Why we should read Part 16

X

_THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE_

Most people have read G. K. Chesterton's prose, many people have read the drinking songs in _The Flying Inn_, some people have read his collected Poems, and a few, only too few, have read the work by which he will probably be remembered when all the rest of his work is dead. _The Ballad of the White Horse_ was first published in 1911 and is, as might be expected, a vindication of Christianity. "I say, as do all Christian men, that it is a divine purpose that rules, and not Fate," he quotes as his motto. He dedicates the poem to his wife because of "the sign that hangs about your neck":

"Therefore I bring these rhymes to you, Who brought the cross to me."

Before we have read five pages we realise that here is at last a ballad which is not a spurious imitation. It rings clear, clean and true. We see Alfred beaten to his knees by "a sea-folk blinder than the sea,"

almost broken-hearted, beseeching the Virgin Mary for a sign.

"'Mother of G.o.d,' the wanderer said, 'I am but a common king, Nor will I ask what saints may ask, To see a secret thing....

But for this earth most pitiful, This little land I know, If that which is for ever is, Or if our hearts shall break with bliss, Seeing the stranger go?

When our last bow is broken, Queen, And our last javelin cast, Under some sad, green evening sky, Holding a ruined cross on high, Under warm westland gra.s.s to lie, Shall we come home at last?'"

And she answers:

"'I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.

Night shall be thrice night over you, And heaven an iron cope.

Do you have joy without a cause, Yea, faith without a hope?'"

Stirred by this message, Alfred sets out yet again to stir zeal in his chiefs for the causeless cause.

"Up across windy wastes and up Went Alfred over the shaws, Shaken of the joy of giants, The joy without a cause....

The King went gathering Christian men, As wheat out of the husk; Eldred, the Franklin by the sea, And Mark, the man from Italy, And Colan of the Sacred Tree, From the old tribe on Usk."

We are first given a picture of Eldred's farm fallen awry, "Like an old cripple's bones," with its purple thistles bursting up between the kitchen stones. But Eldred, the red-faced, bulky tun is sick of fighting.

"'Come not to me, King Alfred, Save always for the ale....

Your scalds still thunder and prophesy That crown that never comes; Friend, I will watch the certain things, Swine, and slow moons like silver rings, And the ripening of the plums.'"

Alfred merely repeats the message of the Virgin Mary, tells him where to meet him and goes away certain of his help. He next goes to Mark's farm, the low, white house in the southland, inhabited by the bronzed man with a bird's beak and a bird's bright eye.

"His fruit trees stood like soldiers Drilled in a straight line, His strange, stiff olives did not fail, And all the kings of the earth drank ale, But he drank wine."

Alfred gives his message and the Roman answers:

"'Guthrum sits strong on either bank And you must press his lines Inwards, and eastward drive him down; I doubt if you shall take the crown Till you have taken London town.

For me, I have the vines.'"

But Alfred is certain of his help too and goes on to the lost land of boulders and broken men, where dwells Colan of Caerleon:

"Last of a race in ruin-- He spoke the speech of the Gaels; His kin were in holy Ireland, Or up in the crags of Wales....

He made the sign of the cross of G.o.d, He knew the Roman prayer, But he had unreason in his heart Because of the G.o.ds that were....

G.o.ds of unbearable beauty That broke the hearts of men."

He ridicules Alfred until he hears the warning:

" ... that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher."

Then he tosses his black mane on high and cries:

"'And if the sea and sky be foes, We will tame the sea and sky.'"

And so Alfred is sure too of his help.

Alfred is then taken by the Danes as he is playing on his harp to the camp of Guthrum and there is made to sing and play again:

"And leaving all later hates unsaid, He sang of some old British raid On the wild west march of yore.

He sang of war in the warm wet s.h.i.+res, Where rain nor fruitage fails, Where England of the motley states Deepens like a garden to the gates In the purple walls of Wales."

He sang until Harold, Guthrum's nephew, s.n.a.t.c.hed the harp from him and began in his turn to sing of s.h.i.+ps and the sea and material delights:

"'Great wine like blood from Burgundy, Cloaks like the clouds from Tyre, And marble like solid moonlight, And gold like frozen fire.'"

Elf the minstrel then took the instrument:

"And as he stirred the strings of the harp To notes but four or five, The heart of each man moved in him Like a babe buried alive."

He sang of Balder beautiful, whom the heavens could not save ... and finishes with these two peerlessly beautiful verses:

"'There is always a thing forgotten When all the world goes well; A thing forgotten, as long ago When the G.o.ds forgot the mistletoe, And soundless as an arrow of snow The arrow of anguish fell.

The thing on the blind side of the heart, On the wrong side of the door, The green plant groweth, menacing Almighty lovers in the spring; There is always a forgotten thing, And love is not secure.'"

Earl Ogier of the Stone and Sling next took the harp and sang in praise of "Fury, that does not fail":

"'There lives one moment for a man When the door at his shoulder shakes, When the taut rope parts under the pull, And the barest branch is beautiful One moment, while it breaks....

And you that sit by the fire are young, And true loves wait for you; But the King and I grow old, grow old, And hate alone is true.'"

Guthrum in his turn takes the great harp wearily and sings of death:

"'For this is a heavy matter, And the truth is cold to tell; Do we not know, have we not heard, The soul is like a lost bird, The body a broken sh.e.l.l....

Strong are the Roman roses, Or the free flowers of the heath, But every flower, like a flower of the sea, Smelleth with the salt of death.

And the heart of the locked battle Is the happiest place for men....

Death blazes bright above the cup, And clear above the crown; But in that dream of battle We seem to tread it down.

Wherefore I am a great king, And waste the world in vain, Because man hath not other power, Save that in dealing death for dower, He may forget it for an hour To remember it again.'"