The Ballad of the White Horse/Dedication
DEDICATION
Of great limbs gone to chaos, A great face turned to night —Why bend above a shapeless shroudSeeking in such archaic cloud Sight of strong lords and light?
Where seven sunken Englands Lie buried one by one,Why should one idle spade, I wonder,Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder To smoke and choke the sun?
In cloud of clay so cast to heaven What shape shall man discern?These lords may light the mysteryOf mastery or victory,And these ride high in history, But these shall not return.
Gored on the Norman gonfalon The Golden Dragon died;We shall not wake with ballad stringsThe good time of the smaller things,We shall not see the holy kings Ride down by Severn side.
Stiff, strange, and quaintly coloured As the broidery of BayeuxThe England of that dawn remains,And this of Alfred and the DanesSeems like the tales a whole tribe feigns, Too English to be true.
Of a good king on an island That ruled once on a time;And as he walked by an apple treeThere came green devils out of the seaWith sea-plants trailing heavily And tracks of opal slime.
Yet Alfred is no fairy tale; His days as our days ran,He also looked forth for an hourOn peopled plains and skies that lower,From those few windows in the tower That is the head of a man.
But who shall look from Alfred's hood Or breathe his breath alive?His century like a small dark cloudDrifts far; it is an eyeless crowd,Where the tortured trumpets scream aloud And the dense arrows drive.
Lady, by one light only We look from Alfred's eyes,We know he saw athwart the wreckThe sign that hangs about your neck,Where One more than Melchizedek Is dead and never dies.
Therefore I bring these rhymes to you, Who brought the cross to me,Since on you flaming without flawI saw the sign that Guthrum sawWhen he let break his ships of awe, And laid peace on the sea.
Do you remember when we went Under a dragon moon,And 'mid volcanic tints of nightWalked where they fought the unknown fightAnd saw black trees on the battle-height, Black thorn on Ethandune?
And I thought, "I will go with you, As man with God has gone,And wander with a wandering star,The wandering heart of things that are,The fiery cross of love and war That like yourself, goes on."
O go you onward; where you are Shall honour and laughter be,Past purpled forest and pearled foam,God's winged pavilion free to roam,Your face, that is a wandering home, A flying home for me.
Ride through the silent earthquake lands, Wide as a waste is wide,Across these days like deserts, whenPride and a little scratching penHave dried and split the hearts of men, Heart of the heroes, ride.
Up through an empty house of stars, Being what heart you are,Up the inhuman steeps of spaceAs on a staircase go in grace,Carrying the firelight on your face Beyond the loneliest star.
Take these; in memory of the hour We strayed a space from homeAnd saw the smoke-hued hamlets, quaintWith Westland king and Westland saint,And watched the western glory faint Along the road to Frome.
G. K. C.