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.

Few the bright days, and brief the fruitful rest,
As summer-clouds that o'er the valley flit :-
To other tasks his genius he must fit;

The Dane is in the land, uneasy guest!

-O sacred Athelney, from pagan quest
Secure, sole haven for the faithful boy
Waiting God's issue with heroic joy
And unrelaxing purpose in the breast!

The Dragon and the Raven, inch by inch,
For England fight; nor Dane nor Saxon flinch;
Then Alfred strikes his blow; the realm is free:-
He, changing at the font his foe to friend,
Yields for the time, to gain the far-off end,
By moderation doubling victory.

O much-vex'd life, for us too short, too dear!
The laggard body lame behind the soul;

Pain, that ne'er marr'd the mind's serene control;
Breathing on earth heaven's æther atmosphere,
God with thee, and the love that casts out fear!
O soul in life's salt ocean guarding sure

The freshness of youth's fountain sweet and pure, And to all natural impulse crystal-clear :

To service or command, to low and high
Equal at once in magnanimity,

The Great by right divine thou only art!

Fair star, that crowns the front of England's morn, Royal with Nature's royalty inborn,

And English to the very heart of heart!

Francis Turner Palgrave.

LXXXII

TRAFALGAR

Heard ye the thunder of battle
Low in the South and afar?
Saw ye the flash of the death-cloud
Crimson o'er Trafalgar ?

Such another day never

England will look on again,

When the battle fought was the hottest,

And the hero of heroes was slain!

For the fleet of France and the force of Spain were gather'd for fight,

A greater than Philip their lord, a new Armada in might:

And the sails were aloft once more in the deep Gaditanian bay,

Where Redoubtable and Bucentaure and great Trinidada lay;

Eager-reluctant to close; for across the bloodshed to be

Two navies beheld one prize in its glory, the throne of the sea!

Which were bravest, who should tell? for both were gallant and true;

But the greatest seaman was ours, of all that sail'd o'er the blue.

From Cadiz the enemy sallied: they knew not Nelson was there;

His name a navy to us, but to them a flag of despair; "Twixt Algeziras and Aquamonte he guarded the coast,

Till he bore from Tavira south; and they now must fight or be lost;

Vainly they steered for the Rock and the mid-land sheltering sea,

For he headed the Admirals round, constraining them under his lee,

Villeneuve of France, and Gravina of Spain; so they shifted their ground,

They could choose, they were more than we ;—and they faced at Trafalgar round;

Rampart-like ranged in line, a sea-fortress angrily towered!

In the midst, four-storied with guns, the dark Trinidada lower'd.

So with those-But, meanwhile, as against some dyke that men massively rear,

From on high the torrent surges, to drive through the dyke as a spear,

Eagle-eyed e'en in his blindness, our chief sets his double array,

Making the fleet two spears, to thrust at the foe any

way, ..

...

'Anyhow!-without orders, each captain his Frenchman may grapple perforce;

Collingwood first (yet the Victory ne'er a whit slacken'd her course)

'Signal for action! Farewell! we shall win, but we meet not again!'

-Then a low thunder of readiness ran from the decks o'er the main,

And on, as the message from masthead to masthead flew out like a flame,

ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY,— they came.

-Silent they come :-While the thirty black forts of the foeman's array

Clothe them in billowy snow, tier speaking o'er tier as they lay;

Flashes that thrust and drew in, as swords when the battle is rife ;

But ours stood frowningly smiling, and ready for death as for life.

-O in that interval grim, ere the furies of slaughter embrace,

Thrills o'er each man some far echo of England; some glance of some face!

-Faces gazing seaward through tears from the oceangirt shore;

Faces that ne'er can be gazed on again till the death

pang is o'er . . .

Lone in his cabin the Admiral kneeling, and all his great heart

As a child's to the mother, goes forth to the loved one, who bade him depart

O not for death, but glory! her smile would welcome him home!

-Louder and thicker the thunderbolts fall :-and

silent they come.

As when beyond Dongola the lion, whom hunters

attack,

Plagued by their darts from afar, leaps in, dividing them back;

So between Spaniard and Frenchman the Victory wedged with a shout,

Gun against gun; a cloud from her decks and lightning went out;

Iron hailing of pitiless death from the sulphury smoke;

Voices hoarse and parch'd, and blood from invisible stroke.

Each man stood to his work, though his mates fell smitten around,

As an oak of the wood, while his fellow, flameshatter'd, besplinters the ground:

Gluttons of danger for England, but sparing the foe as he lay;

For the spirit of Nelson was on them, and each was Nelson that day.

'She has struck!'-he shouted-'She burns, the Redoubtable! Save whom we can;

• Silence our guns :'-for in him the woman was great in the man,

In that heroic heart each drop girl-gentle and

pure,

Dying by those he spared ;-and now Death's triumph was sure!

From the deck the smoke-wreath clear'd, and the foe set his rifle in rest,

Dastardly aiming, where Nelson stood forth, with the stars on his breast,

'In honour I gained them, in honour I die with them!' . . Then, in his place,

Fell... 'Hardy! 'tis over; but let them not know:' and he cover'd his face.

Silent the whole fleet's darling they bore to the twilight below:

And above the war-thunder came shouting, as foe struck his flag after foe.