PAGEODIN THE MAN1KING ETHELBERT OF KENT AND ST. AUGUSTINE13THE CONSECRATION OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY32THE PENANCE OF ST. LAURENCE47KING SIGEBERT OF EAST ANGLIA, AND HEIDA THE PROPHETESS66KING SIGEBERT OF ESSEX, OR A FRIEND AT NEED84KING OSWALD OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR THE BRITON'S REVENGE100CEADMON THE COWHERD, THE FIRST ENGLISH POET117KING OSWY OF NORTHUMBRIA, OR THE WIFE'S VICTORY142THE VENGEANCE OF THE MONKS OF BARDENEY162HOW SAINT CUTHBERT KEPT HIS PENTECOST AT CARLISLE176SAINT FRIDESWIDA, OR THE FOUNDATIONS OF OXFORD208THE BANQUET HALL OF WESSEX, OR THE KING WHO COULD SEE223EPILOGUE: BEDE'S LAST MAY259NOTES283
Odin, a Prince who reigned near the Caspian Sea, after a vain resistance to the Roman arms, leads forth his people to the forests north of the Danube, that, serving God in freedom on the limits of the Roman Empire, and being strengthened by an adverse climate, they may one day descend upon that empire in just revenge; which destiny was fulfilled by the sack of Rome, under Alaric, Christian King of the Goths, a race derived, like the Saxon, from that Eastern people.
Odin, a Prince who reigned near the Caspian Sea, after a vain resistance to the Roman arms, leads forth his people to the forests north of the Danube, that, serving God in freedom on the limits of the Roman Empire, and being strengthened by an adverse climate, they may one day descend upon that empire in just revenge; which destiny was fulfilled by the sack of Rome, under Alaric, Christian King of the Goths, a race derived, like the Saxon, from that Eastern people.
Forth with those missives, Chiron, to the Invader!Hence, and make speed: they scathe mine eyes like fire:Pompeius, thou hast conquered! What remains?Vengeance! Man's race has never dreamed of such;So slow, so sure. Pompeius, I depart:I might have held these mountains yet four days:The fifth had seen them thine—I look beyond the limit of this night:Four centuries I need; then comes mine hour.What saith the Accursed One of the Western World?I hear even now her trumpet! Thus she saith:'I have enlarged my borders: iron reapedEarth's field all golden. Strenuous fight we fought:I left some sweat-drops on that Carthage shore,Some blood on Gallic javelins. That is past!My pleasant days are come: my couch is spreadBeside all waters of the Midland Sea;By whispers lulled of nations kneeling round;Illumed by light of balmiest climes; refreshedBy winds from Atlas and the Olympian snows:Henceforth my foot is in delicious ways;Bathe it, ye Persian fountains! Syrian vales,All roses, make me sleepy with perfumes!Caucasian cliffs, with martial echoes faintFlatter light slumbers; charm a Roman dream!I send you my Pompeius; let him leadOdin in chains to Rome!' Odin in chains!Were Odin chained, or dead, that God he servesCould raise a thousand Odins—Rome's Founder-King beside his Augur standingNoted twelve ravens borne in sequent flightO'er Alba's crags. They emblem'd centuries twelve,The term to Rome conceded. Eight are flown;Remain but four. Hail, sacred brood of night!Hencefore my standards bear the Raven Sign,The bird that hoarsely haunts the ruined tower;The bird sagacious of the field of bloodAlbeit far off. Four centuries I need:Then comes my day. My race and I are one.O Race beloved and holy! From my youthWhere'er a hungry heart impelled my feet,Whate'er I found of glorious, have I notClaimed it for thee, deep-musing? Ignorant, first,For thee I wished the golden ingots piledIn Susa and Ecbatana:—ah fool!At Athens next, treading where Plato trod,For thee all triumphs of the mind of man,And Phidian hand inspired! Ah fool, that hourAthens lay bound, a slave! Later to RomeIn secrecy by Mithridates sentTo search the inmost of his hated foe,For thee I claimed that discipline of LawWhich made her State one camp. Fool, fool once more!Soon learned I what a heart-pollution lurkedBeneath that mask of Law. As Persia fell,By softness sapped, so Rome. Behold, this day,Following the Pole Star of my just revenge,I lead my people forth to clearer fatesThrough cloudier fortunes. They are brave and strong:'Tis but the rose-breath of their vale that rotsTheir destiny's bud unblown. I lead them forth,A race war-vanquished, not a race of slaves;Lead them, not southward to Euphrates' bank,Not Eastward to the realms of rising suns,Not West to Rome and bondage. Hail, thou North!Hail, boundless woods, by nameless oceans girt,And snow-robed mountain islets, founts of fire!Four hundred years! I know that awful North:I sought it when the one flower of my lifeFell to my foot. That anguish set me free:It dashed me on the iron side of life:I woke, a man. My people too shall wake:They shall have icy crags for myrtle banks,Sharp rocks for couches. Strength! I must have strength;Not splenetic sallies of a woman's courage,But hearts to which self-pity is unknown:Hard life to them must be as mighty wineGladdening the strong: the death on battle fieldsMust seem the natural, honest close of life;Their fear must be to die without a woundAnd miss Life's after-banquet. Wooden shieldWhole winter nights shall lie their covering sole:Thereon the boy shall stem the ocean wave;Thereon the youth shall slide with speed of windsLoud-laughing down the snowy mountain-slope:To him the Sire shall whisper as he bleeds,'Remember the revenge? Thy son must proveMore strong, more hard than thou!'Four hundred years!Increase is tardy in that icy clime,For Death is there the awful nurse of Life:Death rocks the cot. Why meet we there no wolfSave those huge-limbed? Because weak wolf-cubs die.'Tis thus with man; 'tis thus with all things strong:—Rise higher on thy northern hills, my Pine!That Southern Palm shall dwindle.House stone-walled—Ye shall not have it! Temples cedar-roofed—Ye shall not build them! Where the Temple standsThe City gathers. Cities ye shall spurn:Live in the woods; live singly, winning each,Hunter or fisher by blue lakes, his prey:Abhor the gilded shrine: the God UnknownIn such abides not. On the mountain's topGreat Persia sought Him in her day of strength:With her ye share the kingly breed of Truths,The noblest inspirations man hath known,Or can know—ay, unless the Lord of allShould come, Man's Teacher. Pray as Persia prayed;And see ye pray for Vengeance! Leave till thenTo Rome her Idol fanes and pilfered Gods.I see you, O my People, year by yearStrengthened by sufferings; pains that crush the weak,Your helpers. Men have been that, poison-fed,Grew poison-proof: on pain and wrong feed ye!The wild-beast rage against you! frost and fireRack you in turn! I'll have no gold among you;With gold come wants; and wants mean servitude.Edge, each, his spear with fish-bone or with flint,Leaning for prop on none. I want no Nations!A Race I fashion, playing not at States:I take the race of Man, the breed that liftsAlone its brow to heaven: I change that raceFrom clay to stone, from stone to adamantThrough slow abrasion, such as leaves sea-shelvesLustrous at last and smooth. Tobe, nothave,A man to be; no heritage to claspSave that which simple manhood, at its will,Or conquers or re-conquers, held meanwhileIn trust for Virtue; this alone is greatness.Remain ye Tribes, not Nations; led by Kings,Great onward-striding Kings, above the restHigh towering, like the keel-compelling sailThat takes the topmost tempest. Let them die,Each for his people! I will die for mineThen when my work is finished; not before.That Bandit King who founded Rome, the Accursed,Vanished in storm. My sons shall see me die,Die, strong to lead them till my latest breath,Which shall not be a sigh; shall see and say,'This Man far-marching through the mountainous world,No God, but yet God's Prophet of the North,Gave many crowns to others: for himselfHis people were his crown.'Four hundred years—Ye shall find savage races in your path:Be ye barbaric, ay, but savage not:Hew down the baser lest they drag you down;Ye cannot raise them: they fulfil their fates:Be terrible to foes, be kind to friend:Be just; be true. Revere the Household Hearth;This knowing, that beside it dwells a God:Revere the Priest, the King, the Bard, the Maid,The Mother of the heroic race—five stringsSounding God's Lyre. Drive out with lance for goadThat idiot God by Rome called Terminus,Who standing sleeps, and holds his reign o'er fools.The earth is God's, not Man's: that Man from HimHolds it whose valour earns it. Time shall come,It may be, when the warfare shall be past,The reign triumphant of the brave and justIn peace consolidated. Time may comeWhen that long winter of the Northern LandShall find its spring. Where spreads the black morassHarvest all gold may glitter; cities riseWhere roamed the elk; and nations set their thrones;Nations not like those empires known till now,But wise and pure. Let such their temples buildAnd worship Truth, if Truth should e'er to ManShow her full face. Let such ordain them lawsIf Justice e'er should mate with laws of men.Above the mountain summits of Man's hopeThere spreads, I know, a land illimitable,The table land of Virtue trial-proved,Whereon one day the nations of the worldShall race like emulous Gods. A greater GodServed by our sires, a God unknown to Rome,Above that shining level sits, high-towered:Millions of Spirits wing His flaming light,And fiery winds among His tresses play:When comes that hour which judges Gods and men,That God shall plague the Gods that filched His name,And cleanse the Peoples.When ye hear, my sons,That God uprising in His judgment robesAnd see their dreadful crimson in the West,Then know ye that the knell of Rome is nigh;Then stand, and listen! When His Trumpet soundsForth from your forests and your snows, my sons,Forth over Ister, Rhenus, Rhodonus,To Mœsia forth, to Thrace, Illyricum,Iberia, Gaul; but, most of all, to Rome!Who leads you thither leads you not for spoil:A mission hath he, fair though terrible;—He makes a pure hand purer, washed in blood:On, Scourge of God! the Vengeance Hour is come.I know that hour, and wait it. Odin's workStands then consummate. Odin's name thenceforthGoes down to darkness.Farewell, Ararat!How many an evening, still and bright as this,In childhood, youth, or manhood's sorrowing years,Have I not watched the sunset hanging redUpon thy hoary brow! Farewell for ever!A legend haunts thee that the race of manIn earliest days, a sad and storm-tossed few,From thy wan heights descended, making wayInto a ruined world. A storm-tossed race,But not self-pitying, once again thou seestInto a world all ruin making wayWhither they know not, yet without a fear.This hour—lo, there, they pass yon valley's verge!—In sable weeds that pilgrimage moves on,Moves slowly like thy shadow, Ararat,That eastward creeps. Phantom of glory dead!Image of greatness that disdains to die!Move Northward thou! Whate'er thy fates decreed,At least that shadow shall be shadow of man,And not of beast gold-weighted! On, thou NightCast by my heart! Thou too shalt meet thy morn!
Forth with those missives, Chiron, to the Invader!Hence, and make speed: they scathe mine eyes like fire:Pompeius, thou hast conquered! What remains?Vengeance! Man's race has never dreamed of such;So slow, so sure. Pompeius, I depart:I might have held these mountains yet four days:The fifth had seen them thine—I look beyond the limit of this night:Four centuries I need; then comes mine hour.
What saith the Accursed One of the Western World?I hear even now her trumpet! Thus she saith:'I have enlarged my borders: iron reapedEarth's field all golden. Strenuous fight we fought:I left some sweat-drops on that Carthage shore,Some blood on Gallic javelins. That is past!My pleasant days are come: my couch is spreadBeside all waters of the Midland Sea;By whispers lulled of nations kneeling round;Illumed by light of balmiest climes; refreshedBy winds from Atlas and the Olympian snows:Henceforth my foot is in delicious ways;Bathe it, ye Persian fountains! Syrian vales,All roses, make me sleepy with perfumes!Caucasian cliffs, with martial echoes faintFlatter light slumbers; charm a Roman dream!I send you my Pompeius; let him leadOdin in chains to Rome!' Odin in chains!Were Odin chained, or dead, that God he servesCould raise a thousand Odins—Rome's Founder-King beside his Augur standingNoted twelve ravens borne in sequent flightO'er Alba's crags. They emblem'd centuries twelve,The term to Rome conceded. Eight are flown;Remain but four. Hail, sacred brood of night!Hencefore my standards bear the Raven Sign,The bird that hoarsely haunts the ruined tower;The bird sagacious of the field of bloodAlbeit far off. Four centuries I need:Then comes my day. My race and I are one.O Race beloved and holy! From my youthWhere'er a hungry heart impelled my feet,Whate'er I found of glorious, have I notClaimed it for thee, deep-musing? Ignorant, first,For thee I wished the golden ingots piledIn Susa and Ecbatana:—ah fool!At Athens next, treading where Plato trod,For thee all triumphs of the mind of man,And Phidian hand inspired! Ah fool, that hourAthens lay bound, a slave! Later to RomeIn secrecy by Mithridates sentTo search the inmost of his hated foe,For thee I claimed that discipline of LawWhich made her State one camp. Fool, fool once more!Soon learned I what a heart-pollution lurkedBeneath that mask of Law. As Persia fell,By softness sapped, so Rome. Behold, this day,Following the Pole Star of my just revenge,I lead my people forth to clearer fatesThrough cloudier fortunes. They are brave and strong:'Tis but the rose-breath of their vale that rotsTheir destiny's bud unblown. I lead them forth,A race war-vanquished, not a race of slaves;Lead them, not southward to Euphrates' bank,Not Eastward to the realms of rising suns,Not West to Rome and bondage. Hail, thou North!Hail, boundless woods, by nameless oceans girt,And snow-robed mountain islets, founts of fire!Four hundred years! I know that awful North:I sought it when the one flower of my lifeFell to my foot. That anguish set me free:It dashed me on the iron side of life:I woke, a man. My people too shall wake:They shall have icy crags for myrtle banks,Sharp rocks for couches. Strength! I must have strength;Not splenetic sallies of a woman's courage,But hearts to which self-pity is unknown:Hard life to them must be as mighty wineGladdening the strong: the death on battle fieldsMust seem the natural, honest close of life;Their fear must be to die without a woundAnd miss Life's after-banquet. Wooden shieldWhole winter nights shall lie their covering sole:Thereon the boy shall stem the ocean wave;Thereon the youth shall slide with speed of windsLoud-laughing down the snowy mountain-slope:To him the Sire shall whisper as he bleeds,'Remember the revenge? Thy son must proveMore strong, more hard than thou!'Four hundred years!Increase is tardy in that icy clime,For Death is there the awful nurse of Life:Death rocks the cot. Why meet we there no wolfSave those huge-limbed? Because weak wolf-cubs die.'Tis thus with man; 'tis thus with all things strong:—Rise higher on thy northern hills, my Pine!That Southern Palm shall dwindle.House stone-walled—Ye shall not have it! Temples cedar-roofed—Ye shall not build them! Where the Temple standsThe City gathers. Cities ye shall spurn:Live in the woods; live singly, winning each,Hunter or fisher by blue lakes, his prey:Abhor the gilded shrine: the God UnknownIn such abides not. On the mountain's topGreat Persia sought Him in her day of strength:With her ye share the kingly breed of Truths,The noblest inspirations man hath known,Or can know—ay, unless the Lord of allShould come, Man's Teacher. Pray as Persia prayed;And see ye pray for Vengeance! Leave till thenTo Rome her Idol fanes and pilfered Gods.
I see you, O my People, year by yearStrengthened by sufferings; pains that crush the weak,Your helpers. Men have been that, poison-fed,Grew poison-proof: on pain and wrong feed ye!The wild-beast rage against you! frost and fireRack you in turn! I'll have no gold among you;With gold come wants; and wants mean servitude.Edge, each, his spear with fish-bone or with flint,Leaning for prop on none. I want no Nations!A Race I fashion, playing not at States:I take the race of Man, the breed that liftsAlone its brow to heaven: I change that raceFrom clay to stone, from stone to adamantThrough slow abrasion, such as leaves sea-shelvesLustrous at last and smooth. Tobe, nothave,A man to be; no heritage to claspSave that which simple manhood, at its will,Or conquers or re-conquers, held meanwhileIn trust for Virtue; this alone is greatness.Remain ye Tribes, not Nations; led by Kings,Great onward-striding Kings, above the restHigh towering, like the keel-compelling sailThat takes the topmost tempest. Let them die,Each for his people! I will die for mineThen when my work is finished; not before.That Bandit King who founded Rome, the Accursed,Vanished in storm. My sons shall see me die,Die, strong to lead them till my latest breath,Which shall not be a sigh; shall see and say,'This Man far-marching through the mountainous world,No God, but yet God's Prophet of the North,Gave many crowns to others: for himselfHis people were his crown.'Four hundred years—Ye shall find savage races in your path:Be ye barbaric, ay, but savage not:Hew down the baser lest they drag you down;Ye cannot raise them: they fulfil their fates:Be terrible to foes, be kind to friend:Be just; be true. Revere the Household Hearth;This knowing, that beside it dwells a God:Revere the Priest, the King, the Bard, the Maid,The Mother of the heroic race—five stringsSounding God's Lyre. Drive out with lance for goadThat idiot God by Rome called Terminus,Who standing sleeps, and holds his reign o'er fools.The earth is God's, not Man's: that Man from HimHolds it whose valour earns it. Time shall come,It may be, when the warfare shall be past,The reign triumphant of the brave and justIn peace consolidated. Time may comeWhen that long winter of the Northern LandShall find its spring. Where spreads the black morassHarvest all gold may glitter; cities riseWhere roamed the elk; and nations set their thrones;Nations not like those empires known till now,But wise and pure. Let such their temples buildAnd worship Truth, if Truth should e'er to ManShow her full face. Let such ordain them lawsIf Justice e'er should mate with laws of men.Above the mountain summits of Man's hopeThere spreads, I know, a land illimitable,The table land of Virtue trial-proved,Whereon one day the nations of the worldShall race like emulous Gods. A greater GodServed by our sires, a God unknown to Rome,Above that shining level sits, high-towered:Millions of Spirits wing His flaming light,And fiery winds among His tresses play:When comes that hour which judges Gods and men,That God shall plague the Gods that filched His name,And cleanse the Peoples.When ye hear, my sons,That God uprising in His judgment robesAnd see their dreadful crimson in the West,Then know ye that the knell of Rome is nigh;Then stand, and listen! When His Trumpet soundsForth from your forests and your snows, my sons,Forth over Ister, Rhenus, Rhodonus,To Mœsia forth, to Thrace, Illyricum,Iberia, Gaul; but, most of all, to Rome!Who leads you thither leads you not for spoil:A mission hath he, fair though terrible;—He makes a pure hand purer, washed in blood:On, Scourge of God! the Vengeance Hour is come.I know that hour, and wait it. Odin's workStands then consummate. Odin's name thenceforthGoes down to darkness.Farewell, Ararat!How many an evening, still and bright as this,In childhood, youth, or manhood's sorrowing years,Have I not watched the sunset hanging redUpon thy hoary brow! Farewell for ever!A legend haunts thee that the race of manIn earliest days, a sad and storm-tossed few,From thy wan heights descended, making wayInto a ruined world. A storm-tossed race,But not self-pitying, once again thou seestInto a world all ruin making wayWhither they know not, yet without a fear.This hour—lo, there, they pass yon valley's verge!—In sable weeds that pilgrimage moves on,Moves slowly like thy shadow, Ararat,That eastward creeps. Phantom of glory dead!Image of greatness that disdains to die!Move Northward thou! Whate'er thy fates decreed,At least that shadow shall be shadow of man,And not of beast gold-weighted! On, thou NightCast by my heart! Thou too shalt meet thy morn!
Ethelbert, King of Kent, converses first with his Pagan Thanes, and next with Saint Augustine, newly landed on the shores of Thanet Island. The Saint, coming in sight of Canterbury, rejoices greatly, and predicts the future greatness of that city.
Ethelbert, King of Kent, converses first with his Pagan Thanes, and next with Saint Augustine, newly landed on the shores of Thanet Island. The Saint, coming in sight of Canterbury, rejoices greatly, and predicts the future greatness of that city.
Far through the forest depths of Thanet Isle,That never yet had heard the woodman's axe,Rang the glad clarion on the May-day morn,Blent with the cry of hounds. The rising sunFlamed on the forests' dewy jewelry,While, under rising mists, a host with plumesRode down a broad oak alley t'wards the sea.King Ethelbert rode first: he reigned in Kent,Least kingdom of the Seven yet Head of allThrough his desert. That morn the royal train,While sang the invisible lark her song in heaven,Pursued the flying stag. At times the creature,As though he too had pleasure in the sport,Vaulted at ease through sunshine and through shade,Then changed his mood, and left the best behind him.Five hours they chased him; last, upon a rockHigh up in scorn he held his antlered front,Then took the wave and vanished.Many a frownDarkened that hour on many a heated brow;And many a spur afflicted that poor flankWhich panted hard and smoked. The King aloneLaughed at mischance. 'The stag, with God to aid,Has left our labour fruitless! Give him joy!He lives to yield us sport some later morn:So be it! Waits our feast, and not far off:On to the left, 'twixt yonder ash and birch!'He spake, and anger passed: they praised their sport;And many an outblown nostril seemed to snuffThat promised feast. They rode through golden furzeSo high the horsemen only were descried;And glades whose centuried oaks their branches laidO'er violet banks; and fruit trees, some snow-veiledLike bridesmaid, others like the bride herselfBehind her white veil blushing. Glad, the thrushCarolled; more glad, the wood-dove moaned; close byA warbling runnel led them to the bay:Two chestnuts stood beside it snowy-coned:The banquet lay beneath them.Feasting o'er,The song succeeded. Boastful was the strain,Each Thane his deeds extolling, or his sire's;But one, an aged man, among them scoffed:'When I was young; when Sigbert on my rightTo battle rode, and Sefred on my left;That time men stood not worsted by a stag!Not then our horses swerved from azure straitScared by the ridged sea-wave!' Next spake a chief,Pirate from Denmark late returned: 'Our skies,Good friends, are all too soft to build the man!We fight for fame: the Northman fights for sport;Their annals boast they fled but once:—'twas thus:In days of old, when Rome was in her pride,Huge hosts of hers had fallen on theirs, surprised,And way-worn: long they fought: a remnant spent,Fled to their camp. Upon its walls their wivesStood up, black-garbed, with axes heaved aloft,And fell upon the fugitives, and slew them;Slew next their little ones; slew last themselves,Cheating the Roman Triumph. Never since thenHath Northman fled the foemen.'Egfrid rose:'Who saith our kinsfolk of the frozen NorthOne stock with us, one faith, one ancient tongue,Pass us in valour? Three days since I sawCrossing the East Saxon's border and our ownTwo boys that strove. The Kentish wounded fell;The East Saxon on him knelt; then made demand:"My victim art thou by the laws of war!Yonder my dagger lies;—till I returnWilt thou abide?" The vanquished answered, "Yea!"A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edgeHis life-blood rushed.' The pirate chief demurred;'A gallant boy! Not less I wager this,The glitter of that dagger ere it smoteMade his eye blink. Attend! Three years gone by,Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiordsWe fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their headSidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's childDespite her father's best. In mist we met:Instant each navy at the other dashedLike wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe;Chained ship to ship, and clashed their clubs all day,Till sank the sun: then laughed the white peaks forth,And reeled, methought, above the reeling waves!The victory was with us. Hakon, next morn,Bade slay his prisoners. Thirty on one benchWaited their doom: their leader died the first;He winked not as the sword upon him closed!No, nor the second! Hakon asked the third,"What think'st thou, friend, of Death?" He tossed his head:"My Father perished; I fulfil my turn."The fourth, "Strike quickly, Chief! An hour this mornWe held contention if, when heads are off,The hand can hold its dagger: I would learn."The dagger and the head together fell.The fifth, "One fear is mine—lest yonder slaveFinger a Prince's hair! Command some chief,Thy best beloved, to lift it in his hands;Then strike and spare not!" Hakon struck. That youth,Sigurd by name, his forehead forward twitched,Laughing, so deftly that the downward swordShore off those luckless hands that raised his hair.All laughed; and Hakon's son besought his sireTo loosen Sigurd's bonds: but Sigurd cried,"Unless the rest be loosed I will not live!"Thus all escaped save four.'In graver moodThat chief resumed: 'A Norland King dies well!His bier is raised upon his stateliest ship;Piled with his arms; his lovers and his friendsRush to their monarch's pyre, resolved with himTo share in death, and with becoming pompAttend his footsteps to Valhalla's Hall.The torch is lit: forth sails the ship, black-winged,Facing the midnight seas. From beach and cliffMen watch all night that slowly lessening flame:Yet no man sheds a tear.'Earconwald,An aged chief, made answer, 'Tears there beOf divers sorts: a wise and valiant kingDeserves that tear which praises, not bewails,Greatness gone by.' The pirate shouted loud,'A land it is of laughter, not of tears!'Know ye the tale of Harald? He had sailedRound southern coasts and eastern—sacked or burnedA hundred Christian cities. One he foundSo girt with giant walls and brazen gatesHis sea-kings vainly dashed themselves thereon,And died beneath them, frustrate. Harald sentA herald to that city proffering terms:"Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth:He sends you spoils from many a city burnt,And craves interment in your chiefest church."Next day the masked procession wound in blackThrough streets defenceless. When the church was reachedThey laid their chief before the altar-lights:Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge,And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloudSudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand,Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smoteThe hoary pontiff down, and brake his neck;And all those maskers doffed their weeds of woeAnd showed the mail beneath, and raised their swords,And drowned that pavement in a sea of blood,While raging rushed their mates through portals wide,And, since that city seemed but scant of spoil,Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughedThat tale recounting,'Many a Kentish chiefRe-echoed Harald's laugh;—not Ethelbert:The war-scar reddening on his brow he roseAnd spake: 'My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst!An old King I, and make my prophecyOne day that northern race which smites and laughs,Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts:That day ye will not laugh!' Earconwald,Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved:'Six sons had I: all these are slain in war;Yet I, an unrejoicing man forlorn,Find solace ofttimes thinking of their deeds:They laughed not when they smote. No God, be sure,Smiles on the jest red-handed.' Egfrid rose,And three times cried with lifted sword unsheathed,'Behold my God! No God save him I serve!'While thus they held discourse, where blue waves dancedNot far from land, behold, there hove in sight,Seen 'twixt a great beech silky yet with SpringAnd pine broad-crested, round whose head old stormsHad wov'n a garland of his own green boughs,A bark both fair and large; and hymn was heard.Then laughed the King, 'The stag-hunt and our songsSo drugged my memory, I had nigh forgottenWhy for our feast I chose this heaven-roofed hall:Missives I late received from friends in France;They make report of strangers from the SouthWho, tarrying in their coasts have learned our tongue,And northward wend with tidings strange and newOf some celestial Kingdom by their GodFounded for men of Faith. Nor churl am ITo frown on kind intent, nor child to trustThis sceptre of Seven Realms to magic snareThat puissance hath—who knows not?—greater thriceIn house than open field. I therefore choseFor audience hall this precinct.'Muttered lowMurdark, the scoffer with the cave-like mouthAnd sidelong eyes, 'Queen Bertha's voice was that!A woman's man! Since first from Gallic shoresThat dainty daughter of King CharibertPressed her small foot on England's honest shoreThe whole land dwindles!'In seraphic hymnsEre long that serpent hiss was lost: for soon,In raiment white, circling a rocky point,O'er sands still glistening with a tide far-ebbed,On drew, preceded by a silver Cross,A long procession. Music, as it moved,Floated on sea-winds inland, deadened nowBy thickets, echoed now from cliff or cave:Ere long before them that procession stood.The King addressed them: 'Welcome, Heralds sage!And if from God I welcome you the more,Since great is God, and therefore great His gifts:God grant He send them daily, heaped and huge!Speak without fear, for him alone I hateWho brings ill news, or makes inept demandUnmeet for Kings. I know that Cross ye bear;And in my palace sits a Christian wife,Bertha, the sweetest lady in this land;Most gracious in her ways, in heart most leal.I knew her yet a child: she knelt whene'erThe Queen, her mother, entered: then I said,A maid so reverent will be reverent wife,And wedded her betimes. Morning and eveShe in her wood-girt chapel sings her prayer,Which wins us kindlier harvest, and, some think,Success in war. She strives not with our Gods:Confusion never wrought she in my house,Nor minished Hengist's glory. Had her voice,Clangorous or strident, drawn upon my throneDeserved opprobrium'—here the monarch's browsFlushed at the thought, and fire was in his eyes—'The hand that clasps this sceptre had not sparedTo hunt her forth, an outcast in the woods,Thenceforth with beasts to herd! More lief were ITo take the lioness to my bed and boardThan house a rebel wife.' Remembering thenThe mildness of his Queen, King EthelbertResumed, appeased, for placable his heart;'But she no rebel is, and this I deemFair auspice for her Faith.'A little breezeWarm from the sea that moment softly wavedThe standard from its staff, and showed thereonThe Child Divine. Upon His mother's kneeSublime He stood. His left hand clasped a globeCrowned with a golden Cross; and with His right,Two fingers heavenward raised, o'er all the earthHe sent His Blessing.Of that band snow-stoledOne taller by the head than all the restObeisance made; then, pointing to the Cross,And forward moving t'ward the monarch's seat,Opened the great commission of the Faith:—'Behold the Eternal Maker of the worlds!That Hand which shaped the earth and blesses earthMust rule the race of man!'Majestic thenAs when, far winding from its mountain springs,City and palm-grove far behind it left,Some Indian river rolls, while mists dissolvedLeave it in native brightness unobscured,And kingly navies share its sea-ward sweep,Forward on-flowed in Apostolic mightAugustine's strong discourse. With God beginning,He showed the Almighty All-compassionate,Down drawn from distance infinite to manBy the Infinite of Love. Lo, Bethlehem's crib!There lay the Illimitable in narrow bound:Thence rose that triumph of a world redeemed!Last, to the standard pointing, thus he spake:'Yon Standard tells the tale! Six hundred yearsWestward it speeds from subject realm to realm:First from the bosom of God's Race Elect,His People, till they slew Him, mild it soared:Rejected, it returned. Above their wallsWhile ruin rocked them, and the Roman fire,Dreadful it hung. When Rome had shared that guilt,Mocking that Saviour's Brethren, and His Bride,Above the conquered conqueror of all landsIn turn this Standard flew. Who raised it high?A son of this your island, Constantine!In these, thine English oakwoods, Helena,'Twas thine to nurse thy warrior. He had seenStar-writ in heaven the words this Standard bears,"Through Me is victory." Victory won, he raisedHigh as his empire's queenly head, and higher,This Standard of the Eternal Dove thenceforthTo fly where eagle standard never flew,God's glory in its track, goodwill to man.Advance for aye, great Emblem! Light as nowFamed Asian headlands, and Hellenic isles!O'er snow-crowned Alp and citied ApennineSend forth a breeze of healing! Keep thy throneFor ever on those western peaks that watchThe setting sun descend the Hesperean wave,Atlas and Calpe! These, the old Roman bound,Build but the gateway of the Rome to be;Till Christ returns, thou Standard, hold them fast:But never till the North, that, age by age,Dashed back the Pagan Rome, with Christian RomePartakes the spiritual crown of man restored,From thy strong flight above the world surcease,And fold thy wings in rest!'Upon the sodHe knelt, and on that Standard gazed, and spake,Calm-voiced, with hand to heaven: 'I promise thee,Thou Sign, another victory, and thy best—This island shall be thine!'Augustine roseAnd took the right hand of King Ethelbert,And placed therein the Standard's staff, and laidHis own above the monarch's, speaking thus:'King of this land, I bid thee know from GodThat kings have higher privilege than they know,The standard-bearers of the King of kings.'Long time he clasped that royal hand; long timeThe King, that patriarch's hand at last withdrawn,His own withdrew not from that Standard's staffCommitted to his charge. His hand he deemedThenceforth its servant vowed. With large, meek eyesFixed on that Maid and Babe, he stood as childThat, gazing on some reverent stranger's face,Nor loosening from that stranger's hold his palm,Listens his words attent.The man of GodMeantime as silent gazed on Thanet's shoreGold-tinged, with sunset spray to crimson turnedIn league-long crescent. Love was in his face,That love which rests on Faith. He spake: 'Fair land,I know thee what thou art, and what thou lack'st!The Master saith, "I give to him that hath:"Thy harvest shall be great.' Again he mused,And shadow o'er him crept. Again he spake:'That harvest won, when centuries have gone by,What countenance wilt thou wear? How oft on browsBrightened by Baptism's splendour, sin more lateDrags down its cloud! The time may come when thouThis day, though darkling, yet so innocent,Barbaric, not depraved, on greater heightsMay'st sin in malice—sin the great offence,Changing thy light to darkness, knowing God,Yet honouring God no more; that time may comeWhen, rich as Carthage, great in arms as Rome,Keen-eyed as Greece, this isle, to sensuous gazeA sun all gold, to angels may presentAspect no nobler than a desert waste,Some blind and blinding waste of sun-scorched sands,Trod by a race of pigmies not of men,Pigmies by passions ruled!'Once more he mused;Then o'er his countenance passed a second change;And from it flashed the light of one who sees,Some hill-top gained, beyond the incumbent nightThe instant foot of morn. With regal step,Martial yet measured, to the King he strode,And laid a strong hand on him, speaking thus:'Rejoice, my son, for God hath sent thy landThis day Good Tidings of exceeding joy,And planted in her breast a Tree divineWhose leaves shall heal far nations. Know besides,Should sickness blight that Tree, or tempest mar,The strong root shall survive: the winter past,Heavenward once more shall rush both branch and bough,And over-vault the stars.'He spake, and tookThe sacred Standard from that monarch's hand,And held it in his own, and fixed its pointDeep in the earth, and by it stood. Then lo!Like one disburthened of some ponderous charge,King Ethelbert became himself again,And round him gazed well pleased. Throughout his trainSudden a movement thrilled: remembrance hadOf those around, his warriors and his thanes,That ever on his wisdom waiting hung,Thus he replied discreet: 'Stranger and friend,Thou bear'st good tidings! That thou camest thus farTo fool us, knave and witling may believe:I walk not with their sort; yet, guest revered,Kings are not as the common race of men;Counsel they take, lest honour heaped on oneDishonour others. Odin holds on usPrescriptive right, and special claims on me,The son of Hengist's grandson. Preach your Faith!The man who wills I suffer to believe:The man who wills not, let him moor his skiffWhere anchorage likes him best. The day declines:This night with us you harbour, and our QueenShall lovingly receive you.'Staid and slowThe King rode homewards, while behind him pacedAugustine and his Monks. The ebb had left'Twixt Thanet and the mainland narrow spaceMarsh-land more late: beyond the ford there woundA path through flowery meads; and, as they passed,Not herdsmen only, but the broad-browed kineFixed on them long their meditative gaze;And oft some blue-eyed boy with flaxen locksRan, fearless, forth, and plucked them by the sleeve,Some boy clear-browed as those Saint Gregory marked,Poor slaves, new-landed on the quays of Rome,That drew from him that saying, '"Angli"—nay,Call them henceforward "Angels"!'From a woodIssuing, before them lustrous they beheldKing Ethelbert's chief city, Canterbury,Strong-walled, with winding street, and airy roofs,And high o'er all the monarch's palace pileThick-set with towers. Then fire from God there fellUpon Augustine's heart; and thus he sangAdvancing; and the brethren sang 'Amen':'Hail, City loved of God, for on thy browGreat Fates are writ. Thou cumberest not His earthFor petty traffic reared, or petty sway;I see a heavenly choir descend, thy crownHenceforth to bind thy brow. Forever hail!'I see the basis of a kingly throneIn thee ascending! High it soars and higher,Like some great pyramid o'er Nilus kennedWhen vapours melt—the Apostolic Chair!Doctrine and Discipline thence shall hold their course,Like Tigris and Euphrates, through all landsThat face the Northern Star. Forever hail!'Where stands yon royal keep, a church shall riseLike Incorruption clothing the CorruptOn the resurrection morn! Strong House of God,To Him exalt thy walls, and nothing doubt,For lo! from thee like lions from their lairAbroad shall pace the Primates of this land:—They shall not lick the hand that gives and smites,Doglike, nor snakelike on their bellies creepIn indirectness base. They shall not fearThe people's madness, nor the rage of kingsReddening the temple's pavement. They shall liftThe strong brow mitred, and the crosiered handBefore their presence sending Love and FearTo pave their steps with greatness. From their frontsStubborned with marble from Saint Peter's RockThe sunrise of far centuries forth shall flame:He that hath eyes shall see it, and shall say,"Blessed who cometh in the name of God!"'Thus sang the Saint, advancing; and, behold,At every pause the brethren sang 'Amen!'While down from window and from roof the throngEyed them in silence. As their anthem ceased,Before them stood the palace clustered roundBy many a stalwart form. Midway the gateOn the first step, like angel newly lit,Queen Bertha stood. Back from her forehead meek,The meeker for its crown, a veil descended,While streamed the red robe to the foot snow-whiteSandalled in gold. The morn was on her face,The star of morn within those eyes upraisedThat flashed all dewy with the grateful lightOf many a granted prayer. O'er that sweet shapeAugustine signed the Venerable Sign;The lovely vision sinking, hand to breast,Received it; while, by sympathy surprised,Or taught of God, the monarch and his thanesKnelt as she knelt, and bent like her their heads,Sharing her blessing. Like a palm the FaithThenceforth o'er England rose, those saintly menPreaching by life severe, not words alone,The doctrine of the Cross. Some Power divine,Stronger than patriot love, more sweet than Spring,Made way from heart to heart, and daily GodJoined to His Church the souls that should be saved,Thousands, where Medway mingles with the Thames,Rushing to Baptism. In his palace cellHigh-nested on that Vaticanian HillWhich o'er the Martyr-gardens kens the world,Gregory, that news receiving, or from men,Or haply from that God with whom he walked,The Spirit's whisper ever in his ear,Rejoiced that hour, and cried aloud, 'Rejoice,Thou Earth! that North which from its cloud but flungThe wild beasts' cry of anger or of pain,Redeemed from wrath, its Hallelujahs sings;Its waves by Roman galleys feared, this dayKiss the bare feet of Christ's Evangelists;That race whose oak-clubs brake our Roman swordsGlories now first in bonds—the bond of Truth:At last it fears;—but fears alone to sin,Striving through faith for Virtue's heavenly crown.
Far through the forest depths of Thanet Isle,That never yet had heard the woodman's axe,Rang the glad clarion on the May-day morn,Blent with the cry of hounds. The rising sunFlamed on the forests' dewy jewelry,While, under rising mists, a host with plumesRode down a broad oak alley t'wards the sea.
King Ethelbert rode first: he reigned in Kent,Least kingdom of the Seven yet Head of allThrough his desert. That morn the royal train,While sang the invisible lark her song in heaven,Pursued the flying stag. At times the creature,As though he too had pleasure in the sport,Vaulted at ease through sunshine and through shade,Then changed his mood, and left the best behind him.Five hours they chased him; last, upon a rockHigh up in scorn he held his antlered front,Then took the wave and vanished.Many a frownDarkened that hour on many a heated brow;And many a spur afflicted that poor flankWhich panted hard and smoked. The King aloneLaughed at mischance. 'The stag, with God to aid,Has left our labour fruitless! Give him joy!He lives to yield us sport some later morn:So be it! Waits our feast, and not far off:On to the left, 'twixt yonder ash and birch!'
He spake, and anger passed: they praised their sport;And many an outblown nostril seemed to snuffThat promised feast. They rode through golden furzeSo high the horsemen only were descried;And glades whose centuried oaks their branches laidO'er violet banks; and fruit trees, some snow-veiledLike bridesmaid, others like the bride herselfBehind her white veil blushing. Glad, the thrushCarolled; more glad, the wood-dove moaned; close byA warbling runnel led them to the bay:Two chestnuts stood beside it snowy-coned:The banquet lay beneath them.Feasting o'er,The song succeeded. Boastful was the strain,Each Thane his deeds extolling, or his sire's;But one, an aged man, among them scoffed:'When I was young; when Sigbert on my rightTo battle rode, and Sefred on my left;That time men stood not worsted by a stag!Not then our horses swerved from azure straitScared by the ridged sea-wave!' Next spake a chief,Pirate from Denmark late returned: 'Our skies,Good friends, are all too soft to build the man!We fight for fame: the Northman fights for sport;Their annals boast they fled but once:—'twas thus:In days of old, when Rome was in her pride,Huge hosts of hers had fallen on theirs, surprised,And way-worn: long they fought: a remnant spent,Fled to their camp. Upon its walls their wivesStood up, black-garbed, with axes heaved aloft,And fell upon the fugitives, and slew them;Slew next their little ones; slew last themselves,Cheating the Roman Triumph. Never since thenHath Northman fled the foemen.'Egfrid rose:'Who saith our kinsfolk of the frozen NorthOne stock with us, one faith, one ancient tongue,Pass us in valour? Three days since I sawCrossing the East Saxon's border and our ownTwo boys that strove. The Kentish wounded fell;The East Saxon on him knelt; then made demand:"My victim art thou by the laws of war!Yonder my dagger lies;—till I returnWilt thou abide?" The vanquished answered, "Yea!"A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edgeHis life-blood rushed.' The pirate chief demurred;'A gallant boy! Not less I wager this,The glitter of that dagger ere it smoteMade his eye blink. Attend! Three years gone by,Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiordsWe fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their headSidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's childDespite her father's best. In mist we met:Instant each navy at the other dashedLike wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe;Chained ship to ship, and clashed their clubs all day,Till sank the sun: then laughed the white peaks forth,And reeled, methought, above the reeling waves!The victory was with us. Hakon, next morn,Bade slay his prisoners. Thirty on one benchWaited their doom: their leader died the first;He winked not as the sword upon him closed!No, nor the second! Hakon asked the third,"What think'st thou, friend, of Death?" He tossed his head:"My Father perished; I fulfil my turn."The fourth, "Strike quickly, Chief! An hour this mornWe held contention if, when heads are off,The hand can hold its dagger: I would learn."The dagger and the head together fell.The fifth, "One fear is mine—lest yonder slaveFinger a Prince's hair! Command some chief,Thy best beloved, to lift it in his hands;Then strike and spare not!" Hakon struck. That youth,Sigurd by name, his forehead forward twitched,Laughing, so deftly that the downward swordShore off those luckless hands that raised his hair.All laughed; and Hakon's son besought his sireTo loosen Sigurd's bonds: but Sigurd cried,"Unless the rest be loosed I will not live!"Thus all escaped save four.'In graver moodThat chief resumed: 'A Norland King dies well!His bier is raised upon his stateliest ship;Piled with his arms; his lovers and his friendsRush to their monarch's pyre, resolved with himTo share in death, and with becoming pompAttend his footsteps to Valhalla's Hall.The torch is lit: forth sails the ship, black-winged,Facing the midnight seas. From beach and cliffMen watch all night that slowly lessening flame:Yet no man sheds a tear.'Earconwald,An aged chief, made answer, 'Tears there beOf divers sorts: a wise and valiant kingDeserves that tear which praises, not bewails,Greatness gone by.' The pirate shouted loud,'A land it is of laughter, not of tears!'Know ye the tale of Harald? He had sailedRound southern coasts and eastern—sacked or burnedA hundred Christian cities. One he foundSo girt with giant walls and brazen gatesHis sea-kings vainly dashed themselves thereon,And died beneath them, frustrate. Harald sentA herald to that city proffering terms:"Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth:He sends you spoils from many a city burnt,And craves interment in your chiefest church."Next day the masked procession wound in blackThrough streets defenceless. When the church was reachedThey laid their chief before the altar-lights:Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge,And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloudSudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand,Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smoteThe hoary pontiff down, and brake his neck;And all those maskers doffed their weeds of woeAnd showed the mail beneath, and raised their swords,And drowned that pavement in a sea of blood,While raging rushed their mates through portals wide,And, since that city seemed but scant of spoil,Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughedThat tale recounting,'Many a Kentish chiefRe-echoed Harald's laugh;—not Ethelbert:The war-scar reddening on his brow he roseAnd spake: 'My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst!An old King I, and make my prophecyOne day that northern race which smites and laughs,Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts:That day ye will not laugh!' Earconwald,Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved:'Six sons had I: all these are slain in war;Yet I, an unrejoicing man forlorn,Find solace ofttimes thinking of their deeds:They laughed not when they smote. No God, be sure,Smiles on the jest red-handed.' Egfrid rose,And three times cried with lifted sword unsheathed,'Behold my God! No God save him I serve!'While thus they held discourse, where blue waves dancedNot far from land, behold, there hove in sight,Seen 'twixt a great beech silky yet with SpringAnd pine broad-crested, round whose head old stormsHad wov'n a garland of his own green boughs,A bark both fair and large; and hymn was heard.Then laughed the King, 'The stag-hunt and our songsSo drugged my memory, I had nigh forgottenWhy for our feast I chose this heaven-roofed hall:Missives I late received from friends in France;They make report of strangers from the SouthWho, tarrying in their coasts have learned our tongue,And northward wend with tidings strange and newOf some celestial Kingdom by their GodFounded for men of Faith. Nor churl am ITo frown on kind intent, nor child to trustThis sceptre of Seven Realms to magic snareThat puissance hath—who knows not?—greater thriceIn house than open field. I therefore choseFor audience hall this precinct.'Muttered lowMurdark, the scoffer with the cave-like mouthAnd sidelong eyes, 'Queen Bertha's voice was that!A woman's man! Since first from Gallic shoresThat dainty daughter of King CharibertPressed her small foot on England's honest shoreThe whole land dwindles!'In seraphic hymnsEre long that serpent hiss was lost: for soon,In raiment white, circling a rocky point,O'er sands still glistening with a tide far-ebbed,On drew, preceded by a silver Cross,A long procession. Music, as it moved,Floated on sea-winds inland, deadened nowBy thickets, echoed now from cliff or cave:Ere long before them that procession stood.The King addressed them: 'Welcome, Heralds sage!And if from God I welcome you the more,Since great is God, and therefore great His gifts:God grant He send them daily, heaped and huge!Speak without fear, for him alone I hateWho brings ill news, or makes inept demandUnmeet for Kings. I know that Cross ye bear;And in my palace sits a Christian wife,Bertha, the sweetest lady in this land;Most gracious in her ways, in heart most leal.I knew her yet a child: she knelt whene'erThe Queen, her mother, entered: then I said,A maid so reverent will be reverent wife,And wedded her betimes. Morning and eveShe in her wood-girt chapel sings her prayer,Which wins us kindlier harvest, and, some think,Success in war. She strives not with our Gods:Confusion never wrought she in my house,Nor minished Hengist's glory. Had her voice,Clangorous or strident, drawn upon my throneDeserved opprobrium'—here the monarch's browsFlushed at the thought, and fire was in his eyes—'The hand that clasps this sceptre had not sparedTo hunt her forth, an outcast in the woods,Thenceforth with beasts to herd! More lief were ITo take the lioness to my bed and boardThan house a rebel wife.' Remembering thenThe mildness of his Queen, King EthelbertResumed, appeased, for placable his heart;'But she no rebel is, and this I deemFair auspice for her Faith.'A little breezeWarm from the sea that moment softly wavedThe standard from its staff, and showed thereonThe Child Divine. Upon His mother's kneeSublime He stood. His left hand clasped a globeCrowned with a golden Cross; and with His right,Two fingers heavenward raised, o'er all the earthHe sent His Blessing.Of that band snow-stoledOne taller by the head than all the restObeisance made; then, pointing to the Cross,And forward moving t'ward the monarch's seat,Opened the great commission of the Faith:—'Behold the Eternal Maker of the worlds!That Hand which shaped the earth and blesses earthMust rule the race of man!'Majestic thenAs when, far winding from its mountain springs,City and palm-grove far behind it left,Some Indian river rolls, while mists dissolvedLeave it in native brightness unobscured,And kingly navies share its sea-ward sweep,Forward on-flowed in Apostolic mightAugustine's strong discourse. With God beginning,He showed the Almighty All-compassionate,Down drawn from distance infinite to manBy the Infinite of Love. Lo, Bethlehem's crib!There lay the Illimitable in narrow bound:Thence rose that triumph of a world redeemed!Last, to the standard pointing, thus he spake:'Yon Standard tells the tale! Six hundred yearsWestward it speeds from subject realm to realm:First from the bosom of God's Race Elect,His People, till they slew Him, mild it soared:Rejected, it returned. Above their wallsWhile ruin rocked them, and the Roman fire,Dreadful it hung. When Rome had shared that guilt,Mocking that Saviour's Brethren, and His Bride,Above the conquered conqueror of all landsIn turn this Standard flew. Who raised it high?A son of this your island, Constantine!In these, thine English oakwoods, Helena,'Twas thine to nurse thy warrior. He had seenStar-writ in heaven the words this Standard bears,"Through Me is victory." Victory won, he raisedHigh as his empire's queenly head, and higher,This Standard of the Eternal Dove thenceforthTo fly where eagle standard never flew,God's glory in its track, goodwill to man.Advance for aye, great Emblem! Light as nowFamed Asian headlands, and Hellenic isles!O'er snow-crowned Alp and citied ApennineSend forth a breeze of healing! Keep thy throneFor ever on those western peaks that watchThe setting sun descend the Hesperean wave,Atlas and Calpe! These, the old Roman bound,Build but the gateway of the Rome to be;Till Christ returns, thou Standard, hold them fast:But never till the North, that, age by age,Dashed back the Pagan Rome, with Christian RomePartakes the spiritual crown of man restored,From thy strong flight above the world surcease,And fold thy wings in rest!'Upon the sodHe knelt, and on that Standard gazed, and spake,Calm-voiced, with hand to heaven: 'I promise thee,Thou Sign, another victory, and thy best—This island shall be thine!'Augustine roseAnd took the right hand of King Ethelbert,And placed therein the Standard's staff, and laidHis own above the monarch's, speaking thus:'King of this land, I bid thee know from GodThat kings have higher privilege than they know,The standard-bearers of the King of kings.'Long time he clasped that royal hand; long timeThe King, that patriarch's hand at last withdrawn,His own withdrew not from that Standard's staffCommitted to his charge. His hand he deemedThenceforth its servant vowed. With large, meek eyesFixed on that Maid and Babe, he stood as childThat, gazing on some reverent stranger's face,Nor loosening from that stranger's hold his palm,Listens his words attent.The man of GodMeantime as silent gazed on Thanet's shoreGold-tinged, with sunset spray to crimson turnedIn league-long crescent. Love was in his face,That love which rests on Faith. He spake: 'Fair land,I know thee what thou art, and what thou lack'st!The Master saith, "I give to him that hath:"Thy harvest shall be great.' Again he mused,And shadow o'er him crept. Again he spake:'That harvest won, when centuries have gone by,What countenance wilt thou wear? How oft on browsBrightened by Baptism's splendour, sin more lateDrags down its cloud! The time may come when thouThis day, though darkling, yet so innocent,Barbaric, not depraved, on greater heightsMay'st sin in malice—sin the great offence,Changing thy light to darkness, knowing God,Yet honouring God no more; that time may comeWhen, rich as Carthage, great in arms as Rome,Keen-eyed as Greece, this isle, to sensuous gazeA sun all gold, to angels may presentAspect no nobler than a desert waste,Some blind and blinding waste of sun-scorched sands,Trod by a race of pigmies not of men,Pigmies by passions ruled!'Once more he mused;Then o'er his countenance passed a second change;And from it flashed the light of one who sees,Some hill-top gained, beyond the incumbent nightThe instant foot of morn. With regal step,Martial yet measured, to the King he strode,And laid a strong hand on him, speaking thus:'Rejoice, my son, for God hath sent thy landThis day Good Tidings of exceeding joy,And planted in her breast a Tree divineWhose leaves shall heal far nations. Know besides,Should sickness blight that Tree, or tempest mar,The strong root shall survive: the winter past,Heavenward once more shall rush both branch and bough,And over-vault the stars.'He spake, and tookThe sacred Standard from that monarch's hand,And held it in his own, and fixed its pointDeep in the earth, and by it stood. Then lo!Like one disburthened of some ponderous charge,King Ethelbert became himself again,And round him gazed well pleased. Throughout his trainSudden a movement thrilled: remembrance hadOf those around, his warriors and his thanes,That ever on his wisdom waiting hung,Thus he replied discreet: 'Stranger and friend,Thou bear'st good tidings! That thou camest thus farTo fool us, knave and witling may believe:I walk not with their sort; yet, guest revered,Kings are not as the common race of men;Counsel they take, lest honour heaped on oneDishonour others. Odin holds on usPrescriptive right, and special claims on me,The son of Hengist's grandson. Preach your Faith!The man who wills I suffer to believe:The man who wills not, let him moor his skiffWhere anchorage likes him best. The day declines:This night with us you harbour, and our QueenShall lovingly receive you.'Staid and slowThe King rode homewards, while behind him pacedAugustine and his Monks. The ebb had left'Twixt Thanet and the mainland narrow spaceMarsh-land more late: beyond the ford there woundA path through flowery meads; and, as they passed,Not herdsmen only, but the broad-browed kineFixed on them long their meditative gaze;And oft some blue-eyed boy with flaxen locksRan, fearless, forth, and plucked them by the sleeve,Some boy clear-browed as those Saint Gregory marked,Poor slaves, new-landed on the quays of Rome,That drew from him that saying, '"Angli"—nay,Call them henceforward "Angels"!'From a woodIssuing, before them lustrous they beheldKing Ethelbert's chief city, Canterbury,Strong-walled, with winding street, and airy roofs,And high o'er all the monarch's palace pileThick-set with towers. Then fire from God there fellUpon Augustine's heart; and thus he sangAdvancing; and the brethren sang 'Amen':
'Hail, City loved of God, for on thy browGreat Fates are writ. Thou cumberest not His earthFor petty traffic reared, or petty sway;I see a heavenly choir descend, thy crownHenceforth to bind thy brow. Forever hail!
'I see the basis of a kingly throneIn thee ascending! High it soars and higher,Like some great pyramid o'er Nilus kennedWhen vapours melt—the Apostolic Chair!Doctrine and Discipline thence shall hold their course,Like Tigris and Euphrates, through all landsThat face the Northern Star. Forever hail!
'Where stands yon royal keep, a church shall riseLike Incorruption clothing the CorruptOn the resurrection morn! Strong House of God,To Him exalt thy walls, and nothing doubt,For lo! from thee like lions from their lairAbroad shall pace the Primates of this land:—They shall not lick the hand that gives and smites,Doglike, nor snakelike on their bellies creepIn indirectness base. They shall not fearThe people's madness, nor the rage of kingsReddening the temple's pavement. They shall liftThe strong brow mitred, and the crosiered handBefore their presence sending Love and FearTo pave their steps with greatness. From their frontsStubborned with marble from Saint Peter's RockThe sunrise of far centuries forth shall flame:He that hath eyes shall see it, and shall say,"Blessed who cometh in the name of God!"'
Thus sang the Saint, advancing; and, behold,At every pause the brethren sang 'Amen!'While down from window and from roof the throngEyed them in silence. As their anthem ceased,Before them stood the palace clustered roundBy many a stalwart form. Midway the gateOn the first step, like angel newly lit,Queen Bertha stood. Back from her forehead meek,The meeker for its crown, a veil descended,While streamed the red robe to the foot snow-whiteSandalled in gold. The morn was on her face,The star of morn within those eyes upraisedThat flashed all dewy with the grateful lightOf many a granted prayer. O'er that sweet shapeAugustine signed the Venerable Sign;The lovely vision sinking, hand to breast,Received it; while, by sympathy surprised,Or taught of God, the monarch and his thanesKnelt as she knelt, and bent like her their heads,Sharing her blessing. Like a palm the FaithThenceforth o'er England rose, those saintly menPreaching by life severe, not words alone,The doctrine of the Cross. Some Power divine,Stronger than patriot love, more sweet than Spring,Made way from heart to heart, and daily GodJoined to His Church the souls that should be saved,Thousands, where Medway mingles with the Thames,Rushing to Baptism. In his palace cellHigh-nested on that Vaticanian HillWhich o'er the Martyr-gardens kens the world,Gregory, that news receiving, or from men,Or haply from that God with whom he walked,The Spirit's whisper ever in his ear,Rejoiced that hour, and cried aloud, 'Rejoice,Thou Earth! that North which from its cloud but flungThe wild beasts' cry of anger or of pain,Redeemed from wrath, its Hallelujahs sings;Its waves by Roman galleys feared, this dayKiss the bare feet of Christ's Evangelists;That race whose oak-clubs brake our Roman swordsGlories now first in bonds—the bond of Truth:At last it fears;—but fears alone to sin,Striving through faith for Virtue's heavenly crown.