The world turned empty where they trod, They took the kindly cross of God And cut it up for wood.
Their souls were drifting as the sea, And all good towns and lands They only saw with heavy eyes, And broke with heavy hands, Their gods were sadder than the sea, Gods of a wandering will, Who cried for blood like beasts at night, Sadly, from hill to hill.
They seemed as trees walking the earth, As witless and as tall, Yet they took hold upon the heavens And no help came at all.
They bred like birds in English woods, They rooted like the rose, When Alfred came to Athelney To hide him from their bows There was not English armour left, Nor any English thing, When Alfred came to Athelney To be an English king.
For earthquake swallowing earthquake Uprent the Wessex tree;The whirlpool of the pagan sway Had swirled his sires as sticks away When a flood smites the sea.
And the great kings of Wessex Wearied and sank in gore, And even their ghosts in that great stress Grew greyer and greyer, less and less, With the lords that died in Lyonesse And the king that comes no more.
And the God of the Golden Dragon Was dumb upon his throne, And the lord of the Golden Dragon Ran in the woods alone.
And if ever he climbed the crest of luck And set the flag before, Returning as a wheel returns, Came ruin and the rain that burns, And all began once more.
And naught was left King Alfred But shameful tears of rage, In the island in the river In the end of all his age.
In the island in the river He was broken to his knee:
And he read, writ with an iron pen, That God had wearied of Wessex men And given their country, field and fen, To the devils of the sea.
And he saw in a little picture, Tiny and far away, His mother sitting in Egbert's hall, And a book she showed him, very small, Where a sapphire Mary sat in stall With a golden Christ at play.
It was wrought in the monk's slow manner, From silver and sanguine shell, Where the scenes are little and terrible, Keyholes of heaven and hell.
In the river island of Athelney, With the river running past, In colours of such simple creed All things sprang at him, sun and weed, Till the grass grew to be grass indeed And the tree was a tree at last.
Fearfully plain the flowers grew, Like the child's book to read, Or like a friend's face seen in a glass;He looked; and there Our Lady was, She stood and stroked the tall live grass As a man strokes his steed.
Her face was like an open word When brave men speak and choose, The very colours of her coat Were better than good news.
She spoke not, nor turned not, Nor any sign she cast, Only she stood up straight and free, Between the flowers in Athelney, And the river running past.
One dim ancestral jewel hung On his ruined armour grey, He rent and cast it at her feet:
Where, after centuries, with slow feet, Men came from hall and school and street And found it where it lay.
"Mother of God," the wanderer said, "I am but a common king, Nor will I ask what saints may ask, To see a secret thing.
"The gates of heaven are fearful gates Worse than the gates of hell;Not I would break the splendours barred Or seek to know the thing they guard, Which is too good to tell.
"But for this earth most pitiful, This little land I know, If that which is for ever is, Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, Seeing the stranger go?
"When our last bow is broken, Queen, And our last javelin cast, Under some sad, green evening sky, Holding a ruined cross on high, Under warm westland grass to lie, Shall we come home at last?"And a voice came human but high up, Like a cottage climbed among The clouds; or a serf of hut and croft That sits by his hovel fire as oft, But hears on his old bare roof aloft A belfry burst in song.
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked, We do not guard our gain, The heaviest hind may easily Come silently and suddenly Upon me in a lane.
"And any little maid that walks In good thoughts apart, May break the guard of the Three Kings And see the dear and dreadful things I hid within my heart.
"The meanest man in grey fields gone Behind the set of sun, Heareth between star and other star, Through the door of the darkness fallen ajar, The council, eldest of things that are, The talk of the Three in One.
"The gates of heaven are lightly locked, We do not guard our gold, Men may uproot where worlds begin, Or read the name of the nameless sin;But if he fail or if he win To no good man is told.
"The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark, But the men signed of the cross of Christ Go gaily in the dark.
"The men of the East may search the scrolls For sure fates and fame, But the men that drink the blood of God Go singing to their shame.
"The wise men know what wicked things Are written on the sky, They trim sad lamps, they touch sad strings, Hearing the heavy purple wings, Where the forgotten seraph kings Still plot how God shall die.
"The wise men know all evil things Under the twisted trees, Where the perverse in pleasure pine And men are weary of green wine And sick of crimson seas.
"But you and all the kind of Christ Are ignorant and brave, And you have wars you hardly win And souls you hardly save.
"I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.
"Night shall be thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?"Even as she spoke she was not, Nor any word said he, He only heard, still as he stood Under the old night's nodding hood, The sea-folk breaking down the wood Like a high tide from sea.
He only heard the heathen men, Whose eyes are blue and bleak, Singing about some cruel thing Done by a great and smiling king In daylight on a deck.
He only heard the heathen men, Whose eyes are blue and blind, Singing what shameful things are done Between the sunlit sea and the sun When the land is left behind.
BOOK II
THE GATHERING OF THE CHIEFS
Up across windy wastes and up Went Alfred over the shaws, Shaken of the joy of giants, The joy without a cause.
In the slopes away to the western bays, Where blows not ever a tree, He washed his soul in the west wind And his body in the sea.
