And they said that holy angels

Surely hovered round his head, For alive no loveliest ever

Looked so lovely as this dead.

89

ALFRED.

I WILL sing of Saxon ALFRED,

ALFRED, king, and clerk, and bard;

Triple name, and triple glory,

By no stain of baseness marred.

Blood of Cerdic, blood of Ine,

Blood of Egbert in his veins;

Reaper of the past, and sower
Of the future, ALFRED reigns.

Mighty England, queen of peoples, Slept well-cradled in his breast, Grew to world-wide reach of lordship

From the Saxon of the West.

'Mid the leafy wealth of Berkshire

Oak and beech in breezy play,

'Mid green England's gardened beauty,

Up he shot into the day;

Shot and rose, and grew to youthhood, 'Neath a mother's gentle care,

Osburh, with a soul as kindly

As the balmy summer air.

And he sat and breathed her sweetness, And he drank with greedy ear

Tales of old ancestral glory,

When no plundering Danes were near.

And his heart did beat accordant,

And his eye with joy did swell, When with mother's love she mingled Matin chant and vesper bell.

Keen to learn and quick was Alfred,
From a song or from a book;

Never slow to catch the meaning

Of a gesture or a look.

Like wise bird that flits about,

Linnet, finch, or crow, or sparrow,

Pecking seed with lively beak,

From brown track of hoe or harrow;

Or like fruitful honey-bee

In bright glow of summer weather,
Wise the thorny spray to plunder,
Or the tufts of purple heather.

Mild was ALFRED as a maiden;

But with soul untaught to fear,

He, in Hubert's craft the foremost,

Lanced the boar and chased the deer.

Nor in breezy forest only

Grew, and kind embrace of home,

But with wondering eye young ALFRED Saw the pomp of mighty Rome.

And with wider view grew wider,

And more wise with vagrant ken,

What to shun and what to gather

From the works of diverse men.

Thus the youth; but storms were brewing
From the rude sea-roving clan,

Storms to front with manly stoutness,
When the youth should be a man.

Drifting as a grey blast drifteth

From the sharp and biting East,

Growing with the greed of plunder,
Ever as their spoil increased,

Came the Northmen.

Where the waters

Of the Ouse, ship-bearing, sweep

Round the palace of the Cæsars ;

Where on Durham's templed steep

Learned Bede and saintly Cuthbert

Slept in keep of holy men ;