'Short time had shaggy Ogier
To pull his lance in line—
He knew King Alfred's axe on high,
He heard it rushing through the sky;
He cowered beneath it with a cry—
It split him to the spine;
And Alfred sprang over him dead,
And blew the battle sign.'
The last part of the poem is that which gives an account of the scouring of the White Horse, in the years of peace:
'When the good king sat at home.'
But through everything the White Horse remained—
'Untouched except by the hand of Nature:
The turf crawled and the fungus crept,
And the little sorrel, while all men slept,
Unwrought the work of man.'
'The Ballad of the White Horse' is in its way one of the best things Chesterton has done: it is a fine poem about a very picturesque piece of English legend, which may or may not be based on history. Poetry can, and very often does, fulfil a great patriotic mission in arousing interest in those distant times when Englishmen, with their backs to the wall, responded to the cry of Alfred, as they did when, centuries later, the hordes of Germans attempted to cut the knot of Haig's army.
For hundreds of years Alfred has been turned to dust, but the White Horse remains, a perpetual monument to the great days when England was invaded by the Danes. 'The Ballad of the White Horse' is a ballad worthy of the immortal horse that will remain centuries after the author of the poem has passed out of mortal sight.
In an early volume of light verse Chesterton wrote of the kind of games that old men with beards would delight in. 'Greybeards at Play' is a delightful set of satirical verses in which the ardent philosopher confers a favour on Nature by being on intimate and patronising terms with her.
This dear old philosopher, with grey beard and presumably long nose and large spectacles, is full of admiration for the heavenly beings: