THE FIRST AND LAST LAND

AT SENNEN

Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!—here, where gray
Belerium fronts the spray
Smiting the bastion’d crags through centuries flown,
While, ’neath the hissing surge,
Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,

As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round:
Nor is there other sound
Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note,
The seabirds’ calling cry,
As ’gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,

Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post,
And sentinel the coast:—
Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar’d file,
The lichen-bearded rocks
Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.

—Happy, alone with Nature thus!—Yet here
Dim, primal man is near;—
The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore
Through long Biscayan waves
Star-steer’d adventurous from the Iberic shore

Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight
Oil-olive, fig, and date;
Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes,
Or Tyrian azure glass
Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:—

Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware
Or tin-sand silvery fair,
To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield
Of heroes, arm’d for fight:—
While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield

The treasured ore; nor Alexander’s name
Know, nor fair Helen’s shame;
Or in his tent how Peleus’ wrathful son
Looks toward the sea, nor heeds
The towers of still-unconquer’d Ilion.

Belerium; The name given to the Land’s End by Diodorus, the Greek historical compiler. He describes the natives as hospitable and civilized. They mined tin, which was bought by traders and carried through Gaul to the south-east, and may, as suggested here, have been used in their armour by the warriors during the Homeric Siege of Troy.

PAULINUS AND EDWIN

627

The black-hair’d gaunt Paulinus
By ruddy Edwin stood:—
‘Bow down, O King of Deira,
Before the holy Rood!
Cast forth thy demon idols,
And worship Christ our Lord!’
—But Edwin look’d and ponder’d,
And answer’d not a word.

Again the gaunt Paulinus
To ruddy Edwin spake:
‘God offers life immortal
For His dear Son’s own sake!
Wilt thou not hear his message
Who bears the Keys and Sword?’
—But Edwin look’d and ponder’d,
And answer’d not a word.

Rose then a sage old warrior;
Was five-score winters old;
Whose beard from chin to girdle
Like one long snow-wreath roll’d:—
‘At Yule-time in our chamber
We sit in warmth and light,
While cavern-black around us
Lies the grim mouth of Night.

‘Athwart the room a sparrow
Darts from the open door:
Within the happy hearth-light
One red flash,—and no more!

We see it born from darkness,
And into darkness go:—
So is our life, King Edwin!
Ah, that it should be so!

‘But if this pale Paulinus
Have somewhat more to tell;
Some news of whence and whither,
And where the Soul may dwell:—
If on that outer darkness
The sun of Hope may shine;—
He makes life worth the living!
I take his God for mine!’

So spake the wise old warrior;
And all about him cried
‘Paulinus’ God hath conquer’d!
And he shall he our guide:—
For he makes life worth living,
Who brings this message plain,—
When our brief days are over,
That we shall live again.’

Paulinus was one of the four missionaries sent form Rome by Gregory the Great in 601. The marriage of Edwin, King of Northumbria, with Ethelburga, sister to Eadbald of Kent, opened Paulinus’ way to northern England. Bede, born less than fifty years after, has given an admirable narrative of Edwin’s conversion: which is very completely told in Bright’s Early English Church History, B. IV.

Deira, (from old-Welsh deifr, waters), then comprised Eastern Yorkshire from Tees to Humber. Goodmanham, where the meeting described was held, is some 23 miles from York.

ALFRED THE GREAT

849-901

The fair-hair’d boy is at his mother’s knee,
A many-colour’d page before them spread,
Gay summer harvest-field of gold and red,
With lines and staves of ancient minstrelsy.
But through her eyes alone the child can see,
From her sweet lips partake the words of song,
And looks as one who feels a hidden wrong,
Or gazes on some feat of gramarye.
‘When thou canst use it, thine the book!’ she cried:
He blush’d, and clasp’d it to his breast with pride:—
‘Unkingly task!’ his comrades cry; In vain;
All work ennobles nobleness, all art,
He sees; Head governs hand; and in his heart
All knowledge for his province he has ta’en.

Few the bright days, and brief the fruitful rest,
As summer-clouds that o’er the valley flit:—
To other tasks his genius he must fit;
The Dane is in the land, uneasy guest!
—O sacred Athelney, from pagan quest
Secure, sole haven for the faithful boy
Waiting God’s issue with heroic joy
And unrelaxing purpose in the breast!
The Dragon and the Raven, inch by inch,
For England fight; nor Dane nor Saxon flinch;
Then Alfred strikes his blow; the realm is free:—
He, changing at the font his foe to friend,
Yields for the time, to gain the far-off end,
By moderation doubling victory.

O much-vex’d life, for us too short, too dear!
The laggard body lame behind the soul;
Pain, that ne’er marr’d the mind’s serene control;
Breathing on earth heaven’s aether atmosphere,
God with thee, and the love that casts out fear!
A soul in life’s salt ocean guarding sure
The freshness of youth’s fountain sweet and pure,
And to all natural impulse crystal-clear:
To service or command, to low and high
Equal at once in magnanimity,
The Great by right divine thou only art!
Fair star, that crowns the front of England’s morn,
Royal with Nature’s royalty inborn,
And English to the very heart of heart!

The fair-hair’d boy: There is a singular unanimity among historians in regard to this ‘darling of the English,’ whose life has been vividly sketched by Freeman (Conquest, ch. ii); by Green (English People, B. I: ch. iii); and, earlier, by my Father in his short History of the Anglo-Saxons, ch. vi-viii.

Changing at the font: Alfred was godfather to Guthrun the Dane, when baptized after his defeat at Ethandune in 878.

A DANISH BARROW

ON THE EAST DEVON COAST

Lie still, old Dane, below thy heap!
—A sturdy-back and sturdy-limb,
Whoe’er he was, I warrant him
Upon whose mound the single sheep
Browses and tinkles in the sun,
Within the narrow vale alone.

Lie still, old Dane! This restful scene
Suits well thy centuries of sleep:
The soft brown roots above thee creep,
The lotus flaunts his ruddy sheen,
And,—vain memento of the spot,—
The turquoise-eyed forget-me-not.

Lie still!—Thy mother-land herself
Would know thee not again: no more
The Raven from the northern shore
Hails the bold crew to push for pelf,
Through fire and blood and slaughter’d kings,
’Neath the black terror of his wings.

And thou,—thy very name is lost!
The peasant only knows that here
Bold Alfred scoop’d thy flinty bier,
And pray’d a foeman’s prayer, and tost
His auburn, head, and said ‘One more
Of England’s foes guards England’s shore,’

And turn’d and pass’d to other feats,
And left thee in thine iron robe,
To circle with the circling globe,
While Time’s corrosive dewdrop eats

The giant warrior to a crust
Of earth in earth, and rust in rust.

So lie: and let the children play
And sit like flowers upon thy grave,
And crown with flowers,—that hardly have
A briefer blooming-tide than they;—
By hurrying years borne on to rest,
As thou, within the Mother’s breast.