Sir Franklin Lushington.
PALGRAVE
LXXXI
ALFRED THE GREAT
The Isle of Roses in her Lindian shrine,
Athena’s dwelling, gleam’d with golden song
Of Pindar, set in gold the walls along,
Blazoning the praise of Héraclés divine.
—O Poets, who for us have wrought the mine
Of old Romance, illusive pearl and gold,
Its star-fair maids, knights of heroic mould,
Ye lend the rays that on their features shine,
Ideal strength and beauty:—But O thou
Fair Truth!—to thee with deeper faith we bow;
Knowing thy genuine heroes bring with them
Their more than poetry. From these we learn
What men can be. By their own light they burn
As in far heavens the Pleiad diadem.
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.