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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117667" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Book VIII: The Scouring of the Horse</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the years of the peace of Wessex,<br>When the good King sat at home;<br>Years following on that bloody boon<br>When she that stands above the moon<br>Stood above death at Ethandune<br>And saw his kingdom come--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the pagan people of the sea<br>Fled to their palisades,<br>Nailed there with javelins to cling<br>And wonder smote the pirate king,<br>And brought him to his christening<br>And the end of all his raids.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">(For not till the night's blue slate is wiped<br>Of its last star utterly,<br>And fierce new signs writ there to read,<br>Shall eyes with such amazement heed,<br>As when a great man knows indeed<br>A greater thing than he.)</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there came to his chrism-loosing<br>Lords of all lands afar,<br>And a line was drawn north-westerly<br>That set King Egbert's empire free,<br>Giving all lands by the northern sea<br>To the sons of the northern star.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In the days of the rest of Alfred,<br>When all these things were done,<br>And Wessex lay in a patch of peace,<br>Like a dog in a patch of sun--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The King sat in his orchard,<br>Among apples green and red,<br>With the little book in his bosom<br>And the sunshine on his head.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he gathered the songs of simple men<br>That swing with helm and hod,<br>And the alms he gave as a Christian<br>Like a river alive with fishes ran;<br>And he made gifts to a beggar man<br>As to a wandering god.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he gat good laws of the ancient kings,<br>Like treasure out of the tombs;<br>And many a thief in thorny nook,<br>Or noble in sea-stained turret shook,<br>For the opening of his iron book,<br>And the gathering of the dooms.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then men would come from the ends of the earth,<br>Whom the King sat welcoming,<br>And men would go to the ends of the earth<br>Because of the word of the King.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">For folk came in to Alfred's face<br>Whose javelins had been hurled<br>On monsters that make boil the sea,<br>Crakens and coils of mystery.<br>Or thrust in ancient snows that be<br>The white hair of the world.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And some had knocked at the northern gates<br>Of the ultimate icy floor,<br>Where the fish freeze and the foam turns black,<br>And the wide world narrows to a track,<br>And the other sea at the world's back<br>Cries through a closed door.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And men went forth from Alfred's face,<br>Even great gift-bearing lords,<br>Not to Rome only, but more bold,<br>Out to the high hot courts of old,<br>Of negroes clad in cloth of gold,<br>Silence, and crooked swords,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Scrawled screens and secret gardens<br>And insect-laden skies--<br>Where fiery plains stretch on and on<br>To the purple country of Prester John<br>And the walls of Paradise.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And he knew the might of the Terre Majeure,<br>Where kings began to reign;<br>Where in a night-rout, without name,<br>Of gloomy Goths and Gauls there came<br>White, above candles all aflame,<br>Like a vision, Charlemagne.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And men, seeing such embassies,<br>Spake with the King and said:<br>"The steel that sang so sweet a tune<br>On Ashdown and on Ethandune,<br>Why hangs it scabbarded so soon,<br>All heavily like lead?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Why dwell the Danes in North England,<br>And up to the river ride?<br>Three more such marches like thine own<br>Would end them; and the Pict should own<br>Our sway; and our feet climb the throne<br>In the mountains of Strathclyde."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And Alfred in the orchard,<br>Among apples green and red,<br>With the little book in his bosom,<br>Looked at green leaves and said:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"When all philosophies shall fail,<br>This word alone shall fit;<br>That a sage feels too small for life,<br>And a fool too large for it.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Asia and all imperial plains<br>Are too little for a fool;<br>But for one man whose eyes can see<br>The little island of Athelney<br>Is too large a land to rule.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Haply it had been better<br>When I built my fortress there,<br>Out in the reedy waters wide,<br>I had stood on my mud wall and cried:<br>'Take England all, from tide to tide--<br>Be Athelney my share.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Those madmen of the throne-scramble--<br>Oppressors and oppressed--<br>Had lined the banks by Athelney,<br>And waved and wailed unceasingly,<br>Where the river turned to the broad sea,<br>By an island of the blest.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"An island like a little book<br>Full of a hundred tales,<br>Like the gilt page the good monks pen,<br>That is all smaller than a wren,<br>Yet hath high towns, meteors, and men,<br>And suns and spouting whales;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"A land having a light on it<br>In the river dark and fast,<br>An isle with utter clearness lit,<br>Because a saint had stood in it;<br>Where flowers are flowers indeed and fit,<br>And trees are trees at last.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"So were the island of a saint;<br>But I am a common king,<br>And I will make my fences tough<br>From Wantage Town to Plymouth Bluff,<br>Because I am not wise enough<br>To rule so small a thing."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And it fell in the days of Alfred,<br>In the days of his repose,<br>That as old customs in his sight<br>Were a straight road and a steady light,<br>He bade them keep the White Horse white<br>As the first plume of the snows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And right to the red torchlight,<br>From the trouble of morning grey,<br>They stripped the White Horse of the grass<br>As they strip it to this day.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And under the red torchlight<br>He went dreaming as though dull,<br>Of his old companions slain like kings,<br>And the rich irrevocable things<br>Of a heart that hath not openings,<br>But is shut fast, being full.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the torchlight touched the pale hair<br>Where silver clouded gold,<br>And the frame of his face was made of cords,<br>And a young lord turned among the lords<br>And said: "The King is old."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And even as he said it<br>A post ran in amain,<br>Crying: "Arm, Lord King, the hamlets arm,<br>In the horror and the shade of harm,<br>They have burnt Brand of Aynger's farm--<br>The Danes are come again!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Danes drive the white East Angles<br>In six fights on the plains,<br>Danes waste the world about the Thames,<br>Danes to the eastward--Danes!"</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And as he stumbled on one knee,<br>The thanes broke out in ire,<br>Crying: "Ill the watchmen watch, and ill<br>The sheriffs keep the shire."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the young earl said: "Ill the saints,<br>The saints of England, guard<br>The land wherein we pledge them gold;<br>The dykes decay, the King grows old,<br>And surely this is hard,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"That we be never quit of them;<br>That when his head is hoar<br>He cannot say to them he smote,<br>And spared with a hand hard at the throat,<br>'Go, and return no more.' "</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Alfred smiled. And the smile of him<br>Was like the sun for power.<br>But he only pointed: bade them heed<br>Those peasants of the Berkshire breed,<br>Who plucked the old Horse of the weed<br>As they pluck it to this hour.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Will ye part with the weeds for ever?<br>Or show daisies to the door?<br>Or will you bid the bold grass<br>Go, and return no more?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"So ceaseless and so secret<br>Thrive terror and theft set free;<br>Treason and shame shall come to pass<br>While one weed flowers in a morass;<br>And like the stillness of stiff grass<br>The stillness of tyranny.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Over our white souls also<br>Wild heresies and high<br>Wave prouder than the plumes of grass,<br>And sadder than their sigh.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"And I go riding against the raid,<br>And ye know not where I am;<br>But ye shall know in a day or year,<br>When one green star of grass grows here;<br>Chaos has charged you, charger and spear,<br>Battle-axe and battering-ram.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"And though skies alter and empires melt,<br>This word shall still be true:<br>If we would have the horse of old,<br>Scour ye the horse anew.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"One time I followed a dancing star<br>That seemed to sing and nod,<br>And ring upon earth all evil's knell;<br>But now I wot if ye scour not well<br>Red rust shall grow on God's great bell<br>And grass in the streets of God."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ceased Alfred; and above his head<br>The grand green domes, the Downs,<br>Showed the first legions of the press,<br>Marching in haste and bitterness<br>For Christ's sake and the crown's.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beyond the cavern of Colan,<br>Past Eldred's by the sea,<br>Rose men that owned King Alfred's rod,<br>From the windy wastes of Exe untrod,<br>Or where the thorn of the grave of God<br>Burns over Glastonbury.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Far northward and far westward<br>The distant tribes drew nigh,<br>Plains beyond plains, fell beyond fell,<br>That a man at sunset sees so well,<br>And the tiny coloured towns that dwell<br>In the corners of the sky.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But dark and thick as thronged the host,<br>With drum and torch and blade,<br>The still-eyed King sat pondering,<br>As one that watches a live thing,<br>The scoured chalk; and he said,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Though I give this land to Our Lady,<br>That helped me in Athelney,<br>Though lordlier trees and lustier sod<br>And happier hills hath no flesh trod<br>Than the garden of the Mother of God<br>Between Thames side and the sea,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"I know that weeds shall grow in it<br>Faster than men can burn;<br>And though they scatter now and go,<br>In some far century, sad and slow,<br>I have a vision, and I know<br>The heathen shall return.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"They shall not come with warships,<br>They shall not waste with brands,<br>But books be all their eating,<br>And ink be on their hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Not with the humour of hunters<br>Or savage skill in war,<br>But ordering all things with dead words,<br>Strings shall they make of beasts and birds,<br>And wheels of wind and star.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"They shall come mild as monkish clerks,<br>With many a scroll and pen;<br>And backward shall ye turn and gaze,<br>Desiring one of Alfred's days,<br>When pagans still were men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"The dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns,<br>Like fiercer flowers on stalk,<br>Earth lost and little like a pea<br>In high heaven's towering forestry,<br>--These be the small weeds ye shall see<br>Crawl, covering the chalk.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"But though they bridge St. Mary's sea,<br>Or steal St. Michael's wing--<br>Though they rear marvels over us,<br>Greater than great Vergilius<br>Wrought for the Roman king;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"By this sign you shall know them,<br>The breaking of the sword,<br>And man no more a free knight,<br>That loves or hates his lord.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"Yea, this shall be the sign of them,<br>The sign of the dying fire;<br>And Man made like a half-wit,<br>That knows not of his sire.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"What though they come with scroll and pen,<br>And grave as a shaven clerk,<br>By this sign you shall know them,<br>That they ruin and make dark;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"By all men bond to Nothing,<br>Being slaves without a lord,<br>By one blind idiot world obeyed,<br>Too blind to be abhorred;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"By terror and the cruel tales<br>Of curse in bone and kin,<br>By weird and weakness winning,<br>Accursed from the beginning,<br>By detail of the sinning,<br>And denial of the sin;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"By thought a crawling ruin,<br>By life a leaping mire,<br>By a broken heart in the breast of the world,<br>And the end of the world's desire;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"By God and man dishonoured,<br>By death and life made vain,<br>Know ye the old barbarian,<br>The barbarian come again--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"When is great talk of trend and tide,<br>And wisdom and destiny,<br>Hail that undying heathen<br>That is sadder than the sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">"In what wise men shall smite him,<br>Or the Cross stand up again,<br>Or charity or chivalry,<br>My vision saith not; and I see<br>No more; but now ride doubtfully<br>To the battle of the plain."</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the grass-edge of the great down<br>Was cut clean as a lawn,<br>While the levies thronged from near and far,<br>From the warm woods of the western star,<br>And the King went out to his last war<br>On a tall grey horse at dawn.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And news of his far-off fighting<br>Came slowly and brokenly<br>From the land of the East Saxons,<br>From the sunrise and the sea.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From the plains of the white sunrise,<br>And sad St. Edmund's crown,<br>Where the pools of Essex pale and gleam<br>Out beyond London Town--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In mighty and doubtful fragments,<br>Like faint or fabled wars,<br>Climbed the old hills of his renown,<br>Where the bald brow of White Horse Down<br>Is close to the cold stars.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But away in the eastern places<br>The wind of death walked high,<br>And a raid was driven athwart the raid,<br>The sky reddened and the smoke swayed,<br>And the tall grey horse went by.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The gates of the great river<br>Were breached as with a barge,<br>The walls sank crowded, say the scribes,<br>And high towers populous with tribes<br>Seemed leaning from the charge.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Smoke like rebellious heavens rolled<br>Curled over coloured flames,<br>Mirrored in monstrous purple dreams<br>In the mighty pools of Thames.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Loud was the war on London wall,<br>And loud in London gates,<br>And loud the sea-kings in the cloud<br>Broke through their dreaming gods, and loud<br>Cried on their dreadful Fates.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And all the while on White Horse Hill<br>The horse lay long and wan,<br>The turf crawled and the fungus crept,<br>And the little sorrel, while all men slept,<br>Unwrought the work of man.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With velvet finger, velvet foot,<br>The fierce soft mosses then<br>Crept on the large white commonweal<br>All folk had striven to strip and peel,<br>And the grass, like a great green witch's wheel,<br>Unwound the toils of men.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And clover and silent thistle throve,<br>And buds burst silently,<br>With little care for the Thames Valley<br>Or what things there might be--</div><div style="margin:10px 0">That away on the widening river,<br>In the eastern plains for crown<br>Stood up in the pale purple sky<br>One turret of smoke like ivory;<br>And the smoke changed and the wind went by,<br>And the King took London Town.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=G.K.+Chesterton">G.K. Chesterton</a> from <i>The Ballad of the White Horse</i><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=117667" data-title="Book VIII: The Scouring of the Horse de G.K. Chesterton" data-description="In the years of the peace of Wessex,/When the good King sat at home;/Years following on that bloody boon/When she that stands above the moon/Stood above death at Ethandune/And saw his kingdom come--/When the pagan people of the sea/Fled to their p..."></div>
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