The Visions of England / Lyrics on leading men and events in English History

by Francis Turner Palgrave

THE REJOICING OF THE LAND

1295

So the land had rest! and the cloud of that heart-sore struggle and pain
Rose from her ancient hills, and peace shone o’er her again,
Sunlike chasing the plagues wherewith the land was defiled;
And the leprosy fled, and her flesh came again, as the flesh of a child.
—They were stern and stark, the three children of Rolf, the first from Anjou:
For their own sake loving the land, mayhap, but loving her true;
France the wife, and England the handmaid; yet over the realm
Their eyes were in every place, their hands gripp’d firm on the helm.
Villein and earl, the cowl and the plume, they were bridled alike;
One law for all, but arm’d law,—not swifter to aid than to strike.

Lo, in the twilight transept, the holy places of God,
Not with sunset the steps of the altar are dyed, but with scarlet of blood!
Clang of iron-shod feet, and sheep for their shepherd who cry;
Curses and swords that flash, and the victim proffer’d to die!
—Bare thy own back to the smiter, O king, at the shrine of the dead:
Thy friend thou hast slain in thy folly; the blood of the Saint on thy head:
Proud and priestly, thou say’st;—yet tender and faithful and pure;
True man, and so, true saint;—the crown of his martyrdom sure:—
As friend with his friend, he could brave thee and warn; thou hast silenced the voice,
Ne’er to be heard again:—nor again will Henry rejoice!
Green Erin may yield her, fair Scotland submit; but his sunshine is o’er;
The tooth of the serpent, the child of his bosom, has smote him so sore:—
Like a wolf from the hounds he dragg’d off to his lair, not turning to bay:—
Crying ‘shame on a conquer’d king!’—the grim ghost fled sullen away.
—Then, as in gray Autumn the heavens are pour’d on the rifted hillside,
When the Rain-stars mistily gleam, and torrents leap white in their pride,
And the valley is all one lake, and the late, unharvested shocks
Are rapt to the sea, the dwellings of man, the red kine and the flocks,—
O’er England the ramparts of law, the old landmarks of liberty fell,
As the brothers in blood and in lust, twin horror begotten of hell,

Suck’d all the life of the land to themselves, like Lofoden in flood,
One in his pride, in his subtlety one, mocking England and God.
Then tyranny’s draught—once only—we drank to the dregs!—and the stain
Went crimson and black through the soul of the land, for all time, not in vain!
We bore the bluff many-wived king, rough rival and victor of Rome;
We bore the stern despot-protector, whose dawning and sunset were gloom;
For they temper’d the self of the tyrant with love of the land,
Some touch of the heart, some remorse, refraining the grip of the hand.
But John’s was blackness of darkness, a day of vileness and shame;
Shrieks of the tortured, and silence, and outrage the mouth cannot name.
—O that cry of the helpless, the weak that writhe under the foe,
Wrong man-wrought upon man, dumb unwritten annals of woe!
Cry that goes upward from earth as she rolls through the peace of the skies
‘How long? Hast thou forgotten, O God!’ . . . and silence replies!
Silence:—and then was the answer;—the light o’er Windsor that broke,
The Meadow of Law—true Avalon where the true Arthur awoke!
—Not thou, whose name, as a seed o’er the world, plume-wafted on air,
Britons on each side sea,—Caerlleon and Cumbria,—share,
Joy of a downtrod race, dear hope of freedom to-be,

Dream of poetic hearts, whom the vision only can see! . . .
For thine were the fairy knights, fair ideals of beauty and song;
But ours, in the ways of men, walk’d sober, and stumbling, and strong;—
Stumbling as who in peril and twilight their pathway trace out,
Hard to trace, and untried, and the foe above and about;
For the Charter of Freedom, the voice of the land in her Council secure
All doing, all daring,—and, e’en when defeated, of victory sure!
Langton, our Galahad, first, stamp’d Leader by Rome unaware,
Pembroke and Mowbray, Fitzwarine, Fitzalan, Fitzwalter, De Clare:—
—O fair temple of Freedom and Law!—the foundations ye laid:—
But again came the storm, and the might of darkness and wrong was array’d,
A warfare of years; and the battle raged, and new heroes arose
From a soil that is fertile in manhood’s men, and scatter’d the foes,
And set in their place the bright pillars of Order, Liberty’s shrine,
O’er the land far-seen, as o’er Athens the home of Athena divine.
—So the land had rest:—and the cloud of that heart-sore struggle and pain
Sped from her ancient hills, and peace shone o’er her again,
Sunlike chasing the plagues wherewith the land was defiled:
And the leprosy fled, and her flesh came again, as the flesh of a child.
For lo! the crown’d Statesman of Law, Justinian himself of his realm,

Edward, since Alfred our wisest of all who have watch’d by the helm!
He who yet preaches in silence his life-word, the light of his way,
From his marble unadorn’d chest, in the heart of the West Minster gray,
Keep thy Faith . . . In the great town-twilight, this city of gloom,
—O how unlike that blithe London he look’d on!—I look on his tomb,
In the circle of kings, round the shrine, where the air is heavy with fame,
Dust of our moulder’d chieftains, and splendour shrunk to a name.
Silent synod august, ye that tried the delight and the pain,
Trials and snares of a throne, was the legend written in vain?
Speak, for ye know, crown’d shadows! who down each narrow and strait
As ye might, once guided,—a perilous passage,—the keel of the State,
Fourth Henry, fourth Edward, Elizabeth, Charles,—now ye rest from your toil,
Was it best, when by truth and compass ye steer’d, or by statecraft and guile?
Or is it so hard, that steering of States, that as men who throw in
With party their life, honour soils his own ermine, a lie is no sin? . . .
—Not so, great Edward, with thee,—not so!—For he learn’d in his youth
The step straightforward and sure, the proud, bright bearing of truth:—
Arm’d against Simon at Evesham, yet not less, striking for Law,—
Ages of temperate freedom, a vision of order, he saw!—
—Vision of opulent years, a murmur of welfare and peace:

Orchard golden-globed, plain waving in golden increase;
Hopfields fairer than vineyards, green laughing tendrils and bine;
Woodland misty in sunlight, and meadow sunny with kine;—
Havens of heaving blue, where the keels of Guienne and the Hanse
Jostle and creak by the quay, and the mast goes up like a lance,
Gay with the pennons of peace, and, blazon’d with Adria’s dyes,
Purple and orange, the sails like a sunset burn in the skies.
Bloodless conquests of commerce, that nation with nation unite!
Hand clasp’d frankly in hand, not steel-clad buffets in fight:
On the deck strange accents and shouting; rough furcowl’d men of the north,
Genoa’s brown-neck’d sons, and whom swarthy Smyrna sends forth:
Freights of the south; drugs potent o’er death from the basilisk won,
Odorous Phoenix-nest, and spice of a sunnier sun:—
Butts of Malvasian nectar, Messene’s vintage of old,
Cyprian webs, damask of Arabia mazy with gold:
Sendal and Samite and Tarsien, and sardstones ruddy as wine,
Graved by Athenian diamond with forms of beauty divine.
To the quay from the gabled alleys, the huddled ravines of the town,
Twilights of jutting lattice and beam, the Guild-merchants come down,
Cheapening the gifts of the south, the sea-borne alien bales,
For the snow-bright fleeces of Leom’ster, the wealth of Devonian vales;

While above them, the cavernous gates, on which knight-robbers have gazed
Hopeless, in peace look down, their harrows of iron upraised;
And Dustyfoot enters at will with his gay Autolycus load,
And the maidens are flocking as doves when they fling the light grain on the road.
Low on the riverain mead, where the dull clay-cottages cling
To the tall town-ward and the towers, as nests of the martin in spring,
Where the year-long fever lurks, and gray leprosy burrows secure,
Are the wattled huts of the Friars, the long, white Church of the poor:
—Haven of wearied eyelids; of hearts that care not to live;
Shadow and silence of prayer; the peace which the world cannot give!
Tapers hazily gloaming through fragrance the censers outpour;
Chant ever rising and rippling in sweetness, as waves on the shore;
Casements of woven stone, with more than the rainbow bedyed;
Beauty of holiness! Spell yet unbroken by riches and pride!
—Ah! could it be so for ever!—the good aye better’d by Time:—
First-Faith, first-Wisdom, first-Love,—to the end be true to their prime! . .
Far rises the storm o’er horizons unseen, that will lay them in dust,
Crashings of plunder’d cloisters, and royal insatiate lust:—
Far, unseen, unheard!—Meanwhile the great Minster on high
Like a stream of music, aspiring, harmonious, springs to the sky:—
Story on story ascending their buttress’d beauty unfold,

Till the highest height is attain’d, and the Cross shines star-like in gold,
Set as a meteor in heaven; a sign of health and release:—
And the land rejoices below, and the heart-song of England is Peace.

This date has been chosen as representing at once the culminating point in the reign of Edward, and of Mediaevalism in England. The sound, the fascinating elements of that period rapidly decline after the thirteenth century in Church and State, in art and in learning.

‘In the person of the great Edward,’ says Freeman, ‘the work of reconciliation is completed. Norman and Englishman have become one under the best and greatest of our later Kings, the first who, since the Norman entered our land, . . . followed a purely English policy.’

The three children; William I and II, and Henry I.

The transept; of Canterbury Cathedral, after Becket’s death named the ‘Martyrdom.’

Nor again; See the Early Plantagenets, by Bishop Stubbs: one of the very few masterpieces among the shoal of little books on great subjects in which a declining literature is fertile.

Britons on each side sea; Armorica and Cornwall, Wales and Strathclyde, all share in the great Arthurian legend.

Justinian; ‘Edward,’ says Dr. Stubbs, ‘is the great lawgiver, the great politician, the great organiser of the mediaeval English polity:’ (Early Plantagenets).

Keep thy Faith; ‘Pactum serva’ may be still seen inscribed on the huge stone coffin of Edward I.

The keels of Guienne . . . Adria’s dyes; The ships of Gascony, of the Hanse Towns, of Genoa, of Venice, are enumerated amongst those which now traded with England.

Malvasian nectar; ‘Malvoisie,’ the sweet wine of the Southern Morea, gained its name from Monemvasia, or Napoli di Malvasia, its port of shipment.

Sendal; A thin rich silk. Samite; A very rich stuff, sometimes wholly of silk, often crimson, interwoven with gold and silver thread, and embroidered. Tarsien; Silken stuff from Tartary.

Athenian diamond; A few very fine early gems ascribed to Athens, are executed wholly with diamond-point.

The snow-bright fleeces; Those of Leominster were very long famous.

Devonian vales; The ancient mining region west of Tavistock.

Dustyfoot; Old name for pedlar.

CRECY

August 26: 1346

At Crecy by Somme in Ponthieu
High up on a windy hill
A mill stands out like a tower;
King Edward stands on the mill.
The plain is seething below
As Vesuvius seethes with flame,
But O! not with fire, but gore,
Earth incarnadined o’er,
Crimson with shame and with fame!—
To the King run the messengers, crying
‘Thy Son is hard-press’d to the dying!’
—‘Let alone: for to-day will be written in story
To the great world’s end, and for ever:
So let the boy have the glory.’

Erin and Gwalia there
With England are one against France;
Outfacing the oriflamme red
The red dragons of Merlin advance:—
As harvest in autumn renew’d
The lances bend o’er the fields;
Snow-thick our arrow-heads white
Level the foe as they light;
Knighthood to yeomanry yields:—
Proud heart, the King watches, as higher
Goes the blaze of the battle, and nigher:—
‘To-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world’s end, and for ever!
Let the boy alone have the glory.’

Harold at Senlac-on-Sea
By Norman arrow laid low,—

When the shield-wall was breach’d by the shaft,
—Thou art avenged by the bow!
Chivalry! name of romance!
Thou art henceforth but a name!
Weapon that none can withstand,
Yew in the Englishman’s hand,
Flight-shaft unerring in aim!
As a lightning-struck forest the foemen
Shiver down to the stroke of the bowmen:—
—‘O to-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world’s end, and for ever!
So, let the boy have the glory.’

Pride of Liguria’s shore
Genoa wrestles in vain;
Vainly Bohemia’s King
Kinglike is laid with the slain.
The Blood-lake is wiped-out in blood,
The shame of the centuries o’er;
Where the pride of the Norman had sway
The lions lord over the fray,
The legions of France are no more:—
—The Prince to his father kneels lowly;
—‘His is the battle! his wholly!
For to-day is a day will be written in story
To the great world’s end, and for ever:—
So, let him have the spurs, and the glory!’

Erin and Gwalia; Half of Edward’s army consisted of light armed footmen from Ireland and Wales—the latter under their old Dragon-flag.

Chivalry; The feudal idea of an army, resting ‘on the superiority of the horseman to the footman, of the mounted noble to the unmounted churl,’ may be said to have been ruined by this battle: (Green, B. IV: ch. iii).

Liguria; 15,000 cross-bowmen from Genoa were in Philip’s army.

The Blood-lake; Senlac; Hastings.

THE BLACK SEATS

1348-9

Blue and ever more blue
The sky of that summer’s spring:
No cloud from dawning to night:
The lidless eyeball of light
Glared: nor could e’en in darkness the dew
Her pearls on the meadow-grass string.
As a face of a hundred years,
Mummied and scarr’d, for the heart
Is long dry at the fountain of tears,
Green earth lay brown-faced and torn,
Scarr’d and hard and forlorn.
And as that foul monster of Lerna
Whom Héraclés slew in his might,
But this one slaying, not slain,
From the marshes, poisonous, white,
Crawl’d out a plague-mist and sheeted the plain,
A hydra of hell and of night.
—Whence upon men has that horror past?
From Cathaya westward it stole to Byzance,—
The City of Flowers,—the vineyards of France;—
O’er the salt-sea ramparts of England, last,
Reeking and rank, a serpent’s breath:—
What is this, men cry in their fear, what is this that cometh?
’Tis the Black Death, they whisper:
The black black Death!

The heart of man at the name
To a ball of ice shrinks in,
With hope, surrendering life:—
The husband looks on the wife,
Reading the tokens of doom in the frame,
The pest-boil hid in the skin,

And flees and leaves her to die.
Fear-sick, the mother beholds
In her child’s pure crystalline eye
A dull shining, a sign of despair.
Lo, the heavens are poison, not air;
And they fall as when lambs in the pasture
With a moan that is hardly a moan,
Drop, whole flocks, where they stand;
And the mother lays her, alone,
Slain by the touch of her nursing hand,
Where the household before her is strown.
—Earth, Earth, open and cover thy dead!
For they are smitten and fall who bear
The corpse to the grave with a prayerless prayer,
And thousands are crush’d in the common bed:—
—Is it Hell that breathes with an adder’s breath?
Is it the day of doom, men cry, the Judge that cometh?
—’Tis the Black Death, God help us!
The black black Death.

Maid Alice and maid Margaret
In the fields have built them a bower
Of reedmace and rushes fine,
Fenced with sharp albespyne;
Pretty maids hid in the nest; and yet
Yours is one death, and one hour!
Priest and peasant and lord
By the swift, soft stroke of the air,
By a silent invisible sword,
In plough-field or banquet, fall:
The watchers are flat on the wall:—
Through city and village and valley
The sweet-voiced herald of prayer
Is dumb in the towers; the throng
To the shrine pace barefoot; and where
Blazed out from the choir a glory of song,

God’s altar is lightless and bare.
Is there no pity in earth or sky?
The burden of England, who shall say?
Half the giant oak is riven away,
And the green leaves yearn for the leaves that die.
Will the whole world drink of the dragon’s breath?
It is the cup, men cry, the cup of God’s fury that cometh!
’Tis the Black Death, Lord help us!
The black black Death.

In England is heard a moan,
A bitter lament and a sore,
Rachel lamenting her dead,
And will not be comforted
For the little faces for ever gone,
The feet from the silent floor.
And a cry goes up from the land,
Take from us in mercy, O God,
Take from us the weight of Thy hand,
The cup and the wormwood of woe!
’Neath the terrible barbs of Thy bow
This England, this once Thy beloved,
Is water’d with life-blood for rain;
The bones of her children are white,
As flints on the Golgotha plain;
Not slain as warriors by warriors in fight,
By the arrows of Heaven slain.
We have sinn’d: we lift up our souls to Thee,
O Lord God eternal on high:
Thou who gavest Thyself to die,
Saviour, save! to Thy feet we flee:—
Snatch from the hell and the Enemy’s breath,
From the Prince of the Air, from the terror by night that cometh:—
From the Black Death, Christ save us!
The black black Death!

That foul monster; The Lernaean Hydra of Greek legend.

From the marshes; The drought which preceded the plague in England, and may have predisposed to its reception, was followed by mist, in which the people fancied they saw the disease palpably advancing.

From Cathaya; The plague was heard of in Central Asia in 1333; it reached Constantinople in 1347.

The City of Flowers; Florence, where the ravages of the plague were immortalized in the Decamerone of Boccaccio.

The pest boil; Seems to have been the enlarged and discharging gland by which the specific blood-poison of the plague relieved itself. A ‘muddy glistening’ of the eye is noticed as one of the symptoms.

The common bed; More than 50,000 are said to have been buried on the site of the Charter House.

Albespyne; Hawthorn.

Half the giant oak; ‘Of the three or four millions who then formed the population of England, more than one-half were swept away’: (Green, B. IV: ch. iii).