Bonaparte, In awful unison blast the British fleet Out of the roads of Toulon. A new name, Written in blood and lit by flame, imbues The chronicles of War. Such master-men, Monstrous alike in their capacity For good or evil, have ever ridden on tides Of Revolution, the gigantic jetsam Of human tempest, finding in the flux Of molten nations malleable stuff To give their dreams an iron shape, and weld The weapons of ambition. Such a man Was this visionary Corsican, in whose mind Nations and men were but the instruments Of a personal predominance, and continents Mere fields of battle whereon his mastery Of arms, unmatched since Marlborough’s, might achieve Conquests that made the fame of Macedon Turn pale. Nerved by his will, impetuous France, Flaunting the cap of Liberty, imposes New tyrannies on Europe: he, in return, Sates her with glory. First he overruns The Lombard plain: Lodi and Rivoli Proclaim its liberation; and Milan, Freed from her Austrian servitude, accepts New chains for old. A crop of small Republics Spring up like mushrooms—but the loot of Italy Flows steadily to France, and even the Pope Disgorges gold for peace—while Bonaparte, Bored in his palace at Mombello, sees Mirages of new conquest. Asia waits Her second Alexander, offering More fabulous empire lightly to be snatched From the decadent British. The Army of Italy, Launched by this land-bred arrogance, takes the sea And grounds on Egypt, where its legionaries Sharpen their bayonets on the prostrate stones Of a forgotten empire. Never was given To Fate a pledge more reckless! As their fleet Lies snugly hidden in the channeled roads Of Aboukir, an English midshipman, Tree’d on _Goliath’s_ dizzy masthead, spies That cluster of bare spars: sixteen great ships, The navel-cord of Bonaparte’s invasion, Anchored at ease. A signal flutters forth: “Enemy in sight!”—and with supreme contempt Of shoal or sounding, five British seventy-fours, _Goliath_, _Orion_, _Theseus_, _Audacious_, _Zealous_, Together brave the island guns that guard The anchorage to Westward, sweeping in Betwixt them and the shore. Now Nelson’s squadron, With all sails set, streams from the blood-red West To pound their seaward flank. Egyptian night, Made awful by the guns’ incessant thunder And flames of burnt-out ships, obscures the issue Of this tremendous conflict. Morning shows Unequalled desolation, and the dreams Of an Eastern Empire ended. Bonaparte, Thwarted—but, in the manner of his kind, Callous beyond belief and undismayed,— Leaves the abandoned flower of France to rot In the deadly dust of Acre, and sails home, An unrepentant prodigal, to resume The paths of destiny. . . . That season smiles On the conqueror’s ambitions, though dismay Beclouds the skies of France: in Italy Her vassal-states are crumbling like sand-castles Sapped by the tide returning from the East To lash her Alpine frontier; Naples yields To the patriots of Calabria, who prefer A home-made brand of Liberty; Nelson sweeps The Middle Sea, denying her the means Of passage or offence; about her throat An iron torque, forged by the coalition Of England, Austria and Russia, chokes Her breath to suffocation. ’Tis no time For faint hearts or half-measures. France demands A sterner discipline: better any tyranny Than national extinction. Bonaparte, First Consul now, grasps at the absolute power For which he long has lusted; and the French, Rejuvenate in spirit and re-armed, Follow this heaven-sent saviour, overbrimming The Piemontese Alps to decimate The Austrians at Marengo—while Moreau Carries the tattered flag of Revolution To Hohenlinden, and romantic Russia, Bedazzled by these glittering feats of arms, Forsakes her allies. Only Britain stands Seagirt and unsubdued upon the flank Of the European fortress; only Britain Flouts that imperious will. What is this blind, Unreasoning insular folly that can persuade A nation of sixteen millions to resist A power four times more numerous? Pitt should know How hopeless is her case. One master-weapon Rests in the conqueror’s armoury—for our isle Lives but by sea-borne commerce. A blockade Of continental Europe from the Baltic To Portugal and the Sicilies shall obstruct The flow that feeds her sinews till she starve And squeal for mercy! But Bonaparte forgets The lesson ill-learned in Egypt, and his weapon Proves double-edged, when Nelson of the Nile Bursts through the Cattegat, and at Elsinore Shatters the Danish fleet, to make an end Of this League of Armed Neutrality. Once again Sea-power prevails; and the shrewd Corsican Is fain to cut his losses and accept An honourable truce. . . . They call it Peace; And two war-wearied nations celebrate This triumph of illusion in an orgy Of mutual flatteries. But neither Pitt Nor Bonaparte relaxes; for the despot Knows well his dreams of Empire must be vain While England lives; and Pitt, who longs for peace, Can see no end until those arrogant dreams Are broken. This uneasy interlude Of eighteen months finds each antagonist Mustering his forces for the final round: Pitt building ships, while Bonaparte rearms His wasted levies and constrains his friends To keep the ring. There is no more pretence Of a mission of liberation; no more talk Of the Rights of Man. Imperial France discards The rags of her outworn democracy, And stands forth unashamed, pranked in the spoils Of her predatory aggressions to proclaim Man’s only Right is Might, and her prime purpose Dominion of the earth. All that she asks Of Britain is connivance: a free hand In continental Europe—but, meanwhile, What about Malta? This island has been ceded By the Treaty of Amiens, but still remains In the Knights’ hands. The mood of England stiffens; For Malta, worthless in a world at peace, Becomes, in war, a crucial point, commanding The road to Egypt and the East, the basis Of Bonaparte’s vain dream. Malta must stand— Or all be lost. If this should mean renewal Of war, so be it! A disunited England, Startled and disillusioned, stands to arms. Now, from the Forelands and the slopes that shelve To meet Reculver’s sandbanks; from the crest Of Dover’s moon-pale scarp and Beachy Head To Portsdown; from Wight’s crumbling undercliff To Purbeck and the flinty fields that lour On Portland’s roaring chesils; from the pale downs Of Dorset to the blood-red rocks that fringe The tawny marls of Devon; from the Start To the unyielding serpentine that sheathes The Lizard’s fangs in adamant, arise From their forgotten ash the phoenix-fires That once foretold the Armada; while far inland, Moloch the monster feeds his sleepless hearths To forge war’s armament. Now quiet cities, Drowsed in the deeps of peace, suddenly ring With eager tocsins and the tramping feet Of shopkeepers turned soldiers; now the greens Where country-folk played cricket lie bemired By marching hobnails, and village goodwives scare Their disobedient brats with a new bugbear: The Corsican ogre, Boney, who, ’tis said, Gloats on the flesh of children. Now in mart, Club, cloister, palace, hovel, the old fear Shadows the minds of men; the ancient question Dwells on their lips: “Folk say the French are coming. When will they come?”—and the inveterate, Unreasoning confidence answers: “Come when they will, They will get more than they give us. Let them come!” XXXV CONVERSATION PIECE A.D. 1804 _At this hour of the September afternoon, when the Manager Mr Martindale’s House-Dinner is still being served downstairs, the Card Room at White’s appears gloomy and deserted. Its only occupant at the moment is an elderly member in a military uniform that seems hardly in keeping with his years or his figure, which is that of a sedentary townsman. The candles have not yet been lit, and in the yellowish autumnal light of the nearest window, he is perusing the latest entries in the Betting-Book. The trivial character of most of the wagers inscribed in it appeals oddly incongruous with the stirring and perilous times through which the country is passing at this moment. Mr A., for instance, has bet Mr B. that the Marquess of C. will not propose to Miss D. Ten pounds have been wagered that Lord Rockingham’s filly will not finish in the St. Leger, and twenty that Mr Pitt will not outlive Mr Fox. On the surface it would appear that the Tory Ruling Class, which the membership of White’s more or less represents, is more deeply interested in domestic affairs than in the fate of England or the future of Europe. As the military gentleman closes the Betting-Book and returns it to its table, the door swings open to admit a remarkably handsome old man. From the cut of his clothes (he wears breeches instead of the now fashionable pantaloons), his powdered hair (in a mode which has been discontinued as a protest against Mr Pitt’s powder-tax) and from his weather-beaten complexion, one might judge him a country gentleman only lately come to town. As he turns away, apparently disappointed to find no play in progress, the first member advances rapidly and touches him on the shoulder._ Town Member: I think you have forgotten me. We last met At Croome, if you remember. I rode over From Madresfield with Lygon. . . . Country Member: Pray forgive me: This fading light and your resplendent scarlet Quite blinded me. Town Member: You behold a corporal In the St. James’s Volunteers, commanded By that old firebrand Colonel Sheridan. We are all soldiers now, Sir: neither station Nor age exempts us. The Prime Minister Drills his own troop at Walmer, and instructs Grey-bearded veterans in the elements Of Modern Warfare. Poor old Charley Fox Has turned a true-blue patriot, and commands The volunteers at Chertsey; and all our ladies Affect a military mode, arrayed In jackets of green velvet and short skirts That show their ankles. Their new Rifle Hats Are most becoming: Boney’s _vivandières_ Are quite eclipsed in smartness. But pray tell me The news from Worcestershire. Country Member: A shocking harvest, And partridges damned scarce. Our last excitement Was a visit from Lord Nelson, who came through On his way from Wales to London in the company Of old Hamilton and his Lady. Worcester went mad; Took out his horses at the bridge, and dragged His carriage to the Guildhall, where they gave him The Freedom of the City. I must confess I was disappointed. Town Member: Why? Country Member: The Admiral Is the merest wisp of a man; poor Hamilton A doddering dotard, and her ladyship A monstrous creature, mountainously fat, With the manners of a fishwife. You can’t imagine A less romantic trio. Town Member: You should have seen her When she was Charley Greville’s mistress: then Her form was almost sylphlike, and her face Angelically lovely. In her ‘Attitudes’ She was incomparable, and every movement Ravished the heart like music. You make me glad I have not seen her since. There is no spectacle More melancholy than the decadence Of a beauty that has moved us. That will live For ever in Romney’s pictures. But, to be serious, How’s your Militia shaping? Country Member: Well enough. We have reached our quota. The Loyal Volunteers Parade on Pitchcroft under my boy George On Sundays, and our patriotic ladies Meet once a week to gossip and embroider Colours for ensigns. If our Worcester lads Were armed and taught to shoot, they’ld take some beating; But brooms and mopsticks are a poor substitute For rifles, and all this martial ardour seems To me a thought unreal. You, no doubt, Stand at the heart of things, and can assess Our problematic dangers. For myself, I won’t be scared. Whatever else he may be, Boney’s no fool; and if he planned invasion, He wouldn’t rant about it. I regard These tales as a chimaera, purposely Magnified by the Government to distract Small minds from graver matters. Town Member: What could be graver? Country Member: Consols at fifty-seven, sir, rising prices, And now this new confounded Income-Tax Of a shilling in the pound! Town Member: Well, my dear Sir, I wish to God you were right. Unluckily, The known facts are against you. I agree That Bonaparte’s no fool. This very circumstance Confirms our fears. None but a fool would muster So huge a force at such a vast expense Unless he meant to use it. Country Member: So you swallow These old wives’ tales? Town Member: No: my beliefs are based On grounds more solid. If Bonaparte’s no fool, No more is Pitt. Our two protagonists Face one another, on either side the channel, Like wary gamesters; but, with much good fortune, Backed by more skill and daring, we have learnt What cards the Frenchman holds. Our information Is copious and precise: there’s not a movement Of troops or barges, not a casual word Dropped from Napoleon’s lips, but finds its way Into our records to be docketed, Conned, sifted, pondered and interpreted By practised wits. This weight of evidence Is overwhelming. You can take my word for it: They will invade us. Country Member: How the deuce do we manage To find out all these secrets? Town Member: You must remember, No more than twenty miles of misty sea Divides us from the French. In peace or war This no-man’s-land-or-water has been haunted By smugglers of both nations. Should you desire To visit France and see things for yourself, I have no doubt our Sussex fishermen Would see you safely landed. Country Member: Landed, yes— And then shot as a spy! Your invitation Doesn’t attract me. Town Member: The danger is much less Than you imagine. Thousands of French loyalists Detest the Revolution—and even more This Corsican upstart. Many who have sought Sanctuary in England from the Terror, burn To stake their principles against their necks And overthrow him. Nor should you forget That, by its very nature, Tyranny Is always rotten at the core, consumed, Even when it seems to thrive, by inward jealousies, Envies, ambitions; that base men who have climbed To mastery on the ruin of their rivals Command no loyalty; that in a state Where all men are deemed equal, discipline Depends on force, and underneath the shows Of unity ’tis each man for himself, And the devil take the hindmost. Thus it is That in the very midst of those who share The Corsican’s confidence, we have our friends (Or he has enemies) who would not be loth To profit by his downfall. Country Member: I’ll be damned If I’d have truck with traitors! Town Member: Our trust is tempered By the wisdom of the serpent. Their reports Are checked and counterchecked by the intelligence Of our own agents. You may be shocked to hear That the best spies are Englishmen. Country Member: Well, well, ’Tis a dirty business—though I’d trust them sooner Than any Frenchman! So Pitt really thinks That Bonaparte’s not bluffing? Town Member: I can give you Boney’s _ipsissima verba_: “Cæsar’s fling Was the merest child’s-play; mine is an enterprise Of Titans. They want to make me jump the ditch,” Says he, “and we will jump it.” Country Member: The damned braggart! Town Member: His words may seem flamboyant, but reports Give substance to his boasts. Since early Spring We have spied flotillas of flat-bottomed craft Concealed in every inlet from Dunkirk To Cherbourg. The remotest inland communes Have furnished funds for these, their hopes inflamed By an exhibition of the Bayeux tapestry Sent round on tour, expressly to recall The Norman Conquest. Now this scattered force Is gathering at Boulogne: a huge armada Of various design, yet all contrived For the purpose of invasion. First there are _prames_, Poor seaboats fitted with three keels and rigged Like a corvette. Each _prame_ is built to carry, Besides her crew, a double company Of infantry and twelve twenty-four-pounders. Next, the _chaloupes_, of greater complement But ordnance far less numerous—though they carry A six-inch howitzer. These craft are rigged Like brigantines, and draw, when fully laden Less than six feet of water. Add to these Their _Bâteaux Cannoniers_, three-masted wherries, Lug-sailed, like Cornish fishing-smacks, equipped With stables, stalls and sheds for the conveyance Of cavalry. Lastly, a multitude Of smaller lug-sailed pinnaces, each designed To carry fifty men, a Prussian howitzer, And an eight-inch mortar. Country Member: How many of these ships Has Bonaparte assembled? Town Member: They must number At least three thousand sail, their admiral Being Eustache Bruix. Country Member: That name means nothing to me. Town Member: Our sailors know it well. In the Rebellion He served in the American frigate _Fox_ As a junior ensign. But the master-mind Of the whole enterprise is Denis Decrès, A veteran of the Nile, who in the _Diane_ Escaped us, and later, in the _Guillaume Tell_, Fought, single-handed, the _Lion_, the _Foudroyant_ And the _Penelope_: a most gallant seaman Of infinite resource. ’Tis he who has made Napoleon’s project feasible by the building Of wharves, pontoons and causeways to assure Smooth embarcation for three hundred transports— This from Boulogne alone—on every tide. Country Member: What forces will he venture? Town Member: We cannot fathom The Corsican’s deep mind. But this we know: He has never been deterred from any sacrifice Of blood when his ambitions were at stake. This Army of England, as it’s called, comprises At least fifteen divisions, every man of them A seasoned veteran, under the command Of youthful marshals who have proved their metal: Ney, Soult, Davoust and Victor. For six months This formidable weapon has been forged And tempered by manœuvres that reflect The conditions of invasion—embarcations, Landings and tactics of assault—each movement Rehearsed in detail, and every man equipped To the last button. A month ago they left Their training quarters, and are now assembled In coastal camps and billets, to await Their sailing-orders. Country Member: When do you expect Such orders to be given? Town Member: If we knew that, We should be happier. Early in July We thought the hour had come—but Bonaparte, Incalculable as ever, changed his plans And left us guessing. But since this fateful Summer Is drawing to a close, and no sane seaman Dares risk the equinoctial gales, we reckon It must be now or never. By God’s grace The Emperor (to give him his new title) Is neither sane nor sailor. Yet every sign Points to a swift decision. Only yesterday A trusted agent sent us his report On a great review, designed to celebrate Napoleon’s birthday. . . . No doubt you know Boulogne? Country Member: No Sir, I don’t. In fact I’m proud to say I’ve never set foot outside the King’s dominions, Nor don’t intend to. England’s good enough For me! Town Member: No doubt, no doubt. . . . And yet Boulogne Has a charming situation. It stands high On the right bank of the Liane, the ancient town And citadel encircled by a line Of thirteenth-century ramparts. Farther East, On the cliff edge, you see a ruined watchtower Called the _Tour d’Ordre_, which antiquaries attribute To the Emperor Caligula. It was here That the review was ‘staged’—if I may use The word that best befits a ceremony So brazenly theatrical. Here Napoleon Took the salute of eighty thousand men From a tall throne, atop of which was placed The chair of Dagobert. Country Member: And who the devil Is Dagobert? Town Member: A great King of the Franks, Last of the Merovingians. Country Member: I’m none the wiser; But pray continue, Sir. Town Member: Before this throne, Like consecrated elements outspread On a high altar, stood du Guesclin’s helmet, Crammed with insignia of the _Légion d’Honneur_ Ready for distribution, and the shield Of Bayard; behind, a lofty reredos Of bullet-riddled banners from the fields Of Arcola and Lodi and Marengo. Then, as the Emperor rose above the ranks Of his bodyguard of Mamelukes, the guns Thundered in unison, and silver trumpets Sounded a shrill fanfare. (Our correspondent Notes, by the way, that while all eyes were fixed On this resplendent vision, he could espy Far sails of British frigates quartering The sultry sea!) Next, when the cheers and salvoes And fanfares had died down, the Emperor Administered an oath: “Commanders, Officers, Citizens, Soldiers: swear, upon your honour, To serve the Empire; to devote yourselves To your Fatherland’s integrity; to defend Your Emperor and the laws of the Republic!” Country Member: Republic? Emperor? That don’t make sense. Town Member: The French have their own logic. He went on: “Swear to contest, by all means in accord With Justice, Law and Reason, all attempts To re-establish feudal rights! In short, Swear to maintain, with your whole might, the principles Of Liberty and Equality, the basis Of all our institutions!” A deep rumble Rolled through their ranks, as eighty thousand men Muttered “We swear!” At this climactic moment Of the solemn celebration, a flotilla, More than a thousand strong, should have been entering The roadstead of Boulogne. Unluckily, Ironical Fate willed otherwise: a black squall And clumsy seamanship alike conspiring To throw them in confusion. A high wind Roared through the Straits of Dover, scattering The ill-found fleet of transports. Then the rain Came down in bucketfuls. Napoleon, Soaked to the skin, turned nasty, bickering With Berthier, his new marshal, biting his nails With irritation at the irreverent trick The elements had played him. The parade Dismissed in silence, and the drenched legionaries Trudged back to billets. Country Member: A very proper curtain For such a farce! Town Member: I grant you, the French taste For the theatrical is apt to offend Our native modesty. Yet this performance, Shorn of its false heroics, does suggest That all their plans are laid, and any moment May launch the invasion. Country Member: If a puff of wind Could scatter their flotillas, how would they fare With our frigates on their heels and the great guns Of our battle-fleet before them? That would test Their seamanship more shrewdly. Town Member: I admit That Bonaparte’s no sailor, and despises The judgment of his admirals. He awaits One of those tranquil intervals that follow Gales which have forced our frigates to stand off Or run for shelter. In such a breathing-space He may seize his chance. He only needs to master The channel for twelve hours—and don’t forget His transports are well-armed. Country Member: If Bill Cornwallis Gets in among them, I’ll wager all their guns Will soon be on the bottom. Town Member: There’s a factor (I speak in confidence) which might upset Your sanguine calculations. They have perfected A secret weapon. Country Member: Ah, we’re sick to death Of these fantastic rumours of Balloons, Bridges of Boats and Tunnels! Only simpletons Credit such fairy-tales. Town Member: So you’ve not heard Of the warship that can travel under water? Country Member: No . . . nor I don’t believe it! Town Member: None the less, The thing exists. A young American Named Fulton’s the inventor. He submitted His plans to Pitt a year ago, and claims That his craft, the _Nautilus_, which he built at Havre, Can move submerged, and so invisible, For several hours. She carries a vast charge Of powder sealed within a tapered cylinder Called a torpedo, which can be attached To her doomed prey with grapples, and exploded By clockwork. Country Member: Well, what did Pitt do about it? Town Member: Referred it to the admirals. Old St. Vincent Pooh-poohed the whole idea. Its use, he said, Would do away with the whole British Navy, On which depends our strength and our prestige, Encouraging, in short, a mode of warfare Which we, who now command the seas, don’t want, And which, if it succeeded, would deprive us Of our predominance. Country Member: What happened next? Town Member: Why, Citizen Fulton offered it to Bonaparte For forty thousand francs. . . . Country Member: The treacherous dog! Town Member: And Bonaparte, with more imagination And sense than Lord St. Vincent, jumped at it. He has built a number of them, and declares They may change the course of History. Imagine A score of these infernal craft escorting His army of invasion, and our great ships Blown sky-high, one by one! Country Member: I’ld rather back The judgment of St. Vincent than the fancies Of a damned Frenchman, Sir! Town Member: But if they land? Country Member: Why then, by God, we’ll fight them—on the beaches, The Weald, the Downs, from every ditch and hedgerow In Kent and Sussex! And if they come to London We’ll fight ’em street by street! You under-reckon Our spirit, Sir. In fact, this kind of talk Borders on treason. Admiral Cornwallis Is a member of this club! Town Member: Pray understand I merely state the chances. If you should care To venture on a wager, I’ld be ready To back my own opinion. Country Member: I’m your man, Sir. (_He picks up the Betting-Book and mutters as he writes in a shaky and somewhat unformed hand_): Lord C. betts Mr B. a hundred pound That Bonaparte won’t land on British soil Before next Christmas Day. Does that content you? Town Member: Completely. If you have not dined, perhaps You will honour me with your company? Country Member: Not I. London’s no place for me at such a time As this. I’m going back to Worcestershire, Where people don’t talk nonsense, but behave Like Englishmen. Good day, Sir. . . . (_He goes out in a fluster. The_ Town Member _shrugs his shoulders, and methodically blots the entry in the Betting-Book_.) XXXVI A BALLAD OF THE VICTORY OCTOBER 21ST, 1805 ’Twas at daybreak on a sober-mantled morning of October When our nimble frigate, _Sirius_, a’quartering the deep Like a questing hound that feathers on the fringes of a cover, In a haze of thickening weather saw the Frenchman’s vanguard creep One by one, in open order, Past the guns of Matagorda, Through the throat of Guadalete to the jaws of Cadiz Bay; And she sped the news to _Mars_: “We can see their canvas shine And the glitter of their spars: There are twelve ships of the line And a squadron of five frigates that have cleared the river bars, And they’re standing out to Westward. _Gone away_. . . . _Gone away!_” Then a livelier current raced through our pulses, for we guessed That our stern and fruitless quest from the Straits to Martinique And homeward from the main Of Trinidad to Spain—— The long pursuit was over, and the foe no more to seek: For we’d drawn him from his berth Like a badger gone to earth; We had flushed him from his cover and caught him face to face Where no Admiral of mettle could refuse the gage of battle: And aloft the signal fluttered: _General Chase!_ But whither they were bound lay more deep than wit could sound: Were they heading to the West to join Ganteaume in Brest? Could they dare to run the gauntlet of our fleet and seek Toulon? Would they face us? Would they falter? None could tell. . . . Then Lord Nelson took his station in the fairway of the Straits Well to Westward of Gibraltar—as a wary huntsman waits With an eye on either quarter; but no welcome signal shone, So all day we lay there heaving on the huge Atlantic swell Till the breeze died with the daylight, and night fell. But at dawn the South wind woke on a wide and empty sea, And the frigate _Phoebe_ spoke: “They have put their remnant forth; They are bearing to the North, and they number thirty-three!” Then we knew the Straits were free; so we clapped on every sail And stood out on the larboard tack with Spain upon the lee— Till the South wind veered and failed, and a second night we lay Becalmed and sick with waiting, Sou’ West of Cadiz Bay. And now the frigate-captains came on board to tell their tale: How they’d watched five columns clear, with Alava in the van; How Villeneuve led their centre and Dumanoir the rear. And the heart of every man was uplifted by their story: Thirty-three to twenty-seven—and so much the greater glory! And on high the signal ran with new orders for the fleet: “Clear your quarters. Set your steering-sails and royals, and shake out The reefs of all your topsails”! They were running—not a doubt!— Forming line upon the larboard tack to shield the Cadiz bar, To find refuge in retreat If they knew that they were beat. So they laid their heads to Nor’ard, and we followed from afar Where on our leeward quarter shone the shoals of Trafalgar. And the British fleet bore on in two columns line-ahead— ’Twas Nelson led the windward and Collingwood the lee— And a sight more winged with beauty and majesty and dread Eyes of man will never see As in battle-order came all those ships of deathless name: _Bellerophon_, _Defiance_, _Revenge_ and _Victory_, _Agamemnon_ and _Leviathan_, _Colossus_, _Temeraire_, _Ajax_, _Neptune_ and _Achilles_—all were there! For the wind had veered due West, and its waft now blew so light That our vast three-deckers, crowned with their towers of dazzling white, Moved like stately clouds that sail on the far horizon’s bound Without stay, without sound, In a silence naught could break But the craking of their timbers and the ripple of the wake As their fo’c’s’les rose and fell on the green and glassy swell That swept them toward the shore, Until they seemed no more Insensate monsters moving at the mercy of the wind, But sentient things endowed with the gifts of will and mind: Mind and will together vowed to one purpose stern and plain, To sweep the French from off the seas and crush the might of Spain. Yet the will that urged them on drew from one man’s mind alone, And the master mind was Nelson’s, that had brewed our battle-plan: How one column, line-ahead, should pierce the Frenchman’s van, Doubling on his foremost ships, while the other held his rear Locked in a deadly grip, ship to ship and man to man, On a larboard line of bearing—two blows to fall as one. So the endless moments passed, as he bade the _Victory_ steer For the gap that lay between the French flagship, _Bucentaure_ And the Spaniards’ _Trinidada_, the mightiest afloat; And our hearts leapt to our throats when we heard the sudden roar Of Collingwood’s first broadside, as the _Royal Sovereign_ smote On Alava’s _Santa Ana_—and a cloud of curdled smoke Blurred the leeward column’s battle as it broke. * * * * * But as _Victory_ bore down upon the gap, with _Temeraire_ Crowding close upon her quarter—not a cable-length to spare— Nelson hauled us out to larboard, and we felt her check and swerve Like a hunter when he shies at a fence for lack of nerve; And we wondered what he meant, and whither we were making With our starboard sails still bent and our studding-sails a’shaking, Till we guessed ’twas but a feint—to put their van in fear Of doubling to give cover to their sorely troubled rear And free the ships that Collingwood had ta’en; But his purpose soon showed clear—for he gybed and swung her over, Hauled to starboard and turned in upon their centre once again With _Temeraire_ and _Neptune_ and _Britannia_ in his train. And as on we slowly crept—every moment losing way, Since the wind was but a breath—our crowded decks were swept By a hurricane of death: For they raked us, one by one, gun by gun, as we passed— Twenty killed and thirty wounded, the mizzen-topmast gone And the steering-wheel in splinters, was the price we had to pay For a fight too warm to last! But still _Victory_ bore on; And her bloodier counterstroke was not long to be delayed, As the French were now to learn— For as we passed the stern Of Villeneuve’s flagship, _Bucentaure_, our fo’c’s’le carronade Crashed through her cabin windows, cleared her deck from stern to stem, With five hundred dead or mangled—and so much the worse for them! While our double-shotted broadside, fifty cannon fired point-blank, Broached the bulwarks of her flank; and the vomit of her smoke Blew back into our portholes in a suffocating cloud, And our quarterdeck was strewed with black dust and crumbled wood From the crippled _Bucentaure_, which would trouble us no more. So we left her with her dead. . . . And as _Victory_ came hard round on two Frenchmen full ahead, Their _Neptune_ and the _Redoutable_, our captain cried: “My Lord, Which of these shall we board?” And he answered: “Take your choice!” But new thunders drowned his voice As the _Neptune_ raked our fo’c’s’le, sweeping guns and crews away; So we ran on board the _Redoutable_—and there those monsters lay With their yards and ropes entangled; but neither we nor they Could hope to board the other—for our main-deck guns were dead, And the boarding-party mangled by a rain from overhead Of langrage-shot and musketry, while they, no less, were stayed By the _Temeraire’s_ full broadside and our starboard carronade Which sprayed their deck with roundshot, while our lower guns replied Pouring salvo after salvo through the Frenchman’s gaping side. And it chanced, as we lay grappled in that desperate embrace, That a marksman in their mizzen-top saw Nelson as he passed With his stars and ribbons blazing; and he laid his gun in rest, Aimed, and shot him through the shoulder; and he fell upon his face. And he murmured, as they raised him: “They have done for me at last: My backbone is shot through.” And as he spoke, he drew A kerchief o’er his features to hide them from the crew. Thus they carried him unseen to the sultry cockpit strewed With the dead and wounded lying in the reek of fire and blood; And there they left him dying—for he would not have them stay, Till he knew the fight was won. So they let him have his way, While the _Victory_ fought on. . . . * * * * * And the battle of the van waxed more fierce as _Temeraire_ Past our starboard quarter ran, and her seamen leapt aboard The thronged deck of the _Redoutable_ and cleared it with the sword; And a ringing cheer went up as her ensign from the truck Of the mainmast fluttered down—and the gallant Frenchmen struck! But the _Temeraire_ herself was scarce in better fettle; For the guns of the _Fougueux_ had shot her through and through With a mort of deadly metal, and her decks were choked with slain; But her gunners gave the _Fougueux_ back as good as they had got, Returning shot for shot, while her daring crew had lashed The rigging of the Frenchman to their for’ard anchor-chain, When the mainyard of the _Redoutable_ fell from the mast and crashed Athwart their poop and smothered it in twenty tangled tons Of spars and sails and cordage; yet still the foremost guns Of the fighting _Temeraire_ kept up a ceaseless cannonade On the Spaniards’ mighty flagship, the _Santisima Trinidad_. Now our _Neptune_ followed fast through the smoke and flame that poured From the carcase of the _Bucentaure_, and raked her as she passed; Then she shot the _Trinidada’s_ main and mizzen by the board; Next her foremast cracked and fell—and the Spanish admiral lowered His flag, while on their quarter they waved an English Jack As _Britannia_ and _Leviathan_ bore in to the attack; And when these two had passed her by, the _Conqueror_ took their place Hauling up to give the dying _Bucentaure_ her _coup-de-grâce_ As the tricolor still flying from her topmast fluttered down, And the _Conqueror_ reaped the glory that the _Victory_ had sown. But by now we knew for sure that this bitter day was won: For their centre had been broke, and their vanguard’s counterstroke Held or parried. And South Westward the wan October sun, That like a red-hot cannon-ball sank through the battle-smoke, Showed the remnant of their sorry rear which Collingwood had shattered: Every ship—save only nine—of their splendid battle-line Dismasted, sunk or taken! Yet we felt it hardly mattered, When our Admiral lay dead with a bullet in his spine. . . . And as the sun went down, we heard no more the roll Of sullen drumfire thundering from ships that spoke as one, But single shots which echoed like the mournful minute-gun That speeds a passing soul. And at last these too ceased firing, and a solemn silence fell On the scattered fleets that rode above the dark and glassy swell: Fifty giants of the line—each with her awful load Of carnage and of doom; And as the deepening gloom Of that Autumn eve descended on the battle that was ended, Those mighty phantoms veiled in their shrouds of tattered sail Seemed to stand about the _Victory_ like mourners round a tomb. And though our hearts were sore for the hero that was gone, We knew that never more could the fleets of France and Spain Threaten our native shore or flout us on the main: That mid all deeds of fame in the chronicles of war No name would brighter flame than the name of Trafalgar. XXXVII LONG YEARS OF HAVOC A.D. 1805-1815 Saved is our Island! . . . The victorious fleet Homeward in heavy-hearted triumph bears Her saviour’s body, while the mournful roll Of muffled drums summons his soul to meet Those rare immortal dead that were his peers; Yet ten more bitter years Shall pass before the havoc that has laid To waste this generation shall be stayed. For, foiled on the indomitable seas, The Corsican thrusts landward, from Boulogne Striking at Europe’s heart where, one by one, More tangible foes are worsted. Ulm decrees The doom of Austria—and even Pitt’s Proud heart is broke at last when Austerlitz Joins Russia to the rout. Now Jena deals A blow as deadly, and French cannon-wheels Thunder upon the cobbles of Berlin As the Imperial Guard comes marching in; Now the vain Russian, tamed by flatteries, Forswears his plighted trust—and Europe lies Palsied and cowed, fondling the upstart’s throne, Too sorely-spent to master That torrent of disaster, And England stands alone. Alone. . . . And yet how often in the dust Of universal conflict, when the bands Of Law were loosed, has dying Freedom thrust Her broken sword in these unwarlike hands! How oft has England stood, Grim as her native granite, brow bedewed With blood and sweat, to fend the victim’s part! How oft has her great heart Drawn from the wrongs of others a strong flood Of resolution, veiled in a strange calm! How often have the promptings of alarm Bred not despair but courage in her blood, That, when the cause of Liberty seemed lost, Strove to regain it, counting not the cost! What is this purblind folly that offends The Teuton’s laboured reasoning? What is it That flouts the law of numbers, and transcends The logic of the Gaul’s dry-pointed wit? A courage that begins where reason ends, Drawn from those mystic sources where the dreams Of poets have their birth: Blind valour that beseems A race impatient of the bonds of earth, That recks not present suffering nor dearth, But in imagined heavens seeks a prize Unsought, unseen by more material eyes; A breed of tongue-tied poets, who pursue Unreasoning hopes in regions where the view Of more far-sighted folk begins to fade: Such must we ever be, for so we are made! Thus, while the landlocked conflict Eastward sways. And the doomed victor sows the seeds of hate On Europe’s ravaged soil, the broad sea-ways Waft to our Isle the wealth of happier lands, Fostering the strength of Britain while she stands, Staunch and inviolate, Against that day when arrogance overflown Shall reap what it has sown. Thus, screened by an impenetrable cloud Of sail, that strength finds foothold where the loud Atlantic beats upon the Iberian shore, Where, from that hope forlorn, there springs once more Promise of hope firm-founded—as the chain Falls from the neck of Portugal and Spain, And Europe, that seemed dying, breathes again! Now Russia, wakened from her wintry trance, Bestirs her monstrous limbs, as when the green Banners of Spring o’er the sere steppes advance, And in the teeth of France A ruder challenge flings; Now Bonaparte, still smarting from the stings Of Talavera and Victoria, turns Eastward in wrath; now royal Moscow burns; Now, wilting in the keen Blast of the arctic tundras, the rank flower Of his Grand Army withers, and the flood Of icy Beresina drinks the blood Of its poor, tattered remnant, straggling back, Hungry and disillusioned, on the track Of ruin, undisguised and undenied; Now, one by one, the bulkheads that divide The prison-cells of Europe crack and cave, Falling to dust as the resistless wave Of rightful retribution overflows Their arrogant gaolers, dizzied by the blows Of unforeseen defeat. Leipzig redeems The routs of Ulm and Jena, while from Spain Unloosed, the patient might of Britain streams Through the rent bastions of the Pyrenees To flood the Gascon plain; While trembling Paris opens wide her gates To let the victors in—and Europe waits To see the tyrant beaten to his knees. At last the narrow shores of Elba chain One who had found the world too little room For his ambitions: yet that brooding brain Chafes at restraint, defiant of the doom By Fate decreed, and breaking forth again, Summons his scattered eagles to redeem The glory they have lost—but France has paid Too stern a price to prop the wanton dream That squandered her rich youth And manhood without ruth, And sowed the fields of Europe with her dead; And they that pinned their faith upon this last Most desperate cast Of the great gambler’s greed had cause to rue Their fruitless valour, when the battle-scarred Columns of the invincible Old Guard Broke on the British line at Waterloo, And, callous to the end, their leader fled. Now they that strove on land may take their wage In lust or loot: for them the tragic stage Is empty, and the proud protagonists Departed. ’Twas for those who kept the sea In patience, searching the Atlantic mists Unthanked and half-forgotten, now to see The play’s ironical peripety! XXXVIII TALE OF THE NAVAL OFFICER A.D. 1815 Nine days since Waterloo . . . but not one word Of credible news had reached us where we lay Tossed in a loose-linked cordon from Dunkirk To Finisterre, though frightened fishing-craft Brought rumours by the score of a great battle Lost, won——who knows?——in Flanders. The _Superb_, Lame duck of Nelson’s famous wild-goose-chase To Trinidad, hovered off Quiberon Bay, While _Myrmidon_ watched Bordeaux and _Pactolus_ The Tête d’Arcachon. We, in _Bellerophon_— ‘Old Bully Ruffian’, as our sailors called her— Cruised within sight of Rochefort, staggering On the huge swell of Biscay. There, one evening, The frigate _Slaney_ spoke us with dispatches And orders from _Superb_: “Napoleon, Hammered at Quatre Bras, has slipped through Paris And is heading for the coast. Keep a sharp eye On all American shipping—in particular The _Susquehannah_, Captain Caleb Cushing, Of Philadelphia. The Emperor may embark In one of the French frigates sheltering To landward of Ile d’Aix. It is imperative Not to let him escape.” Within an hour A second message followed: “It is known That the _Epervier_ is taking in Powder and fresh provisions. The French Government May ask for a safe-conduct—which, of course, Will not be granted. Numerous civilians— Query: the Emperor’s suite?—have been observed Landing on the Ile d’Aix.” Then came a third: “If Bonaparte puts out, _Bellerophon_ Must stop him at all costs: she and the _Slaney_ Will deal with the French frigates; then proceed Directly to Torbay.” But not a sail Stirred in the roads of Rochefort till, next day, The schooner _Mouche_, wearing a flag of truce, Came bobbing up alongside with a letter From General Bertrand: “The Emperor Has abdicated—not, be it understood, Compelled by force of arms or by the will Of the French nation, but solely actuated By Motives of Humanity. Now he craves Safe-conduct to America, as the due Of an honourable foe, whose one desire Is to withdraw into obscurity And end his days in peace.” That was the word: Peace, from those perjured lips! But Bertrand got His answer: No safe-conduct, and no terms Save unconditional surrender. Thus The _Mouche_ returned to Rochefort, while we lay With slip-buoys on our cables, and the yards Of topsails and topgallants swayed to the mast, Their canvas stopped with rope-yarns—as alert As a greyhound on the leash; and all that night, Our guardboats, with soft plash of muffled oars, Rowed round their frigates; for the air was thick, With rumours: first that Bonaparte was lodged In the Grand’ Place at Rochefort and acclaimed By cheering crowds; next, that he had been stowed In a huge wine-butt hidden in the ballast Of a neutral brig, a Dane, being determined To run the gauntlet—though, in truth our zeal Was wasted, for the Corsican knew better Than we that he was cornered; and that same night, A row-barge, under flag of truce, put out To warn us he would come on board _Bellerophon_ With the ebb-tide next morning. But the wind At daybreak blew dead in; so we were forced To send a barge for him. As four bells clanged She swayed alongside, and with leisured steps Mounting the leeward gangway, Bonaparte Boarded us, in a silence only broken By a feeble cheer which the _Epervier’s_ crew Sent up to speed his parting. None who lived That moment will forget it; for this man, Whose vast malignant will had cursed our lives For twenty years, seemed far less formidable Than fancy painted him: a paunchy figure In an olive-coloured greatcoat lined with scarlet And a small cockaded tricorne, which he doffed With a dramatic sweep as he saluted Captain and quarterdeck, uncovering A head of thinning dark-brown hair untouched With grey. But when he spoke the bitterest words That ever had passed his lips, that voice, whose tones Had thundered in the ears of kings pronouncing The doom of devastated nations, sounded Mild and melodious: “I am come to throw myself On the chivalrous protection of your Prince And of your laws.” Yet such was the assurance Of speech and look, he made surrender seem A condescension, and _Bellerophon_ No prison, but a prize; and though he winced To hear himself styled ‘General Bonaparte’, His confident bearing gave that scene the air Of an admiral’s inspection—his grey eyes Keenly appraising the line of officers Drawn up to greet him, with a smile for each, And a patter of questions in such rapid French That few could understand. So he passed on To his allotted quarters, there to lounge The livelong day in a strange lethargy, Reading on his camp-bed—the green silk curtains Drawn to denote his mood—or bickering With his unhappy suite: dapper Las Cases, His Chamberlain; Bertrand, his Chief of Staff, Tall, slender, melancholy; the swarthy Lallemand, Strong, thick, morose, abstracted—every one Slave of his arrogant whims. And there he dozed Like a sick lion, till, at five o’clock, Food and a glass of claret loosed a flood Of table-talk, such as a courteous host Might use to charm his guests: shrewd questions veiled In subtlest flatteries—the born quartermaster Probing the causes of the French defeats At sea; the skilled artilleryman discussing Problems of gunnery, laced with compliments On our sailors’ cleanliness, and a special tribute To the Marines: “Had I a hundred thousand Men of this calibre, there’s no enterprise I would not venture.” Sometimes came a spurt Of humour, on the unconscionable bulk Of the English breakfast; then a wry reflection: “Since I must spend the remainder of my days In England, I may as well get used to it!” He laughs his gay Italian peasant laugh; Then, suddenly, swift as a tropic sunset, The bright mood fades; black thunderclouds descend On his imperious brow—and once again He is the sullen Titan, dispossessed Of a world’s dominion. By half-past seven He has stalked off to bed. To brood? To sleep? To dream? Who knows . . . ? So the _Bellerophon_ Weighed anchor and set sail, the Biscay swell Lifting her larboard quarter, and old _Superb_ Envious of her rich burden, wallowing Two cable-lengths astern. By the eighth day We had sighted Ushant’s crags of granite, ringed With foam and wreathed in mist, the most forbidding Of landfalls. Here, in the clammy dusk of dawn, When drowsy seamen of the middle watch Swabbed the salt-sodden deck, a midshipman Spied a squat figure, muffled to the ears In an olive-coloured greatcoat, staggering Along the slippery planks, and armed him safely To the poop-ladder. There this lonely man Stood motionless till noon, a pocket-glass Held to his eye, in passionate absorption Scanning the coast of France, till Ushant sank Beneath the horizon. ’Twas a sight to melt A heart of stone, and no indelicate stranger Intruded on that vigil. We are a race Cloyed with soft sentiment. Why should we pity This ruthless ruffian who had scrawled his name In blood all over Europe? What did he care For France, save as the willing instrument Of his self-centred passion? What did he reck Of France’s sacrifice? Time and again— At Acre, on the brink of Beresina— He had cut his losses, and the greater loss Of his devoted dupes, to save his skin: I think he gazed on France, not as a lover In desolate farewell, but as a gamester Who sees his last, his most ambitious stake Swept from the board—yet still cannot believe That Fortune has disowned him. . . . And, for proof, See him next morning, those rebellious dreams Exorcized or forgotten, as _Bellerophon_ Steals round the snout of Berry Head to anchor In Brixham Roads. Behold him now, attired With scrupulous elegance: silver buckled shoes, Silk stockings, buckskin breeches, a green tunic With scarlet cape and cuffs: the full-dress uniform Of a Chasseur of the Imperial Guard, Slashed with the Legion’s cordon, and ablaze With orders of chivalry. This garb reflects The spirit’s buoyancy. He has never seen England so near before; and now the loveliness Of that green bay, backed by the girdling tors Of Dartmoor, takes his breath: “I never knew Your country was so beautiful: it reminds me Of Porto Ferrajo in Elba.” The mere strangeness Of the new scene inspires him with a presage Of undivined adventure. Fate has turned A virgin page unsullied by the errors Of the too turbulent past, on which—who knows? New exploits of more temperate complexion May yet be written! No inkling of despair Shadows his thoughts. There is a code of honour Among kings no less than thieves; so fallen kingship Can count on generosity. Though the Emperor May have forfeited his throne, no power on earth Can rob the Man of grandeur. Only see How these crowds of fisherfolk and townsmen, drawn Over the surface of the crinkling sea Like particles of iron to the magnet Of royalty, flock out in rowboats crammed With craning faces! The familiar Incense of notoriety, by now Breath of his life, sustains him as he struts On the _Bellerophon’s_ quarterdeck, or poses At her gangways and stern-windows, drinking in Awe if not adulation. Let them take Their fill of gazing at this spectacle Unique in history! Now he singles out A pretty, well-dressed woman, sweeping off His hat with Latin gallantry, and laughing To see her blush. It seems this wintry exile May have charming compensations! That same evening The rainbow bubble bursts, pricked in mid-air. Orders from London thus: “_Bellerophon_ Will sail forthwith to Plymouth and re-embark Her captive in _Northumberland_. Captain Maitland Will break the news to General Bonaparte” In two words . . . Saint Helena. The stunned man Confronts his doom in silence—then erupts Like a live volcano in gusts of wounded pride, Rage and self-pity. “Is this your English honour— This, England’s vaunted liberty? I come hither As a guest, not as a prisoner, to invoke The protection of her laws. All that I ask Is air and water: in return she gives me Sentence of death! Better had I been thrown On the mercy of the Bourbons, or cooped up In your Tower of London! This is a barbarity Worse than the iron cage of Tamerlane; But even that Mongol savage would have spared me Gratuitous insults. Sir, you call me ‘General’: Why not ‘Archbishop?’ Why not, at least, ‘First Consul?’ Such was the title under which your King, Who named me ‘his brother’, once accredited Ambassadors to my court. But let that be . . . It is enough that England, by this deed Of rank duplicity, has smirched her flag And forfeited her honour. History Shall have the final word.” It is recorded That he slept ill that night, waking to hear The ship’s bell clanging forth each hateful hour, And, through the dark, the watchman’s windblown cry: “All’s well!”—All’s well with whom?—while the _Bellerophon_ Bore Westward for the Start. The last scene closes Off Cawsand, where _Northumberland_ appears To claim her prisoner. A Captain’s Guard Turns out, draws up in silence. (The quarterdeck Looks like a scaffold!) Suddenly we hear Three ruffles of drums: the muskets of the guard Snap up to the ‘Present!’—and here he comes With firm, unhurried steps; his sallow face Unshaven, haggard, overcast; his eyes Sullen, expressionless. At the gangway-top He halts and ceremoniously bows Three times to the ship’s company assembled In the waist and on the fo’c’sle. Then he turns, Clutches the gangway man-ropes, and goes down To the barge that waits beneath. Above, the guard Grounds arms, dismisses—and the play is done. XXXIX INTERLUDE: MANY-COLOURED ISLE Ours is a many-coloured isle, whose face Scored by the furrows of the plough betrays The tincture of earth’s ancient alchemies In tones so various that unwonted eyes, Wearied by tropic suns or arctic snow, May scarce believe so small a plot can show Such rare diversity. There is no heart Exiled from England but must feel a start Of pride and pleasure when her moon-pale clifts Loom through the reek of channel-spray, or rifts Of earth-born vapour; not a soul but yields Its paean of thanksgiving when pale fields Of flint-bloomed arable or smooth downlands show The veiled effulgence of the chalk below; Nor feels less rapture when the oaken shades Of Wealden woodlands open on broad glades Of meadow-land, where roofs of tile or thatch, Mellowed by moss and lichen, warm to match The amber glow of sunset, and the vanes Of village steeples twinkle o’er the plains Like too-precocious stars—or suddenly The blossomed orchard boughs of Medway vie With moonshine yet unrisen, as they throw On twilit vales their coverlet of snow. Yet move a space to Westward—and the land Changes its hues, as though a bolder hand Mingled the pigments. Here the shallow sand Of hungry heaths defies the valiant plough To tame a waste where no tall tree may grow Save the black-visaged pine, whose greed disputes Scant moisture with tenacious heather-roots And tangles of tough brake—yet when July Loosens their papery bloom, these deserts lie Drowned in a spate of purple, and the stark Trunks of those gloomy pine-trees shed their bark To glow like blood-red pillars. Once again Step Westward. Here the dry dun-coloured plain Of Salisbury, crowned with hoary cromlechs, seems Rapt in remote and other-worldly dreams Beneath lark-haunted skies, while in her sleep, Like shadows cast by cloud, slow-moving sheep Dapple her face—yet, from those plains forlorn, Five freshets of unfailing water—Bourne, Nadder and Wylie, Ebble and Avon, spill Their limpid moisture on the meads and fill The tributary valleys with a light So crystal-clear that unaccustomed sight Blinks at their lucid richness, every hue Brilliant as green blades seen through drops of dew. Yet dwell not by these voiceless waters, lest A nympholepsy seize you ere the crest Of Egdon, famed in tragic story, frowns On Dorset’s sodden marls and those sheer downs From whose scored flanks the shameless giant heaves His antic phallus skyward—where the leaves Of haunted woodlands whisper in your ears Forgotten incantations, darkling fears, Ageless forebodings: for there is no shire Of England deeper foundered in the mire Of earth-fast magic—so wise men beware That gentle, innocent-seeming, milkmaid air, And flee her witching accents as they pass Westward to lowland Devon, whose lush grass, Unseared by blenching frost, finds winter keep For herds of silken kine that browse knee-deep, Bright as the cloven chestnut when it spills, Ruddy as fallen beech-leaves, or clear rills Ambered with moorland peat; and ruddier yet Gleams her rich tilth that, when the sun is set, Gives back the glow that warmed it, and in days Of midmost Winter, when her inland ways Lie glazed with ice, or choked with vagrant snows Down-drifted from her tors of granite, shows A mimicry of April warmth, which frees Untimely primrose-buds, and tempts the bees To fruitless roving. Here unsullied seas Shine with the azure of a halcyon’s wings, And from the sun-warmed cliff the furze-bush flings A waft of almond-scented air that mingles With saltier odours rising from her shingles, Or whispering sands that pave some sheltered cove With tawny gold. Yet some there be who love More tenderly those Cornish capes, where Spring First lights on England with the blossoming Of naked blackthorn-twigs that gleam as white As a gull’s pinions. Here the seaward light Is more subdued; for every rasping gale That roars from mid-Atlantic sheds a veil Of thin-spun gauze upon each craggy clift Where creeping thyme, sea-campion and thrift Weave their pale patterns in the headland turf, And venturous rock-samphires drink the surf That rimes their glaucous fingers; where the hues Woven in that flowery carpet—tenderest blues Of vernal squill and milkwort, amethyst Of thyme and thrift, are mingled in a mist So delicately shaded and so dimmed By evanescent vapours, they seem limned In pastel, not in pigment, and to share An element that’s neither earth nor air, But born of drifting sea-reek as it laves Those far Bellerian headlands, where huge waves Break on the granite Longships in wild spray That shrouds the Scillies, thirty miles away. And some there be who love more dearly yet The kindlier, homelier hues of Somerset, Where Quantock’s rufous fields and leafy chase Rise from a sullied sea, whose changeful face, Silken in calm or ruffled in unrest, Wears the bloomed nacre of the ring-dove’s breast; Where, one wide arm dipped in the turbid waves, Grey Mendip broods above her dripping caves And subterraneous waters—while between Those girdling hills outspread the levels green Of Sedgemoor, laid on Severn’s tidal silt, Where angry blood in Britain last was spilt. Yet, though the mine-dry wastes of Mendip hold More ghosts than living souls, and lie a-cold When the plain burgeons, earliest April fills Her valleys with a dance of daffodils, And her grim face never more lovely is Than when her brows are wreathed in clematis Whose awns of wintry silver fling their foam On the stark thorns that cling to batch and combe; And never doth a light more tender dwell On English earth than when the passing-bell Of Summer stills; when rime-white gossamer Blanches the bent at dawn—yet the bland air Of noontide, moisture-laden, seems to hold Those turf-moors cradled in a weft of gold; When the scarred walls of lime-washed farmsteads shine Like ivory, mirrored in the peaty rhine; When apples clustered on their orchard-trees Gleam like rare fruits of the Hesperides, Or dappling the lush lattermath in heaps Of fallen gold, diffuse a warmth which steeps Their garths in drunken fragrance. Slowly steals The homeward herd to milking, and the wheels Of distant farm-carts rumble—but no creak Of rusty hinge or axle here may break The slumberous stillness of a land that lies Drowsed in fulfilment. . . . Now to ampler skies And airier upland fields we take our flight, Where over coloured Cotswold leaps the light, And, like a wind-flawed sea, her bearded wheat And barley bend their tasseled heads to meet Wafts of a shrewder air, as cool and sweet As mountain water. Once these naked wolds Whitened with myriad flocks, and from their folds Gave forth at shearing-tide a wealthier fleece Than Jason from his fabled Chersonese Oared home to Hellas. Now the ploughman pares Their russet substance, and his armoured shares Turn the sheep-nibbled sward to chequered fields Of crumbling tilth, and stone-walled Cotswold yields Less wealth if no less beauty. Miles on miles, Far out of sight, her sunlit cornland smiles, Splashed with fierce sainfoin and the cooler green Of purpled trefoils, or the pallid sheen Of beanfields that on windless nights pervade With vagrant scents the roads the Roman made. But deem not that this vacant upland fails Of human fellowship—for the narrow vales Deep-sunken in its rolling contours hide Shy hamlets, whose remembrance is the pride Of many a homesick heart; whose dimpling streams, Colne, Evenlode and Windrush, lull the dreams Of thirsty exiles with a song that seems Sweetest on earth, as through the tremulous haze Of fever, wandering minds recall the ways Of Burford, Bibury, Lower Swell and Slaughter, Stanton and Stanway, Bourton-on-the-Water, Farmcote and Snowshill—blest epitomes Of all remembered England; since in these The inventive eagerness of man’s device Has joined with nature in the artifice Of Court and Manor, cottage, church and farm, All wrought with equal graces from the warm Fine-textured oolite which is the heart Of Cotswold—and each village makes a part Of the sweet earth that mothered it, resumed Into her quarried matrix, and illumed By the same inward radiance. Nor alone Doth Cotswold profit by this peerless stone; For wheresoe’er Jurassic seas have spilt Their shelly slimes, the hands of men have built Dwellings and shrines of mellow ashlar hewed From the same stuff, with various aptitude Of art or handcraft. Ever to the North That core of freestone stretches and gives forth Its tawny riches: from the clover-leys Of green Northampton to the Rutland clays; From Leicester’s foxy coverts, on the bleak Grasslands that feed the springs of Soar and Wreak, To Welland’s clammy vale, where Stamford lours In lonely splendour, and her steepled towers Brood on the drearness of the Deeping Fen, Black-soiled and sodden—rising once again Seaward of Market Rasen to enfold The thirsty hamlets of the Lincoln wold, Where, straddling Humber’s sandbanks, it invades The boulder-clays of Holdernesse, and fades In iron-hearted Cleveland. It were vain To hope for livelier hues in the sad plain That skirts the Pennine sheepwalks, or to seek Light in that sombre soil—save where the Peak With pinnacles of dazzling limestone cards The smoke of Sheffield, and in deep gorges guards Pellucid Dove and Derwent. Rather turn Westward anew, where blood-red sunsets burn On wastes of blackened ling, or flawless snow Sweeps from untrodden moors to swell the flow Of more impetuous streams; where Wharfe and Swale Roar through their dripping woods, where Wensleydale Outspreads her wealthier pasturage, and Ure Flows full past Jervaulx. There’s no air more pure Than the thin dome of crystal that enskies Those Pennine fells with blue faint as the eyes Of wan forget-me-nots. Even in Summer’s heat, Their shallow rain-fed puddles floored with peat, And marshy plats where drifts of cotton-grass Whiten the brink of many a black crevass, Reflect a wintry gleam. Yet, where the crest Of Ingleborough scowls upon the West, Where cloud-capt Whernside bares his stony flank Or the cold fells of Calder spread their rank Acres of ashen sour-grass, that no sheep Will graze, see how lime-laden waters seep Fanwise in arrowy flushes of fresh green, Tender beyond belief; and on the lean Ledges of earth that flaw the naked lime Spring creeping cushions of insurgent thyme That streak their scarps with purple. But beneath Spreads a wide prospect that no rival hath In wealth or squalor—where the skyward smoke Or settling fumes of mill and factory cloak Mersey’s drear mosses, and a phantom sun Fades like a death-sick comet on the dun Wastes of a God-forgotten earth, where man Has murdered beauty, and set an iron ban On all that’s comely; where the heart of night Throbs with a red apocalyptic light, And day shows naught unsullied but fierce plumes Of hissing steam. Yet from these savage glooms Raise but an instant your dejected eyes, And they shall view a virgin paradise, A green immaculate Eden, undefiled By fallen man’s devices—where the wild Valleys and fells of Cumberland condense In compass small more beauties than the sense Or mind may measure: stark magnificence Of untamed mountain, thunderous cascades And singing streams that thread the narrow glades Of birch and oak with silver, or dispersed In pastures where a living green is nursed By their unbridled floods, serenely sink To deathlike stillness on the shelving brink Of meres that in clear crystal circumfuse Their ambient mountains with the changeful hues Of earth and sky, and in translucent deeps Lock the drowned image of a world that sleeps In timeless trance—till some faint waft bestirs Their limpid water, and the surface blurs, And all that mirrored wonder vanishes. Such visions you may mark where the sharp screes Of Wasdale plunge into the inky womb Of her dark water, or profounder gloom Leadens the waves of Crummock; yet I think A tenderer beauty girds the grassy brink Of gentle Rydal, through whose fringing reeds The lapsing current of clear Rothay feeds Green-islanded Winander, where dark woods Shadow her shores. Yet all the fitful moods Of these sweet-smelling lakelands have their birth In moist Atlantic airs that cleanse both earth And sky, within whose pure transparency, By glancing showers freshened, crag and tree, Fell, fold and cottage, tarn and torrent, wear A heavenly radiance—only to compare With that which sparkles from night-fallen snows, Gleams through the dewdrop’s crystal lens, or glows In the soft rainbow’s arc of splintered light, Or frosty starshine on a cloudless night. And where, from the black throat of Borrowdale, Cold Derwent pours to chill the widening vale, Some remnant of that magic light persists To smile on Solway, shrouded in the mists That ebb from Esk and Liddel, as she wends Seaward through her sad firth—and England ends! XL RURAL RIDE A.D. 1830 When Cobbett rode from Salisbury town September dews bespread the down With weft of silvery gossamer; On Salisbury’s sunlit spire the vane Sparkled in the morning air. He rode toward the open Plain, A well-fed man without a care, Whose lively, smiling face belies The smoulder of pugnacious eyes; Abundant health and conscious power Race through his pulses as they beat In rhythm with his horse’s feet; The radiant hopes of youth revive: On such a day, in such an hour, How sweet it is to be alive— To leave the stifling street behind, To climb the downland’s shelving sides And greet the morning with a mind Unclouded! _Mr Cobbett rides_. . . . He rode uphill with a loose rein— The springy turf that clad the Plain So soft, he seemed to ride on air; And sweet and clear as April rain Larks were singing everywhere. Alas, for him the fluttering lark Shed his crystal notes in vain; For Mr Cobbett’s brow grew dark With anger, and his buoyant mood Sank like a plummet, when he viewed The hateful hill of Sarum, crowned With barren scarps—that lifeless mound Whose loathly name bespoke the worst Of rotten boroughs: the accurst Outmoded system that decreed Wealth to an idle few, and need To toiling millions; the dead hand That throttled his beloved land With ice-cold grip; the avatar Of feudal greed and wasteful war; The fount of paper money poured To glut the insatiable horde Of smug tax-eaters, lawyers, bankers And city squires; the worm that cankers The rose of England, overblown With ostentation pomp and pride; The _Thing_ which bloats the swollen town And starves the lank-ribbed countryside: The _Thing_ that fouls the fly-blown Wen With a hatch of tinselled ‘gentlemen’ Spawned in the midden-heap of war— While those who held the shattered farms Of Hougomont and Quatre Bras Limp the roads and beg for alms! And through his bitter blood there ran The anger of an honest man Who sees the rights he loves the most Scorned or irrevocably lost. So he drove the spur in his horse’s flank To leap the roadway’s chalky bank And leave that devilish sight behind As he galloped into a freshening wind That cleansed his brain of much besides Its anger. _Mr Cobbett rides_ . . . He rode as lonely and as free As a ship that sails an empty sea, Blithe as the roving honey-bee That on wind-lifted wings boomed over The sunlit verges white with clover; And through his spirit, as he went, Stole a miraculous content, As the healing calm of unconfined Wind-swept spaces soothed his mind With memories of a happier day When, long since, as he rode that way To Netheravon, unawares He came upon a field of hares And paused to watch their gentle play: Half a hundred hares as one Nibbling the blades of dewy grass And frisking in the morning sun— Till the wind shifted, and, alas, They smelt as one the charnel breath Of Man, and crouched as still as death Each within his grassy form! And Mr Cobbett’s heart grew warm With the remembered tenderness Of that rare sight—till new distress Poisoned its sweetness; for he saw Another he could not forget, A vision of vindictive law That chilled his new-warmed heart with hate: Two village lads at Winchester Hanged for the taking of one hare. Two hapless lads, whose only crimes Were hunger and the hardihood Bred of these disjointed times; Who, maddened by the reckless mood That heartens men without a hope, Preferred the scaffold and the rope To starving on the parish dole! And harrowed by that piteous scene— The victims, mute and woebegone, The black cap and the scarlet gown— Mr Cobbett’s kindly soul Sickened with profound despair To think what England once had been, When such poor folk, by right of birth, Claimed an inalienable share And tenure of their native earth; When even the least enjoyed the yield Of labour in the common field, And kept his pig, and grazed his cow, And gathered firewood on the waste To warm his bones in Winter. Now The hirelings of a heartless caste, Owners of factories and mills, Puffed with undigested pride, And flushed by the tax-eater’s greed, Have stolen half the countryside With their accursed Enclosure Bills; While humble folk who’ve earned the meed Of painful husbandry, despoiled Of their scant share of paradise, See high park-walls and palings rise About the land where once they toiled. Now the mantrap’s iron teeth Lurk in the woods and on the heath, And never a rabbit or a hare Sweetens the labourer’s skimpy fare— Though men with hunger-hollowed eyes Hear the grain-fed pheasant’s cries Taunting their stomachs as they gaze Disheartened on the dwindling blaze That lights their cheerless chimney-sides, And shiver. _Mr Cobbett rides_ . . . He rode where the bare downlands sink Like a falling wave to the green brink Of Wylie, gentlest and most clear Of the welling rivers of the Plain; Where, tangled in the silvery skein That nets their shining water-meads, Neighbouring hamlets lie as near As loosely-threaded necklace beads Or daisy-heads in a daisy-chain: Wyshford and Fisherton de la Mere, Sherrington, Beyton, Codford, Wylie, And Upton Lovell, nestling shyly Under the fleece of the Great Ridge Wood, Rapt in the blessed quietude Of a child that sleeps and sleeping smiles: Each village in itself complete With Farmstead, Manor, Tower or Steeple— (Five churches in as many miles!)— A Vicarage and a winding street Of cottages, where simple people Had lived and loved and aged and died Unwitting of the world outside Their sanctuary. And as he rode The heart of Mr Cobbett glowed With joy to think that here at least The Eden he had loved and lost Still throve unseen. But when he crossed The crumbling bridge and leaky hatch, He saw the signet of the Beast Stamped on every mouldering thatch And rafter sagged with age; he saw Dank bedrooms, gaping at the skies; Broken windows, stuffed with straw; Smokeless chimneys, empty sties; Gardens, abandoned and unsown, With squitch and bindweed overgrown; Manor and manse with windows blear And blank as are a dead man’s eyes; And in the midst a monstrous church, Cold as an empty sepulchre. In such a void ’twere vain to search For hope—and yet that shrine was built In the firm faith of happier days By prosperous folk who thronged the choir And filled the nave with songs of praise. Whose was the blame? Who bore the guilt? Perchance some wastrel of a Squire Who scorns his forbears’ settled ways Of frugal husbandry to seek More pungent pleasures in the reek Of London, where the squandered rent Wrung from neglected farms is spent On sluts and panders, drink and dice: Perchance some Priest, whose darling vice Is indolence or avarice; A smooth, plump, tithe-fed absentee With four fat livings in his fee; An unrepentant pluralist Who thinks the pittance that he doles To one starved curate amply pays The plighted debt he owes to Christ His Master, and the immortal souls Of an abandoned flock that strays In pastures waterless and drear: Perhaps some tight-lipped Overseer Who culls that sorry flock to feed His friends the farmers’ wolfish greed; Who recks not if the labourer thrive Or starve, so he be kept alive To work. What matter that the wage Of long-drawn toil fails to assuage The pangs of emptiness, or fill The stomachs of his hungry brats? The Poor Box, and the Parish Rates, Will bury them and foot the bill; And, at the worst, the workhouse waits To spare a pauper’s nameless tomb! Thus, as he rode, a deepening gloom Shadowed Mr Cobbett’s thought; To see long centuries of toil And patient virtue turned to naught; To see these folk, who lately fought, Not solely for their native soil But others’ freedoms, more enslaved Then those whose liberties they saved; To see them left to starve and die Unfriended, by their cold firesides. Were these the fruits of victory And valour? _Mr Cobbett rides_ . . . He rode by Wylie’s banks to where The comely town of Warminster Simmered in the noonday heat— The pavements and the spacious street Between its white-stone houses loud With the chatter of a lively crowd Driven in for Market Day: A crowd so debonair and gay That Mr Corbett half forgot The squalors of the labourer’s lot, Seeing this show of country riches: For here were portly farmers, dressed In their Sunday-go-to-meeting best Of Wilton broadcloth coat and breeches; Pretty daughters and thrifty wives With buxom shapes and beaming faces Swarming round the pedlars’ pitches Like honey-bees about their hives, Cheapening ribbons threads and laces; Grooms that showed a stallion’s paces; Buyers, fingering horses’ legs For windgalls; gipsies hawking pegs And frails and flaskets wove from withies; Farriers in their cave-like stithies, Tinkling anvils, blowing bellows; Wheelwrights whittling spokes and felloes For gaily-painted gigs and floats; Fat horses, nuzzling chaff and oats; Butchers’ shops, beyond belief Hung with primest pork and beef; Chandlers cluttered hugger-mugger With chests of tea and loaves of sugar, Kegs of vinegar, jars of spice, Tubs of treacle and sacks of rice; Drapers’ shelves, heaped bale on bale With Lyons silk and Suffolk kersey, Woollens from the Taunton Vale, Cottons from the mills of Mersey— And from that bustling street there swells A medley of provoking smells: The pungent scent of horseflesh wet With lathery foam or runnelled sweat; Warm fumes of stable and of byre; The reek of singeing hooves and fire; The tang of pomace, balm of malt, Uprising from the tavern’s vault To quicken thirst, and overhead, The bakehouse smell of new-made bread, That, clearer than the noonday chime Wafted from St Denys’ tower, Told him it was dinner time. So he hitched his horse by the tavern door, And his thoughts forsook the hungry poor To seek the joys he relished most: A country inn, a smiling host, A market-ordinary filled With farmer-folk, a trencher piled With juicy cuts from a smoking roast, And a tankard topped with creamy foam; For never was Cobbett more at home Than in the jovial company Of men who lived by husbandry: Small squires and graziers, met together To talk of prices, crops and weather, To pass the steaming jorum round And stuff their stomachs with good fare; And he smiled to think how staunch and sound At heart these Wessex yeomen were: Wiltshire’s very blood and bone, Tough as leather, strong as stone, Yet full of kindly cranks and quips, And English to their fingertips. But while they gorged, the whisper ran That this prodigious trencherman Who shared their feast none other was Than Mr Cobbett . . . and the sweet Incense of deference and applause Brought Mr Cobbett to his feet And launched him on a hot harangue. He told how half their trouble sprang From War’s illusive wealth: those days When wheat was five-pound-ten a quarter And easy money flowed like water: ’Twas then that farmers first began To scorn their fathers’ thrifty ways And ape the landed gentleman, With hunters housed in every stable, And port wine on the dinner table. But then came days of Peace, that set A swingeing burden on their backs: Nine hundred million pounds of debt And twenty million pounds of tax Sucked from their blood to feed a crew Of war-contractors, bankers, brewers, And holders of fat sinecures, Who battened on the nation’s purse Like maggots on a fly-struck ewe. Next, paper money—the prime curse Of palsied, spendthrift governments— Downed their prices, raised their rents, And drove the feckless to the shame Of debt and bankruptcy, or worse— Since many a farmer soon became No more than a day-labourer On land that once he called his own. But what the remedy? There was none Of worth that did not first abate The crushing loads that Church and State Thrust upon their aching backs. Therefore: Away with Tithe and Tax! Give every full-grown man his vote: Rub all their rotten boroughs out, And teach the tax-devouring swarm Their lesson! In a word: Reform! He ceased; and one and all agreed They liked a man who never minced His words—though some misliked his creed, And many of the wealthier winced. So Mr Cobbett left them there To cool their tempers, as he rode Northward, where Avon’s waters flowed Through meadows ambered by evening air That ebbed from out the Pewsey Vale: A land of milk and honey, pale With shaven stubbles and the green Of new-fledged aftermath between; And, riding there, his heart was moved By an unwilled, unreasoning bliss To think that of all lands men loved None was more loveable than this. So, as the westering sun declined And sank beneath the fiery hem Of eve’s new-risen clouds, his mind Dreamed of a New Jerusalem Builded on this dear soil, where none Should profit by his kinsmen’s dearth, But without grudge or lust of gain Partake the matchless benison That God had given to English earth In kindliness and brotherhood. . . . Yet, as he muses thus, the Plain Grows dim with dusk; that magic light Fades from the shapes of field and wood, Leaving him visionless—as night Falls on the darkling solitude Of an unfeatured land, and hides Its promise. . . . _Mr Cobbett rides_ . . . . XLI PASSAGE TO AUSTRALIA A.D. 1834 I was a Ploughman. . . . Proud, My trampling team behind, I whistled as I ploughed And strode into the wind; Keen upland breezes tanned My temples as I drove My coulter through the land My faultless furrow clove, Till wrongs and hunger cramped My brooding mind . . . and now, In chains of iron clamped, These barren waves we plough. I was a Shepherd. . . . High On the bare downland’s breast My gentle flock and I Like clouds would stray or rest; Often, at lambing-tide, Late-homing folk would mark How on the lone hillside, My lantern’s moving spark Glimmered through flakes of snow, Then seek their beds and sleep Blessing my vigil. . . . Now A stranger folds my sheep. I (so my comrades tell) Was naught but a bad penny: A poaching ne’er-do-well Who ne’er did ill to any; A gay, high-tempered lad Who fancied sport and liquor, Not wholly good nor bad, But that my wits were quicker. I chanced my luck and failed— ’Twas my wits against theirs; Squire’s keepers had me jailed, And here I lie. . . . Who cares? Mine was a comely trade: Few labouring men could match The hedge my billhook laid, The neatness of my thatch; I smoothed the pikel’s hafts And shaped the ladder-stale; Mine were the ancient crafts Of sickle, scythe and flail— Till men found cheaper means To thresh their corn than me; I wrecked the damned machines That robbed us. . . . Here I be. I was a soldier. . . . Few Envied the trade I plied: I fought at Waterloo And lost a leg beside. I joined the wreckers’ gang: ’Twas better to be thrown In Salisbury jail or hang Than beg and starve alone. Now to the utmost ends Of earth I fare to die. These felons are my friends: Who asks for more? Not I! No felons we—but folk Of hardihood and worth; Sound as our native oak; Salt of the English earth; From our strong loins shall spring, For all these shameful gyves, A race whose name shall ring As long as freedom lives: Anzac shall know their deeds And flaming Sari Bair: Wherever England bleeds Our children will be there! XLII VICTORIAN REVERIE A.D. 1819-1901 (1) Thus England, rich in honour—in all else Impoverished . . . Her old unhappy King Mutters and weeps at Windsor; soon the Regent, Sot, glutton, libertine, unlamented sinks To an inglorious grave, and a buffoon— The bluff, thick-witted sailor, William—makes The throne a laughing-stock. Who shall succeed This oafish brotherhood? Clarence and Cumberland— Thank Heaven!—are childless; the well-meaning Kent, Harried by exigent creditors, retired To his wife’s home at Amorbach. It seems England will soon have done with Kings—and few Bewail their loss; for never has the star Of Kingship sunk so low. The word ‘Republic’, Now muttered by innumerable lips, Suggests a panacea. Suddenly, The bankrupt Kents, flushed by their proud performance Of a dynastic duty, beg their way From Amorbach to London. An Heir-Presumptive Is duly born at Kensington, and christened Alexandrina Victoria: a new name, Foreign in savour, yet destined to adorn A reign unmatched in greatness, dignity, And length of days. Here in the Spartan air Of that half-dismantled palace, unaware Of her exalted destiny, unshaken By the earth-quaking quarrels and intrigues Which heave about the innocent epicentre Of her calm, moveless life, the Princess Drina— ‘Our little Mayflower’, her father calls her— Thrives on her native soil: a sturdy child, High-spirited, not uncomely, fiercely guarded By two possessive dragons: first, her mother— Disliked, despised, but fretfully resolved To profit by her daughter’s station; next Her governess, Fräulein Lehzen, paragon Of middle-class propriety, yet steeped In the strict observances and protocols Of a petty German court. It is their duty And privilege to shield the precious heiress From the scandalous contagions that pollute Her wicked uncles’ lives. Princess Victoria— (‘Drina’ sounds too familiar now) must learn The good old German virtues: Modesty, Courage and Thrift, in implicit reproach To British laxity, never forgetting, When Queenship gives her wealth, the debt she owes Her childhood’s mentors. Her very dress is chosen To emphasize a flawless innocence: A white lace frock, a swansdown bonnet trimmed With small white rosebuds. Was she so innocent As they believed? There is a wary strain Of Tudor shrewdness in our royal blood. Did not those prominent blue eyes observe The Stuart emerald flashing in the hair Of Lady Conyngham, and the bastard brood Of her FitzClarence cousins? Were there not hints Of a liberty dear Lehzen would deplore In the conduct of her mother with Captain Conroy, Her Irish major-domo? Did she not grasp The meaning of that shocking scene at Windsor When Uncle William, flushed with wine, laid bare The family feud, and brutally berated Her dearest mother? In old age she mourned A ‘sad, unhappy childhood’ . . . Childish memories Are long, and royal memories even longer; Yet she had cause for happiness in the love Of her strictly-chosen playmates: her half-sister The Princess Feodora, and her own namesake, John Conroy’s little daughter, in cloudless days Refreshed by simple pleasures: breathless canters On her ‘sweet little Rosy’; dancing-lessons From La Taglioni; (how she loved to dance!) State balls at Windsor; as a special treat The Opera; then, even more exciting, Visits from her German cousins that like the breath Of a Spring breeze dispelled the cloistral airs Of frowsty femininity which stifled Her life at Kensington: Ernst and Alexander Of Wurtemburg—the very first young men She had ever known! Small wonder this Miranda Was ravished by their masculine graces! Next, Ferdinand and Augustus, even taller And more distinguished. Last in this crescendo Of fascination, the Saxe-Coburg brothers Ernest and Albert. Ernest, she admitted, Was no Adonis; but his brother Albert, Perfect in manly beauty, no less rare In his native sweetness, made all others seem Dull and ill-favoured. What a rich delight To sit beside him on the sofa, turning The pages of an album, or to listen Enraptured while he plays! The three short weeks Of this angelic visitation fled Like a glimpse of Paradise. She was seventeen, And he but three months younger . . . Meanwhile, at Windsor, The King pursues his blundering way, or snores Amid a yawning court. Within a year The few small wits he ever boasted dwindle To dotardry, and, as he lived, he dies— With a platitude on his lips. In the soft hush Of a June dawn, a post-chaise rattles up To the palace-doors of Kensington, discharging Two dusty figures: the Lord Chamberlain And the Archbishop. A bedraggled Lehzen, Smelling of sleep and caraway-seeds, protests That the Princess is abed—and keeps them waiting For a whole hour! Then, hurriedly descending In slippers and dressing-gown, her hair undone, Victoria receives them on their knees, And learns that she is Queen . . . (2) _What of our Island?_ _Perchance she broods or sleeps? Where are the great_ _Prophetic voices now? The hooves of War_ _Have trampled out those spiritual fires_ _That, kindled by the sparks of the Bastille,_ _Illumined a new earth with the false dawn_ _Of universal liberty: the torch_ _Of Byron spent in Greece; the white-hot flame_ _Of Shelley quenched untimely in the deeps_ _Of the Tyrrhenian; Wordsworth’s beacon tamed_ _To the quiet shine of a domestic lamp_ _Amid his native hills. An age of Titans,_ _Elizabethan in its majesty,_ _Has flowered and faded. Yet the Spirit of Man_ _Like an impeded torrent ever seeks_ _New channels for its flood . . . nay, even gains_ _Strength from obstruction. Now, at last, Reform_ _Has whirled away the rotten boroughs; now_ _An ampler franchise loosens the dumb lips_ _Of Industry: now Mr. Cobbett sits_ _In Parliament for Oldham: Manchester_ _Shall speak as loud as Sarum, and release_ _The rural labourer from the degradations_ _Of the old Poor Law. At a single stroke_ _Black slavery is abolished, and the dreams_ _Of Wilberforce fulfilled. This is the century_ _Of the Machine. If the hard-headed North_ _Has little use for poets, it has much_ _For thrifty mechanisms that shall whirl_ _Its thrumming spindles. Stephenson has given_ _Watt’s Monster wheels: his locomotives race—_ _At fifteen miles an hour!—from Liverpool_ _To Manchester, with no more casualties_ _Than one wool-gathering Cabinet Minister_ _Dazed by their speed! Thus the steel network spreads_ _To our Island’s most remote recesses, bringing_ _The seeds of ancient wisdom to young minds_ _Newly awakened. In rude laboratories_ _These humble seekers patiently pursue_ _Their proud and selfless task. Thus Humphry Davy,_ _Bred on an obscure Cornish farm, reveals_ _Flashes of intuition swift and wayward_ _As summer lightning; a Cumbrian weaver’s lad,_ _John Dalton, born in poverty, propounds_ _The Atomic Theory, and Michael Faraday,_ _Reared in a village blacksmith’s shop, displays_ _The falcon sweep of an imagination_ _Unmatched since Newton’s, bending to his will_ _That force which Franklin, with his flying-kite,_ _Snatched from the lightning flash, and thus contriving_ _The rudimentary Dynamo—new source_ _Of powers invisible which shall change the fate_ _Of humankind. So Science, in rebirth,_ _Outsoars the poet’s dream. But let none think_ _That Poetry is dead. Deep in the wolds_ _Of Lincolnshire young Alfred Tennyson,_ _Uncouth and swarthy, strides the wind-swept hills;_ _Hears, from afar, the solemn undertone_ _Of spent seas pounding on untrodden sands,_ _And mutters as he goes. The Pennine fells_ _Nurse the thin flame, precocious and foredoomed,_ _Of three strange sisters; and in London’s grime_ _Charles Dickens kindles from the cinder-heap_ _Of a neglected youth a generous glow_ _Of kindliness and humour that shall warm_ _The hearts of generations_. . . . (3) The young Queen Sees nothing of these marvels, her blue eyes Dazzled by sudden fortune—while her mentors Meet, with dismay, an unexpected streak Of adamant in their charge. Affairs of State, Money, and Patronage are the sole concern Of the Sovereign and her Ministers. Neither ties Of blood nor debts of gratitude can impinge On these prerogatives: even Uncle Leopold Is snubbed for his advice! The child will queen it In deed no less than name—discreetly guided By Melbourne, fine (if somewhat faded) flower Of the Regency’s rank hotbed, who recaptures Long-lost illusions in the fatherly care Of this gay, impulsive creature. Innocence And Charm, alas! are not enough: the realm Desires more serious basis for its loyalty Than Sentiment—and its unresponsive mood Finds voice at Westminster, where a petition Of thirteen hundred thousand signatures Is rolled into the House. Democracy Demands new measures of Reform, rehearsed In the People’s Charter. Ominous rioting Breaks out in Birmingham: all the smoky North Is in a ferment. Any stick will do To beat old Melbourne with—and if the Queen Gets in the way and shares the punishment, So much the worse for her! An ugly scandal Arms them anew. This bread-and-butter court Is not so virtuous after all! The Queen Is hissed—at Ascot! Something must be done To stay the rot, or her worm-eaten throne May crumble into powder. The shrewd wits Of Uncle Leopold provide the remedy: Marriage . . . These British are a romantic folk, Prudish yet sentimental. All the world Smiles on young lovers. Love’s the talisman That brings the unimaginable lives Of Royalty to earth; the common touch Of mere humanity which transforms a Queen Into a woman. Let her subjects share Raptures of lawful love, the anxious pride Of a well-filled nursery! His homesick heart Steeled by the call of duty, Albert of Coburg Stalks to the altar. No unruly flame Warms his dispassionate mind; but the young Queen Has fire enough for both. It is a marriage Of complementary natures: on one side Ardent idolatry strong to assuage The loneliness of Queenship: on the other Much native kindliness and affection, mingled With admiration. He will even bring Some glimmerings of culture to enlighten That dingy palace life, with its dull round Of table-games and small-talk—for his brain Is curious and acquisitive, his ear Attuned to verse and music. Bach and Mendelssohn Are given the _entrée_; Constitutional Law Replaces gossip as a common theme Of conversation. Then, a growing family— Six children in ten years! affirms the legend Of royal domesticity. Above all, The Consort is a Man—in this the antidote To a woman-ridden youth. Her nature craves The stimulus of male company, first supplied By poor old Melbourne. What wonder that she finds More than enough in her dear Albert? Thus, Strong in each other’s comfort, they rebuild The crumbling Georgian throne on sure foundations Of unassailable virtue. Revolution May rock the realms of Europe; civil strife, Fruit of the Hungry Forties, may embitter The life of Britain; ill-conducted war In the Crimea bleed her; mutiny Ravage her Eastern Empire: yet her crown Abides, unchallenged and revered: the symbol Of an innate stability, unchanged Amid a changeful world. The impulsive princess, Tamed by her Consort’s wisdom, has become A constitutional Monarch, the new pattern Of British Royalty! Fashion’s fools may scoff At the unimaginative domesticity Of Osborne and Balmoral. Character Was the heart of this Queen’s greatness. Character Is what we ask of Kings. (4) _Meantime our Island_ _In spiritual travail has brought forth_ _Portents of Power and Beauty. Let none doubt_ _Great spirits are abroad! Though Poetry_ _May slumber still—perchance may nevermore_ _Renew the ringing chorus of the dawn_ _Which hailed her second Spring—great novelists,_ _Rejecting formal fetters, and foregoing_ _The loftier exaltations, have perfected_ _A more demotic Art. These are the poets_ _Of the new age! They speak a common tongue_ _Which brings to myriads of ingenuous ears_ _And minds unlearn’d the ancient intimations_ _Of ecstasy and terror, which shall be_ _No more the mystery and perquisite_ _Of an instructed few, but the delight_ _Of an uncultured many. Let men laugh_ _Or weep their fill as_ Dickens _wrings their hearts_ _With humour and compassion; let them savour_ _The salt of pungent irony that seasons_ _The lucid prose of_ Thackeray; _shiver with dread_ _When the snow-laden North scourges the stones_ _Of_ Wuthering Heights; _smile at the teacup storms_ _Which rock the towers of_ Barchester, _perpend_ _The ethical doubts of_ Middlemarch, _and suffer_ _The heart-pangs of_ Jane Eyre: _or, if they crave_ _More formal measures, seek the nobler moods_ _Of_ In Memoriam, _and from_ Sordello’s _matrix_ _Of uncouth granite quarry forth the gold_ _Of sterner truths! So shines the visible blossom_ _Of this Hellenistic Spring, while, deep in earth,_ _Through unseen rootlets wells the rising sap_ _Of the creative spirit. Other eyes,_ _In patient vigil, probe dim vistas lit_ _By_ Davy’s _wayward gleams and the clear shine_ _Of_ Faraday _and_ Dalton. _Electricity,_ _The century’s new toy, becomes an attribute_ _Of universal Matter._ Dalton’s _atoms_ _Are linked in molecules_: Clark Maxwell _numbers_ _These jostling particles, caught in the mesh_ _Of his mathematical hieroglyphs—nay, proves_ _That Light itself, first portent of creation,_ _Is a swift electromagnetic wave_ _Surging through seas of æther._ Dalton’s _pupil_ Joule, _the serene recluse, proclaims that Heat_ _And Energy are interchangeable_ _And so conserved. Not only on these summits_ _Of physical abstraction do the seekers_ _Pursue their task. A lad of seventeen_ _In the Royal College of Science_, William Perkin, _Shuffling the coal-tar molecules in his search_ _For a man-made quinine, shall synthesize_ _An aniline dye, faint-flushed and delicate_ _As mallow-flowers, and therefore call it ‘mauve’._ _Thus shall the unimaginable blossoms_ _Of the long-buried coal-swamps give us back_ _Their vanished scents and hues! Now tangible earth_ _Displays her palimpsest, etched by the claws_ _Of creeping glaciers, crumpled in convulsions_ _Of her vulcanic birth-pangs, yet embedding_ _Tokens of primal life. Geologists_ _May pore on these; but even earth’s visible face_ _Hides marvels yet unknown. The new explorers_ _Sail not in search of treasure nor mere lust_ _Of hazardous adventure. They go forth_ _In the high name of Science, and their quest_ _Is Knowledge, nothing more. Thus_ Livingstone, _Lured by a deepening mystery, oversteps_ _The province of his labours, struggling on_ _Through the black night of Africa; thus_ Franklin, _Piercing the North-West passage in the ‘Erebus’,_ _And caught in the cold Palæochristic Sea,_ _Shall perish; thus_ Charles Darwin, _in the ‘Beagle’,_ _Searching the Patagonian waste, perceives_ _In the clear pools of his reflective mind_ _Strange adumbrations of the unity_ _Pervading sentient life._ Malthus _instils_ _The catalyst that turns these cloudy shapes_ _To crystal—and the_ Origin of Species _Shocks a too-credulous world; thus, in Soho,_ _At London’s callous heart, that shaggy exile_ Karl Marx, _of ponderous brow and glittering eye,_ _Watches his children starve, and from the depths_ _Of a profound, embittered soul, indites_ Das Kapital. . . . (5) Why should our Island heed Voices of sage or prophet? She is cloyed With ease and liberty: the People’s Charter Granted, the Corn Laws gone. New railroads feed The thews of industry; steam-powered paddles thrash Her seas—and the Atlantic passage shrinks To a mere fortnight; Wheatstone’s telegraph Flashes her will abroad; autonomous cities Pave, cleanse and drain their quagmire streets, and build Huge monuments of civic pride: new Schools, Hospitals, Libraries. It is only fitting The world should view our greatness and respect Our culture. Thus, above the living elms That spring from London’s sooty soil, arises A vault of glittering glass, fit to enshrine The products of our genius, and proclaim The confident dawn of a millennium Of universal peace. Such was the dream Of the ingenuous Albert. Fate appends An acid commentary: within a twelvemonth One War in the Crimea; three years later Another in Italy. Birmingham and Sheffield May profit by this carnage in the forging Of arms, while Bradford clothes both combatants In wool—or fustian. Parliament, unconcerned With aught but its imperial greatness, rears Palatial towers at Westminster that dwarf The Abbey’s airy vault, and a new voice Booms o’er the roofs of London as Big Ben First strikes the hour. Within another year Albert the Good is dead . . . His widowed Queen, Crushed and distraught, imperiously resenting Death’s outrage on her majesty, abandons All shows of public state. London no more Beholds her face: a loveless ghost, she haunts The scenes of vanished happiness. When her Ministers Duly entreat her counsel, she takes refuge Behind her widow’s weeds. But let not Palmerston Nor any other dream he can dictate to her! This lone recluse is yet their Queen—nay, more, Heiress and instrument of the will and wisdom Of her beloved Consort! Humbler subjects Wonder why royal mourning should last longer Than that of common folk—and even ask Impatiently, how an invisible Queen Can earn the sixty thousand pounds a year Her people pay her. This hard-headed nation Of shopkeepers wants value for its money, And the bargain seems one-sided. The “poor Queen, On her sad pinnacle of lonely grandeur”, Grows more and more unpopular, though she racks Her conscientious brain from dawn to dusk In mastering problems which, when Albert lived, Had seemed so easy, now so hard. Meanwhile Dread forces are unloosed. “Dear little Germany”, Child of pacific culture, has been gripped In Bismarck’s fist, and moulded to the shape Of an aggressive monster. Denmark bows To the new Teutonic Fury, Schleswig-Holstein Snatched from her feeble hands. Then Austria, Accomplice in her rape, is brought to heel In seven weeks, at Königgrätz. One by one, The lesser states of Germany, bedazzled And awed by the new planet’s magnitude, Are swept into its orbit. Only France, Impulsive, decadent France, now stands between Prussia’s iron-hearted Reich and the dominion Of continental Europe. France’s vanity, Flushed by old tales of glory, leaps to meet The Machiavellian challenge; and Sedan Seals her abasement. Why should England care For these remote convulsions? Is not France The inveterate enemy? Are not these Germans A friendly folk, linked with her by the bonds Of interest, blood and culture? It is enough That France, being humbled, can no longer threaten Her guardian moat; that, in this blessed moment, The sea-ways of the world are hers, the trade Of the whole globe her perquisite. Thus begins An age of unexampled energy And wealth unmeasured. Mere prosperity Mellows the fiercest passions; Time abates The deepest woes. The Queen is doubly blest In her Ministers—though the great Gladstone bores her With his heavy-footed deference, delivering Harangues more fitted to a public meeting Then the royal presence; (Will he never learn The Queen’s a woman, and therefore to be won By discreet gallantries?) but Lord Beaconsfield— Though Albert found in him ‘no element Of the gentleman’—shows such an exquisite lightness Of touch, such fine perceptions, such a wealth Of human sympathy, that her prejudice Soon yields to admiration. None but he Has fully understood the depth and beauty Of Albert’s character; and if his letters, Wreathed in rococo compliment, distil The perfumes of the Orient, why not? Is she not Empress? Does not the Koh-i-noor, That peerless gem of old Golconda, pride Of Aurungzebe and Nadir Shah, now blaze In the Confessor’s diadem, attesting England’s imperial destiny? Thus an age Of mounting strength, more fabulous prosperity, Rolls by, unvexed by threats of foreign war Or civil conflict, till the Crown—no longer The sport of jealous faction or the scapegoat Of popular discontent, becomes a symbol Of unity and greatness. Sixty years Of dignity and decency have earned A willing reverence, when the aged Queen Puts by her weeds of mourning and drives forth In state to Westminster amid the roar Of many-throated London, moved by tears Of gratitude, not sorrow. “From my heart,” The message runs, “I thank my beloved people.” Beloved—and loving too. Benignant heavens Smile on her Jubilee. Through the Summer night, Red beacon-flames, leaping from hill to hill, Roof her dear land with light. . . . (6) _Was ever realm_ _So changed within a single reign? The clime_ _Of civility is Peace: beneath no skies_ _Gloomed by the dark uncertainties of war_ _Had common life so thriven, or the seed_ _Of abstract spiritual search attained_ _So swift a fruiting. Now no year but brings_ _Tales of new marvels, as more material minds,_ _Sifting the spoil-heaps of pure science, turn_ _Its theories to practice. Electricity_ _Becomes Steam’s master: and Watt’s Monster serves_ _The silken dynamo, whose transmuted power_ _Flows, swift and silent as the waves of light,_ _Through tentacles of copper—or conserved,_ _A captive genie, in frail cells of glass,_ _Freed by the contact of a switch, performs_ _Gigantic tasks. This is the force that speeds_ _The thunderous shuttles of the ‘Underground’_ _Beneath the bones of Roman London; this_ _The spark that spans the sputtering arc, or whitens_ _Coiled incandescent filaments, transforming_ _Darkness to blinding daylight; this the source_ _Of those minute pulsations which transmit_ _Through mute æolian wires the authentic accents_ _And tones of living voices. Nor are these_ _Astounding miracles enough: for soon_ _The inductive impulse leaps from wire to wire_ _Through voids of æther._ Preece _and_ Heaviside _Exchange faint signals between Lavernock Point_ _And the Flat Holm—while that shrewd Latin realist_ Marconi, _pledged to Science, but none the less_ _Greedy of Fame and Fortune, taking profit_ _From the vast lodes of payable ore unwon_ _In Maxwell’s boundless Ophir, quick to seize_ _The salient hints of_ Crookes _and_ Lodge, _contrives_ _More sensitive detectors—and from the cliffs_ _Of iron-bound Poldhu to Newfoundland_ _Launches those waves which shall engirdle earth_ _More swift than Ariel, on viewless wings_ _Carrying the words of man. Nor is man’s frail,_ _Long-suffering flesh forgotten. Scotland claims_ _New mastery over Pain; for_ James Young Simpson, _Treading in_ Faraday’s _footsteps, has compounded_ _Sweet fumes of chloroform, that shall assuage_ _The primal curse of Eve; while in the wards_ _Of his Glasgow hospital, where maimed men sickened_ _Like Winter flies, bathed in a charnel air_ _Foul with the stink of gangrene,_ Joseph Lister, _Irked by the tragic impotence of his conflict_ _With the dark angel, in one lightning flash_ _Of heaven-sent insight, suddenly remembers_ _Pasteur’s description of those living spores_ _That turn sick wine to vinegar. Could there not be_ _Analogies between such fermentation_ _And the process of corruption? Patiently,_ _Unbaulked by sneering pedants, he prepares_ _Smears from the purulent debris, and perceives_ _Through the dim lens’s crystal a minute,_ _Sinister, unimaginable world,_ _Teeming with lowliest lives—blind instruments_ _Of death and pestilence, whose invisible spores_ _Pervade earth air and water, and disperse_ _Their venom in man’s blood. But how to master_ _This secret foe? Such the forbidding task_ _Of this unhonoured prophet, vainly preaching_ _To deaf or scornful ears—until at last,_ _Out of the chemist’s armoury, he discovers_ _The weapon of his choice: Carbolic Acid,_ _The first, crude, Antiseptic, at whose touch_ _The microbe’s myriads perish. Time has known_ _No greater victory . . ._ _Now, from the pitchy dregs_ _Of tar distilled, shimmers the radiant iris_ _Of Aniline. Now the madder-fields of France_ _Lie fallow; leaves of Indigo, unreaped,_ _No more are sodden, nor the Tyrian snail_ _Crushed for its murex; the bright carapace_ _Of the Mexican cochineal no longer tinges_ _The robes of cardinals, superbly dyed_ _With Azo-scarlets. Now the rose’s attar,_ _Essence of orange-blossom, and the musk_ _Of the Tibetan deer shall be compounded_ _And blended in a test-tube. Now the twin sense_ _Of Taste, no less than Smell, perceives the savour_ _Of a synthetized Vanillin—while the lees_ _Of this molecular alchemy shall bring forth_ _Potent medicaments planned to extirpate_ _The microbes of disease, to dull the edge_ _Of Pain, and through the weary brain diffuse_ _The balm of Sleep._ _Such are the dizzier flights_ _Of Man’s poetic fancy. Humbler hands_ _Shall pen the prose of Science. Engineers,_ _In Sheffield’s thunderous forges lend their minds_ _To the chemist’s admonitions._ Henry Bessemer, _Seething his molten ingots in a blast_ _Fed by their own impurities, contrives_ _Steel harder, yet more malleable;_ Robert Hadfield _blends that fierce flux with Manganese—and the Age_ _Of Iron yields its ancient dominance_ _To a new Age of Alloys._ Parsons’ _turbines_ _Rejuvenate Watt’s Monster, harnessing_ _Low-pressure steam. Now, too, pedestrian man,_ _Freed from his leaden-footed plodding, skims_ _The roads on flashing wheels: town-deadened nostrils_ _Inhale sweet hedgerow gusts and limpid airs_ _Blown from far hills. Thus in man’s heart is born_ _The accursed lust of Speed! Forces more sinister—_ _Did he but know it!—searching to contain_ _Vast energy in small compass, adumbrate_ _The Petrol-engine._ Butler’s _motor-tricycle_ _Appears—and vanishes; but the baleful seed_ _Is sown. Soon Daimler’s mightier Juggernaut,_ _In clouds of dust and reek of burning oil,_ _Roars through the lanes of England; while above,_ Pilcher _and_ Lilienthal _on flimsy vanes_ _Glide to their doom, yet in that watery death_ _Foreshadow the dread day when Wings and Power_ _Shall be united, and their native land_ _No more an Island._ . . . (7) What should Victoria Know of these miracles? She has outlived The greatness of her era. One by one The rough-hewn, bearded giants of that age Go down to death before her. Though her hands Still grasp the sceptre firmly, though her spirit, Obstinately imperious, and fortified By an Empire’s veneration, still imposes Its will upon her servants, she is old And pitifully weary. Never more Will she behold the billows of mimosa Sweeping the slopes of Cimiez; even Balmoral Seems all too distant now. Alone she sits In her wheeled chair at Osborne, where the waves Of the ruffled Solent sparkle through dark groves Of arbutus and ilex long since planted By her dear Albert. To this peaceful haven Comes news of war in Africa. She doubts not The justice of that quarrel: England’s wars Must needs be righteous—for is not she herself England incarnate? Yet the bitterness Of inexplicable failure, long frustration, Lies heavily on a heart that has grown gentle And vulnerable with age. Her faithful servants Mark in her pendulous jowl and dimming eyes A mortal decadence; even her memory Loses its wonted clearness, and her mind Gropes for plain words in vain. Thus, quietly As a still Summer moonset, this proud soul Sinks into painless nescience. Victoria, Greatest of Queens, is dead. . . . The minute-guns Of her great ships salute her as _Alberta_ Steals between lines of grey Leviathans, Bearing their mistress landward on her last, Most royal progress, Mourning London waits Her coming in mute gloom. Funereal silence Broods on the streets, and even the humblest bear Some token of bereavement. Do they mourn Woman or Legend? Few of those who weep Have seen her face or heard her voice; yet all Know that for ever from this English earth A glory is departed. They lament The passing of an age, a way of life, Climate of thought and feeling—so deep-rooted In their familiar permanence, that the prospect Of certain change affrights them with a presage Of huge uncertainties. A dumb multitude Stands with bowed heads as the sad cavalcade Winds its slow length twixt crowded pavements hung With dark festoons of laurel, house-fronts draped With purple trappings. Not a whisper stirs That tearful throng—nor any other sounds But the crunch of rhythmic feet, the plaintive wail Of the Dead Marches, swelling on the air, Then fading, one by one. And now at last Comes the gun-carriage: on its silken pall The Crown, the Orb, the Sceptre—tragic symbols Of mortal majesty. Behind her rode Her son, the uncrowned King: at his right hand A haughtier rider, with a withered arm And proud, disdainful eyes: the Hohenzollern, Emperor of Germany, superbly mounted On a pale horse . . . In John’s Apocalypse It has been written that this rider’s name Is Death. XLIII THE TRENCH-DIGGERS: SALISBURY PLAIN A.D. 1915 Where the dead Stoneman’s barrow crowns These lonely downs We digged our trenches; and the wet White chalk we shovelled from below, It lay like drifts of trampled snow On parados and parapet; Till spade and pick with rhythmic dint Neither struck flint Nor cleft the yielding chalky soil, But splintered shard and calcined bone, Poor relics of that Age of Stone Whose ossuary was our spoil. Home we trudged, singing in the rain That threshed the Plain; But all the while, beneath our song, I mused how many a year should pass And still our trench-cuts scar the grass With stigmas of an ancient wrong; Yet soon, I thought, the same green sod Those dead men trod Will creep above our chalky stain, And soften, as it clothes the face Of trench and barrow, every trace Of violence to the patient Plain; And curious folk who chance to stray The downland way Will talk of both in casual tone, Saying: “You see the toil they made; The Age of Iron, pick and spade, Here jostles with the Age of Stone.” Yet either, from that happier race, By Heaven’s grace, Shall merit but a careless glance; And they will leave us both alone: Poor savages who wrought with stone, Poor savages who fought in France. XLIV ELEGY IN WHITEHALL NOVEMBER 11, 1920 Where the tall cenotaph like a shrouded ghost Uprose, with rigid lips and downcast eyes We stood in deathly silence, while the wail Of plaintive bugles, sounding the Last Post, Faded on wintry skies. Two measured minutes borrowed from the tale Of Time’s unhurrying pulse-beats slowly shed: And now it seems almost That, roused by this rare stillness, England’s dead Hold converse with her mourners, and approve With a wry smile their ritual of love. But I, their living comrade, neither smile Nor weep, too void of heart to spend a tear; Slow through my mind a spectral column wends: A million dead men, marching mile on mile— So close, I seem to hear The voices of those few that were my friends, And some, scarce-known, that, ere their doomsday broke, Bode with me for a while, Who suddenly unlocked their hearts and spoke Of little, piteous things that were their pride, Then shyly laughed, and went their ways, and died. Others I saw who long with me had shared War’s common torments and vicissitudes: Thirst, hunger, mud, the unconscionable ache Of leaden limbs forespent which no man dared Move, lest the hostile woods Crackle with fire, when, yearning for daybreak, We lay, red eyelids gummed with dust and sleep, As, hour by hour, we stared, Tense fingers on the trigger, into deep Impenetrable darkness—till there shone One chink of dawn, and we went limping on. There was an age when feckless poets sought Vicarious raptures in the clash of swords; Nay, even in war’s hideous features traced A baleful splendour. Tell not us who fought With Prussia’s brutish hordes That war breeds aught but butchery and waste! Spare us your threadbare cant of chivalry: War is no princely sport But a fool’s game in which Death loads the die: So speak the truth for our dead comrades’ sakes— War maims and kills more heroes than it makes! Whence flow the mystic sources that compel Acceptance of such monstrous sufferings? These were no heroes born, but simple folk Who knew life’s common joys and loved them well, Yet yielded the sweet things They cherished most to stifle in the smoke And stench of death, to brave the thrashing sleet Of lead, the hurtling shell, The thrust of icy steel, the ominous beat Of drumfire shaking earth and livid sky: Why, holding life so dear, did these men die? Ah, fruitless question! Let each mouldering heart In that vile charnel housed, its secret bear! Brave men boast not when they go forth to die, Steeling rebellious nerves to play their part. Yet some, there surely were, Found exultation in mere mastery Of their grim calling, their especial skill In war’s infernal art; Schooled from their youth to suffer and to kill, Who matched their wits with other men’s, who plied The same sad trade, and uncomplaining died. Some were too young, alas, too young to hold Aught but the moment’s cares, so richly brimmed With youth’s bright ardours that death seemed no more Than a vain scarecrow set to fright the old. How should clear eyes undimmed By dusty apprehensions look before? Rather let life’s enchanting tapestry Its patterned weft unfold As a fair landscape to the falcon’s eye Reveals each new swift miracle of light, Till, of a sudden, all be lost in night. Some, without will or reasoning of their own, Swept to their doom like floating driftwood plucked From copse and hedgerow by a Lammas flood, Or fragments on a city pavement strown Through swirling culverts sucked: Mute myriads, who cared not nor understood, But like beasts herded in a stockyard-pen Followed their leaders down The blood-slimed ramp and fought as other men, Yet in mere human friendship found the seeds Of matchless courage and immortal deeds. Others there were in conflict found release From spiritual torment or the fret Of thwarted aspiration: the dull round And grey monotonies of laborious peace; Some who would fain forget Domestic misery, and rejoicing found Oblivion in war’s numb anodyne; Some hardier than these Whose wanton natures craved a headier wine, Who, drunk with their own frenzied daring, flew Full at the throat of death—and paid their due. But those there were, fashioned of finer clay, Knew war’s vile worst, yet, counting well the cost, Took up the unwelcome gage with open eyes, Deeming far more staked in this hateful fray Than empire gained or lost: Nay, Freedom’s self, and those high sanctities— Truth, Mercy, Justice, that divide mankind From apes and beasts of prey And fiends in human shape that slay the mind, Stamp out the flame of Reason, and befoul The springs of Beauty that make sweet the soul. Some for the comfort of strict conscience wrought A visionary England all their own: Green hills and vales transfigured by the dreams Of childhood. ’Twas for her dear sake they fought And bled on fields unknown, Wearing the patient spirit that beseems A people slow to wrath—yet, in that cause, With sterner courage fraught Than the dumb slaves that wage a tyrant’s wars. Gladly they fell—and we, who live, complain Not that they died but that they died in vain. In vain? Ah, let no bitterness disprise Their shining valour, nor with doubt becloud Their vision of the peace they dreamed they won For us, the heirs of sovereign sacrifice. . . . But see. . . . The impatient crowd Stirs: its brief rite of reverence is done. Hark! The shrill silver of reveille shakes The stillness of grey skies, And with a mightier shudder, London wakes! In her huge heart the quickening pulses swell Their rhythmic beat. Dear dead, we wish you well. XLV FANTASTIC SYMPHONY A.D. 1918-1939 (1) _Allegro moderato_ _Clio, if e’er my name with thine were linked,_ _(And haply all the Muses aren’t extinct)_ _Abate my natural virulence, lest all_ _I tell of this mad age be writ in gall;_ _Melt thou mine iron mood—for though I think_ _That gall and iron mingled make good ink,_ _That righteous ire should have no truck with ruth,_ _And satire’s vain unless ’tis barbed with truth,_ _’Twere well to temper the corrosive rage_ _That spills its venom on this candid page!_ Now, in the gilded chambers of Versailles, Another Congress of Vienna hails, Mid bickering and discord without cease, Another prospect of Perpetual Peace, While still the jungle echoes with the snores And snarls of satiated carnivores, And greedy lambkins thrust their muzzles in, Bleating for scraps from each dead lion’s skin. An edifying scene . . . But let’s be just: Though lordlier beasts let go but what they must, And meaner creatures clung to what they could, Self is the natural curse of Nationhood; And elemental passions, ill suppressed, May rage within the most high-purposed breast. Thus the Big Four in patient council sit, Rebuilding jig-saw Europe bit by bit; And what a Europe!—trembling with Hysteria, Hatred and Fear, from Ushant to Siberia! Russia’s ablaze: the famished and the slain Litter her steppes—and yet the starved Ukraine Finds dregs of strength to fly at Poland’s throat And clutch Galicia; Serb and Rouman gloat And scramble on the pitiful remains Of Austria, rotting on Danubian plains, And neither dearth nor death have power to lessen The lusts of Czech and Pole alike for Teschen, While the frore sky of Lithuania rings With rabid cries and thresh of vulture wings Claiming new carrion, as in slow debate Her arbiters determine Europe’s fate. Let those who now blame their arbitrament (Being rich in wisdom after the event) Know that the peace they fashioned mirrored then The common sense of most well-meaning men. Austria must suffer: she unleashed the war; The landlocked Poles must have their corridor, France her lost provinces; Italy re-enter The Tyrol and Trieste Irredenta; The Czechs and Jugo-Slavs assert their right To separate existence—while the plight Of prostrate Turkey yields a whacking piece Of Lesser Asia to a Greater Greece; Roumania must recover the green shaws Of Transylvania from the Magyar’s claws; Minorities accept with resignation The shibboleth of Self-determination; Or, if determination spells a fight, Bow to the verdict of a plebiscite; Reason must rule the world—and if they squirm, The hand that pays the piper can be firm. And Germany? Heaven forfend that we should show The tigerish greed of Foch and Clemenceau! ‘Live and let live!’ is the mild-mannered law Of this too-happy breed, that never saw Their fields and cities trampled underfoot— Twice in one lifetime!—by the Prussian boot, That ne’er beheld the pickelhaube’s shape Foreshadowing torture, butchery and rape, That never watched their homes go up in flames, Bowed to an alien will, nor knew the shames Of impotent surrender and defeat! So tell the French that vengeance is not sweet To us—who’ve never learnt (or so it seems) To judge men by their deeds, not by their dreams. Some Germans may have misbehaved—but then, Think of Mozart and Bach and Beethoven, Goethe and Heine—Heine, it is true, Hated the Prussian beast as much as you— Still, that’s the real Germany: a nation Misled into this monstrous divagation By wicked rulers—though it may be wiser, On ripe reflection, not to hang the Kaiser, Or run the risk of being sold a pup If Holland should refuse to give him up. So, let’s behave like sportsmen and befriend The beaten side: ’twere churlish to offend A backward race that has no Public Schools To teach them cricket and the Queensberry Rules. And let not hate, vindictiveness, or greed Poison their minds: abate their desperate need And lend them money—there can be no harm In that, they’re too exhausted to re-arm Within _our_ time—and if they should prefer Cannons to butter, that’s their own affair: Russia’s a wolfish neighbour; France, at least, Fears not the cloud that reddens in the East, But, swoln with reparations, now has grown Well-armed, and strong enough to hold her own; And if again the Germans threaten war, Why, what on earth’s the League of Nations for? Thus, at Versailles, each conscientious shaper Of Peace propounds his brave new world—on paper: The Tiger, pledged to make the Boche disgorge His gains; the subtler wisdom of Lloyd-George Sweetening with Celtic honey the black bile Of Clemenceau, eager to reconcile French fears with safety, and Orlando’s claims With Italy’s just earnings. Let their names Be not dishonoured. Give these three their due; Perhaps they builded better than we knew. Yet every compromise sweet reason planned Drooped at the touch of Wilson’s icy hand: Wilson, who from his shell-proof pulpit sheds Prim-lipped reproof on the astonished Heads Of unregenerate Europe—those who bore Through four long years the burden of a war Which, he explained, _he_ was too proud to fight!— Teaching that Right was godlier than Might, Justice than Force, in platitudinous sermons More properly directed at the Germans, Or planned to win the uncritical applause Of Women’s Clubs, or Princeton sophomores. A Daniel come to Judgement once again? Say rather: Daniel in the Lions’ Den: A major prophet in a minor key Bewailing Europe’s immorality, Sent from on high to scourge the ignorance Of darkest England, Italy, and France. Let them repent and raise their earthbound eyes To more ideal regions: otherwise, Though slow to wrath and chary to condemn, America must wash her hands of them. (Alas, in twelve short months, with humour grim, That thankless country washed her hands of him!) Why did he fail—this innocent abroad? Was he too slight to bear the Titan’s load Of a distracted globe? He was a creature Of contradictions: in his secret nature A student, of the strict New England school, Painfully anxious not to seem a fool In such sharp company, yet resolved to prove A Man of Iron; one that few could love, Yet none could scorn; magnanimous, serene In higher things: in trifles small and mean; Calm as a judge, impulsive as a woman; Kindly but cold; humane, yet not quite human; Naïve, but suspicious; bitter in complaint; Thin-skinned, but hard; half-bigot and half-saint; A man who failed through being what he was, Not what he meant or felt. . . . But now, alas, Spilt in the gutter, trampled underfoot, Lies half deliberation’s hard-won fruit. What’s to be done? A reasonable man Will cut his loss and pick up what he can, Though from that remnant rise no lasting Peace, But an uneasy, endless Armistice: A Europe sick with fear and racked with fever; A palsied League of Nations at Geneva, Shorn of real powers of Sanction or Defence, The laughing-stock of brazen prepotence; A sullen Germany; a nervous France, Driven by fear to reckless arrogance; An Italy convinced she has been cheated; An England weary of the overheated Frenzies of war, now sluggishly content To drowse, and damn the fretful continent Whose feuds dragged forth her dearest sons to die. The dogs of war are sleeping. . . . Let them lie! (2) _Alla tarantella_ Haul down the flags and let the laurels fade: The warrior’s day is done, the last parade Dismissed; and now the heroes’ homing feet Trudge the unfriendly stones of ‘Civvy Street’ In hopeful search for all life has to give in An England fit for paladins to live in; And find, instead, an England that’s forgotten Their faces, names and deeds: an England rotten With cynic selfishness and heartless greed, That scorns their valour and decries their need, Where the New Rich, stuffed with war’s loot, deplore The thriftless ways of the Perpetual Poor: A disillusioned land that’s lost its soul; A fretful changeling—— England on the dole, Blind with class-hatred, jealousy and doubt, Where heroes, as it seems, are odd-men-out And military virtue’s on the shelf. Till the next war, ’tis each man for himself: So scramble with the rest, take what you can, Tear down the ancient civilties of man And build a brave new world for Caliban! The old, men say, is too far gone to mend; So let’s deride the past and make an end Of all it prized, seeking but that which serves To stifle thought, or drug war-jangled nerves. Culture’s betrayed us; Decency’s a bore; And what did Beauty do to win the war? Duty and Discipline? We’ve had enough— And some to spare!—of that old-fashioned stuff. Let us be gay and ruthless: war has taught One lesson—one alone—that life is short: So let long-thwarted instincts have their due; Kill Time—for Time will certainly kill you: Let Lust and Liquor numb the uneasy fret Of memory, and help us to forget The horrors of the hell through which we’ve passed And blue our blood-won earnings while they last! Let garish light and pandemoniac noise Blind our unhappy eyes, and drown the voice Of Reason, lest some qualm of conscience chill Our minds and bid our twitching limbs be still. Dance then, like victims frenzied by the bite Of black tarantulas, void of sense or sight— Not to the sentimental violins Your fathers loved, but to the devilish dins Of thudding tom-toms and the wailful tones Dripped from the mouths of sickly saxophones, To music—save the mark!—spawned in the damp Mephitic airs of a malodorous swamp, Dredged up by Tin Pan Alley from the ooze To vamp its Charlestons, Bunny-hugs and Blues; Pray that the barbarous beat may never stop; Dance till you’re dizzy, dance until you drop; Dance without joy: let your blank features wear A mask of bitter boredom and despair! Gone are the days when lightsome feet expressed The buoyancy of Youth: for now the best Of Youth has perished; now indecorous Age Sweats like a satyr on the night-club stage: When lusty partners are in short supply, There’s little that a lengthy purse can’t buy, And raddled hags renew their girlhood’s glow In the cold arms of the hired gigolo. Vain to misprise their rapture, or his pay: Money’s the only thing that counts today, And in the flush of war’s foolhardihood Money has flowed like water—or like blood. Though millions still are homeless, the West End Teems with a Gadarene herd with gold to spend On tasteless luxury and ignoble pleasure: An ignorant rabble that can only measure Value by cost, exulting to revere The champagne standards of the profiteer. And who can blame them—when the ruling caste, Once arbiters of manners and of taste, Shares the same sty and gluttonously digs For the same scraps: when Dukes turn guinea-pigs, When high-born ladies lend historic names And smirking faces to attest the claims Of cheap cosmetics, and with harlots vie To catch the seedy gossip-writer’s eye; When gangs of feather-pated mountebanks, The Bright Young People, play their dull old pranks When, in that social no-man’s-land which merges The Half-world with the World on Mayfair’s verges, The lion-huntress tames her chequered crew: Political climber, gilded parvenu, Monarch in exile, self-made businessman, Princeling and mummer, priest and courtesan, Painter or poet of the moment’s vogue, Professional wit and well-connected rogue, With naught in common save that all are ‘smart’ And none, except their hostess, has a heart? What can earth offer to abate the need Of bankrupt souls but Pleasure, Change and Speed? Pleasure, however base, to fill the void Of desperate boredom; Speed to be enjoyed, Not as the means to Pleasure, but its end; Change, as occasion and excuse to spend Money on Speed and Pleasure, and pursue The old indulgence in surroundings new? Thus, like a locust-swarm on pillage bent, The idle British range the Continent, Battening on low exchanges: the Blue Trains Packed with a greedy rabble that profanes Traditions, taste and manners, yet demands Respect and deference—till the southern sands Of modest France and Italy are strewed With grotesque samples of the British nude, And the crammed Lido earns at last (Heaven save it!) The epithet ‘_affreux_’ which Musset gave it, While British morals make Italians blench, And shock the scruples of the tolerant French. Is this the sane, phlegmatic race that freed A decadent Europe: this barbaric breed Of vulgar drones and spineless epicenes Whose frivolous sensuality demeans The dignities of man, and, dead to shame, Makes the Satyricon itself seem tame, Dimming the orgies of Imperial Rome? Or do all decent Britons stay at home? The stricken oak, long ere its branches drop, Starts dying slowly downward—from the top. So spreads the rot down England’s social scale: A ‘noble’ shipping-magnate’s clapped in jail; A night-club queen, protected by the police Gets off her daughters with a peer apiece; ‘Ex-public-schoolmen’, frenzied with cocaine, Grab jewels through a shattered window-pane; No virtuous man dares venture after dark For dread of blackmail in St James’s Park; While stranger vices flaunt in many a den Of dim Soho, and ordinary men Who hurry forth from Oxford dare not halt Or gaze—for fear of being turned to salt. “Yet surely,” you may say, “what you deplore Is but the jetsam of the storms of war? Your tempest-writhen oak may strew the ground With rotten boughs even when its heart is sound: What of the sane, the sober Middle Class, Backbone of British probity?” Alas! Here, too, that subtle poison finds its way: Clapham, like Mayfair, lives but for the day: Province and suburb itch to emulate The modes and morals of the idler ‘great’, Mimic their speech, adopt their fashions stale, And ape their vices on a lowlier scale, Till the same stigmas their dim lives besmirch: The crowded dance-hall, the deserted church, The empty cradle and the vacant mind. Small wonder that their starved emotions find Vicarious Romance to fill the void In visionary heavens of celluloid, Where all life’s ‘glamorous’ all passion ‘stark’, And every slut’s a Helen . . . in the dark; Envy the lot of any lip-sticked miss Who simpers from the pages of the press, And trace with eagerness to its dull source Each tortuous ‘Society Divorce’ Or ‘Scandal in High Places’. “Ah, but then, You quite forget our British working-men, The horny hands that make the world go round: All else may rot, but surely these are sound?” Ay, sound enough at heart: a patient folk, Slow-paced, slow-witted (save to see a joke Or scent a wrong) who little ask of life But elementary dues: a home, a wife, Children, the right to work and earn the meed Of honest toil sufficient to their need, To speak their minds, and go their sober ways In peace, unvexed by scorn, unmoved by praise; A tolerant folk, with no ambitious itch To share the senseless pleasures of the rich: Such is their nature—but when life denies These just demands, what wonder that their eyes Grow hard and grim, what wonder, when they see Wealth flaunting in the midst of misery, Prodigal plenty mixed with helpless dearth And sloth more prosperous than plodding worth, They choose the easier path, and join the dance Of those who live by subsidy or chance? “Something for nothing!” is the common cry: “My neighbour loafs and thrives, why should not I? Something for nothing! So let’s take our toll Of _panem et circenses_—dogs and dole— And sink our pittance in the Football Pool!” For now, alas, the lusts of Mammon rule Our very pastimes: Mammon wakes the loud Tumultuous howl of the dog-racing crowd That sees the favourite beaten; Mammon fees The football crooks and boos the referees Who spoil his bets; Mammon, not love of sport, Sways the curled darlings of the Centre Court, Fickle as film-stars, pitiable things With nerves as thin and taut as racquet-strings. Now even the conduct of the cricket-field, Home of prescriptive chivalry, must yield To the base manners of a crew that gauges Worth not by sportsmanship, but averages; Who, scornful of the game’s unselfish pride, Play for themselves alone, not for their side, Pose for the groundlings, court the crowd’s applause, And measure merit by the ‘gate’ it draws. “But these are trivial evils?” Rather say, The subtler symptoms of a gross decay, The taint of gangrene that corrupts the whole. “Are there no doctors, then, for the sick soul?” Only too many: sedulous to trace The springs of decadence in a dying race: Sly charlatans, whose prurient fingers probe Beneath the veil of consciousness, disrobe The vestal spirit’s nakedness, and pry In holier regions, where great Poetry Is born, yet, fumbling in that magic dust, Find naught but Fear and Hatred, Shame and Lust. “Who then shall heal our sickness? Poets, Priests, Prophets, Philosophers and Dramatists?” A hope forlorn! Shut in her ivory tower, Philosophy heeds not the passing hour; Prophets preach not to them that neither stay Nor hearken; the poor Priest has had his say And can no more—while little’s to be said For Poets now, since all the best are dead, And the shrill, tuneless singers that remain, Consumed by rancour, jealousy and pain, With mutual admiration roll along Each others’ logs as beetles roll their dung Those lily-handed revolutionists Who think that true modernity consists In sloven prose laboriously spun In metres sired by Hopkins out of Donne; Who, when their images refuse to flow, Drag in the tractor or the dynamo To mechanize their Muse; too proud to pander To Beauty: Poetry being Propaganda, Far better written on a Five Year Plan, (What were the politics of Kubla Khan? But pray, proceed . . .) and communally writ With spite for satire, vitriol for wit. No help from these! For prose, you take your choice: The aphasiac stutterings of Stein and Joyce; The sullied spate of poor, tormented Lawrence, That frail, hag-ridden Titan, whose abhorrence Of Reason, frothed with ineffectual rage, Flaws the pure crystal of a lyric page Unmatched in power or beauty since he died, Launching his Ship of Death on the dark tide Of dear oblivion. He, at least, can give More solace than the frigid, half-alive Highbrows of Bloomsbury, who with eyes of stone Stiffly disdain all talents but their own; Strict snobs of letters, chary to admit There’s such a thing as wisdom, style or wit Beyond the boundaries their pundits keep. (_Dear God, the very houses seem asleep!_) Cold comfort here. . . . Nor can the stage purvey More genial fare; for, though some critics say The Comedy of Manners is reborn, The rapier’s blunted, and the wig’s outworn; The bawdry’s dull, the salt has lost its taste, The gold’s mere tinsel and the diamond paste; The modish cracks sound sillier and sadder Than dried peas rattling in a jester’s bladder; Yet frivolous fashion still prefers this raw Slick stuff to the cathartic wit of Shaw, Dreads his keen glance, rejects his wisdom mellow, And butters up the tricks of Pirandello, A nimble casuist who can prove by sleight That black (especially in shirts) is white, And with a deal of complicated trouble Sees life unsteadily—and sees it double. Such are our seers and prophets! Can you wonder, Led by such guides, our race is going under, Sinking in treacherous quicksands none can sound? “Dig deeper, then! Surely there can be found Some granite core?” However deep one delves ’Tis vain—unless we strive to save ourselves. Britain must steel her sinews, and forswear The false gods of indifference and despair, Refine her spirit’s gold, reject the dross, Or fall to dust like Hecatompylos. (3) _Finale: alla marcia_ Time will not wait. On every hand one sees Monstrous rebirths of dead theocracies: A new Olympus and a new Valhalla Shall salve the wounds of unrequited valour, And promise those who lost (or won) the war Post-dated credits, well worth starving for, Making but one condition to the deal: Their creditors shall neither speak nor feel Nor think, save as the sovereign will commands. Thus idlers basking on Italian sands, With no desire to think or feel or speak, Acclaim the fat Dictator as unique; Sleep in their own (or in each other’s) beds Unvexed by fears of the atrocious ‘reds’, And murmur: “Mussolini’s too sublime! Would you believe it? The trains run on time. Black shirts are so becoming, don’t you think?” Yes Ma’am: and castor-oil’s the proper drink To purge obstructors. If they still protest, The blackshirt, with his bludgeon, does the rest. Thus, from the underworld that seethes within The festering stews of Munich and Berlin, Haunted by pimps and perverts, the last lees Of infamous depravity, one sees The dreams of desperate, disillusioned men, Debased, and yet resolved to rise again, Take hideous shape: an iron monster, meet, Like Frankenstein’s, to serve, but, once complete, Its makers’ master: whose accustomed food Is flesh and bone, whose drink is tears and blood; Greedier than Syrian Moloch to devour, Fiercer than Crete’s bronze-bellied Minotaur, Whose dark dominion summons from the foul Hyrcanian forest of the Teuton soul An atavistic longing to destroy All human civilities, a sadic joy In cruelty that would debase the beast, The exaltations of a mind diseased: A maniac cult—a madman its high-priest. Hitler. . . . No darker angel ever fell With Lucifer to rule the hordes of hell Than he, nor yet with more infernal skill Bent a strong race to his perversive will: The selfless saint—whose venal deeds profaned All sanctities; the ascetic, who maintained The loftiest of ideals—yet inspired The basest minds to win what he desired; The upright man, who prated to his herd Of Honour—and who never kept his word; God-guided mystic, speaking in a trance— Yet always with an eye on the main chance; The cool brain—tortured by neurotic fears; The man of ice—who melts in shameless tears; The rigid moralist—who merely laughed When half his henchmen lived by loot and graft; The father of his folk, supremely human— Who ne’er begat a child nor loved a woman; True comrade, loyal to protect and keep His friends—until he shot them in their sleep; The steadfast mind—that’s swayed by chance and change; Magnanimous spirit—brooding on revenge; Bold Siegfried, with high chivalry aglow, Whose _heilige Nothung_ is the Gestapo; All, these and more. . . . What matter? ’Tis enough That Germans love this stale Wagnerian stuff, Hail their new master as a tribal god, Fondle the blood-stained fist, and kiss the rod. And England—God forgive her—half admires Their cult! What restless Germany desires Is equilibrium. Arson, loot, and murder, Seem an odd price to pay for Law and Order; But that’s their way. To persecute the Jew Is vile; but lots of us are Aryans too, And understand. Meanwhile the storm grows nearer: Hitler _Reichskanzler_—Hitler _Unser Führer_, Champion of meek Germanity oppressed! He strikes—and mangled Austria goes West. Next the Sudetenland. . . . Why should we vex Our consciences about these tiresome Czechs— A tiny race, whose fate no man bewails, Mere misbegotten offspring of Versailles? We’ve far too many noisy cranks at home To hear the braggart of bombastic Rome Howl, like a dervish, from his gimcrack rostrum “Eight million bayonets” or “Mare Nostrum”: Let him howl on! Our Nordic nerves are proof Against such Bobadils of Opéra Bouffe Or neo-Roman empires in Utopia. What’s this he wants? A slice of Ethiopia? “Give him his head: perhaps ’twill keep him quiet,” Says foul Laval. But England’s in a riot, When, figure-skating upon ice too thin, The unlucky exhibitionist falls in. Did the splash wake her? No, ’twas but a gleam Of consciousness that broke her waking dream. Within a year she’s lulled to sleep again By the naïve platitudes of Chamberlain, Assuring her that nine times out of ten The common sense of cautious business-men Drives better bargains than the devious wiles Of diplomats. Let threats give way to smiles, Hard words to soft. Let’s all get round the table, Turn up our cards, and prove that we are able To face hard facts with realistic eyes, And close the meeting with a compromise That leaves the lion sleeping with the lamb: That’s how we manage things in Birmingham! Vain innocent, condemned to learn too soon Who sups with Hitler needs a good long spoon, He flounders into depths beyond the ken Of even the most enlightened business-men, Returning from his missionary caper To Munich with . . . another scrap of paper! _Peace in our time, my friends! Sleep in your beds!_ And, as he speaks, down many a spine there spreads An ominous thrill of fear—not of relief. Though, by the narrow lights of his belief, He did his best, his was a craven creed: No smaller man e’er failed a greater need. _Sleep in your beds!_ The Germans did not sleep: The beast lay crouching for another leap: In mine and foundry, factory and mill, The hammers beat, the wheels are never still, As from red furnace-throat and clangorous forge Pale gangs of slavish Nibelungs disgorge A weight of metal such as ne’er before Armed a mad nation for aggressive war; The crushed earth thunders ’neath their tracks; on high The throb of engines shakes the crowded sky. Though still that harsh, neurotic voice demands Mere tutelage of German-speaking lands, Men smile no more at Hitler’s bluff or blague: Danzig, they guess, will share the fate of Prague. And then? “Ah then, in terrible rebirth Our Reich shall claim dominion of the earth. Who can withstand us? Can the Poles rely On France or Britain? Let them only try! Britain’s too soft, too decadent to fight We’re told—and Ribbentrop is always right, While France, corrupt and venal to the core, Will bargain for her body like a whore. And Russia? Who can fathom the Slav soul? But one’s thing sure: no Russian loves the Pole, And Stalin’s gang, whatever they may feel, Are crooks, like us, and open to a deal.” Now the mask’s off—if ever mask there were To eyes unprejudiced by _laissez-faire_: The Panzer wolfpack strips the Polish plain As Danzig falls—and Warsaw burns in vain. Unready Britain and reluctant France, Helpless to implement their word, advance To fend the March of Flanders and the Rhine, While Hitler, safe behind his Siegfried Line, Taunting their impotence with derisive mirth, Wipes the proud name of Poland off the earth— And calls for Peace! No peace shall e’er be given To that damned soul this side of hell or heaven! Eight weary months, stretched on the Flanders plain, We held our front, from Bailleul to Lapaigne; Eight dreary months, four hundred thousand men Kept guard, till Spring awoke the sodden fen, And fierce as snow-fed torrents of the North, Drunken with Polish blood, the beast broke forth. The dykes of Holland crack; the grey-green flood Drowns Ardennes’ valleys once again in blood; Westward it flows: the bridges of the Meuse, Betrayed by guile or treachery, let loose A more resistless spate than suffering man Has known, and through the gateway of Sedan Pours to the South beyond Scheldt’s crumbling bank, Spins like a whirlpool round the British flank, And laps their rear. . . . But why should I repeat This oft-told tale of undeserved retreat And unavailing valour—save to claim That those were days of splendour, not of shame, When, through the moving battle’s dust and murk, Shone the bright names of Calais and Dunkirk? Proud Calais—where the Rifles held their van Four days and nights, and perished to a man: Dunkirk, that nine days wonder, where the ghost Of a great army, number’d with the lost, Clung to that strip of sand whereon their sires Once drove the Spaniard—caught betwixt the fires Of the burnt city and the cruel sea, Sodden, unsheltered, dazed, incessantly Pounded by shell-fire hurled from far inland, That plunged to soar in fountains of grey sand And red-hot steel, dive-bombed from overhead By waspish Stukas spitting sleet of lead, Bleeding, forlorn and famished—yet sustained By the unreasoning hope that lies ingrained Deep in the soul of their mysterious race That oft has looked disaster in the face Yet seldom known despair, or harboured doubt Of ultimate victory. This was no rout, No lawless rabble, frantic in defeat, But a calm multitude, resigned to meet The worst unmoved, and patiently to wait Doom or salvation at the hands of fate. And lo . . . a wonder! The high seas subside, And thin-spun veils of seaborn vapour hide The glassy straits. A miracle no less Of ready wits: from each remote recess Of England’s shores, from every uttermost Cranny and creek of her indented coast, Ports, sands and shingles, coves and estuaries, The rescuing flotillas take the seas: Sloops and destroyers, tiny rowing-boats, Tugs, drifters, colliers—everything that floats— Dutch skoots and trawlers, paddled pleasure-craft, Wherries and lighters (and the less the draught The handier for the shallows) they put forth, Manned by brave souls that recked not of the wrath Shed from the skies upon the bomb-froth’d sea: Unmedalled sponsors of strange victory Sprung from the fiery embers of defeat: A full-fledged phœnix, fluttering to cheat The fowler’s springe: three hundred thousand men Plucked from the toils of death to fight again! While from the emptied beaches the foiled foe Snarls to the world: “There are no islands now!” What? No more islands? Let him tempt his fate On our untameable seas, and learn too late The landsman’s lesson! Let the embattled skies Answer his boasts and flout his prophecies! Let him beware: his brutish legions face The united will of an unvanquished race Led by their chosen chieftain, whose grave voice Offers no guerdon, promises no choice In all their toil but blood and tears and sweat. In Europe’s ears that voice is ringing yet, And like a trumpet warns the tingling air That, once again, _Malbrouk s’en va-t-en guerre_. XLVI THE WINGED VICTORY. A.D. 1940 Two thousand years have passed All but a lustrum since great Cæsar massed His leathern-sailed flotillas in the loom Of Griznez’s hoary dome, Where once the Norman and the Corsican Mustered their might to span The treacherous channel’s narrow rift of foam: Here now, in even more vindictive mood Than theirs, a more malignant conqueror Than ever was suckled by the wolf of Rome, Spawned in fierce Corsica or crowned in Caen, Gazes with lust upon the Kentish shore: Last citadel of Freedom unsubdued, Last refuge of the sanctities of Man. Here, seaward staring, Drunk with the zest of unresisted daring, He stands—and sees, a cannon-shot apart, England, the first antagonist to thwart The illimitable greed of his black heart: England, at last forsaken and unmanned! This is his moment: now Let the old score be settled, once for all, And from the shaken bough Let this, the ripest fruit of victory, fall Of its own weight into his outstretched hand! Others before had planned Such dooms as these; yet none but he could boast The overweening might his malice flings High in the air above the British coast. A fury of innumerable wings Shall sink our furtive convoys, bomb to dust Their sheltering havens; then a shrewder thrust Strike at our seaward aerodromes and pound Our fighter-planes to splinters on the ground, Slaughtering the fledgeling squadrons where they nest; Or, should vain valour dare To put the hopeless issue to the test, Challenge the irresistible and rise, Then shall the power of swarming myriads wrest From their weak wings the mastery of the air And brush them from the skies; While mustered in the dark, And stealing through the sea-reek that enshrouds The summer straits, his panzers disembark And roll inland; while, headlong from the clouds, Vast air-borne legions fill the secret ways Of every southern shire With havoc and confusion, to embrace Imperial London in a ring of fire. Such was his fell desire: Yet, even as his wings were launched in flight, Far beyond sound or sight, Viewless antennae of sky-probing rays Gave back their reflex: _Aircraft coming over_ _A convoy off the Wight! . . ._ _Two hundred bandits heading straight for Dover:_ _Eleven waves in all! . . . Three hundred more_ _Nor’ East by East, twixt Harwich and the Nore! . . ._ _Portsmouth, Southampton, Weymouth, Portland Bill!_ . . Wave upon wave they come, Fanned out from Flemish airfields; yet before They sight their targets, every fighter-drome Eastward from Gosport—Tangmere, Biggin Hill, Lympne, Hawkinge, Manston—rumbles with the roar Of revved-up Merlins, as our Hurricanes And Spitfires take the air, Upleaping to the flawless zenith where Heinkels and Dorniers, wedged wing to wing, Hang staggered heavenward in a golden stair, Step above step, to the meridian sun: And, higher still than these, Their guardian Messerschmitts in mazy flight, Like swarms of angry bees, Stipple the vault with silvery specks of light, Poised for the deadly stoop, outnumbering Our scanty fighter-squadrons five to one. Nine weeks, in icy realms beyond our ken, That cold vindictive combat filled the skies, While unadventurous men Who sweated in their harvest-fields beneath The August sun, or sweltered in the streets, Recked little of its daily toll of death Nor counted the incomparable feats Of daring wrought above their heads—save when, Raising sun-dazzled eyes, They saw, perchance, mysterious vapour-trails, Those evanescent scriptures that betrayed The swirling vortex of invisible battle; Or, resting in the shade, Ears strained to catch the throbbing undertone Of unseen engines, heard the vicious rattle Of gunfire drowned by agonizing wails Of helpless aircraft falling like a stone; Saw the void heavens scattered near and far With the charred shreds of Heinkels blown to bits Or flaming carcasses of Messerschmitts Plunge with the fury of a shooting-star, Black smoke and wildfire streaming from their tails; Gazed in bewilderment, yet never knew That in the waning of that harvest moon The deadlier reapers of the skies had won A victory as immense as Waterloo, A mastery unmatched since Trafalgar. It had come at last: the proud climactic hour Of the Winged Victory! How shall images Mirrored by earthfast eyes aspire to reach The dizzy patch of these Remote, unvisioned conflicts that outsoar Imagination? How shall halting speech Snare in its weft of words such flashing speed As theirs? the splendour of the breathless deed Too swift for pen or tongue To capture—poems that were lived, not sung, In brief ecstatic moments that defied Death in the air, by lads who lived—or died— Fending the deadliest fate that could befall The souls of mortal men? How shall we call These heroes of our skies, How symbolize Their terrible swiftness—when the fiercest wind That strips the sea seems but a breath behind Their furious slipstream? How shall we compare With theirs the fleetest wings that cleave the air, Kestrel and Peregrine—when their Hurricanes Revelled in regions where the gasping lung Of any feathered thing would burst its breast In spurts of crimson foam—or earthward flung Outspeed the diving gannet; when the vanes Of whirling Spitfires scornfully outsoar The untrodden peaks of icy Everest Five thousand feet and more; Gliding through glacial deeps of purest light Above the utmost bound Of human sense or sight; Snarling through silences that ne’er before Knew any other sound Than the death-roar of the spent meteorite? Who were these paladins, Anonymous and immortal? Whence this breed Of heroes born to fend the direst pass Our Island ever knew? They were the seed Of the mild, unadventurous Middle Class: Plain-sailing folk, who neither knew the need That stunts the body nor the wealth that cankers The spirit, moderate in dream and deed: The sons of parsons, lawyers, doctors, bankers, Shopkeepers, merchants, chemists, engineers, Whose loftiest endeavour was to live Within their calculable means, and give These lads at least as good a life as theirs, A better schooling, and the chance to rise Above their native station: such were they Who, in this desperate day, Won for our wings dominion of the skies: Theirs the resourceful brains That launched into the air the warning ray That saved our cities; shaped the fighter’s vanes, Tail, fuselage, and with inventive skill Powered these dread implements to soar and kill. Yet neither science, craft nor sacrifice Had aught availed Unserved by an inexorable will: Were there not mingled in their moderate blood The fierce ancestral strains Of Caradoc’s charioteers, who never quailed Before Rome’s armoured legions; those who stood Round the thrawn crab at Hastings, when the mailed Might of the Norman broke on the locked shields Of Harold’s housecarls; mariners who sailed With Drake and Hawkins, when the Spaniard sought To sweep our seas, and failed. Theirs was the valour of the few that fought Immeasurable odds at Agincourt, And on the harvest-fields Of Hougomont made good the shot-thinned squares. Yet something more was theirs Than heedless daring, stubborn fortitude: A fervour of the spirit, which imbued Their inmost being, uncontrolled, unknown By conscious will or thought, that swept them on To pinnacles of grandeur more sublime Than ever yet were won In all the annals of recorded time. My lingering task is done; My tale is told; the parting moment nears. Much have I pondered through four slow-paced years Upon our Island’s storied palimpsest, And read therein Some chronicles of cruelty and shame, Folly and stupid arrogance unconfessed; Yet many a nobler page have I perused Lit by bright flashes of the spirit’s flame And by a radiant gentleness transfused: Records of selfless virtue that attest The quenchless love of Liberty and Truth In an old race that has not lost the zest And buoyancy of youth: And this I know full well: Our anguished world would show a sorrier scene If Britain had not been, Or if, perchance, she fell. And this again I claim: In all my story there has been no page Brighter than this: we have lived in a great age; The ancient glory fades not from our name, And goodly is our Island heritage. _Craycombe—Talland._ 1940-1944. TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. [The end of _The Island_ by Francis Brett Young]