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XXVI

ALFRED

BEHOLD a pupil of the monkish gown,
The pious ALFRED, King to Justice dear!
Lord of the harp and liberating spear;
Mirror of Princes!† Indigent Renown

*

Might range the starry ether for a crown
Equal to his deserts, who, like the year,
Pours forth his bounty, like the day doth cheer,
And awes like night with mercy-tempered frown.
Ease from this noble miser of his time
No moment steals; pain narrows not his cares.‡
Though small his kingdom as a spark or gem,
Of Alfred boasts remote Jerusalem, §

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* "The memory of the life and doings of the noblest of English rulers has come down to us living and distinct through the mist of exaggeration and legend that gathered round it. He lived solely for the good of his people. He is the first instance in the history of Christendom of the Christian king, of a ruler who put aside every personal aim or ambition to devote himself to the welfare of those whom he ruled. So long as he lived he strove to live worthily'; but in his mouth a life of worthiness meant a life of justice, temperance, and self-sacrifice. Ardent warrior as he was, with a disorganised England before him, he set aside at thirty-one the dream of conquest to leave behind him the memory, not of victories, but of 'good works,' of daily toils by which he secured peace, good government, education for his people. .. The spirit of adventure that made him in youth the first huntsman of his day took later and graver form in an activity that found time amidst the cares of state for the daily duties of religion, for converse with strangers, for study and translation, for learning poems by heart, for planning buildings and instructing craftsmen in gold work, for teaching even falconers and dogkeepers their business. . He himself superintended a school for the young nobles of the court.' (Green's Short History of the English People, chap. i. sec. 5.)-ED.

Compare Voltaire, Essai sur les Maurs, chap. xxvi.; and Herder's Ideen zur Philosophie der Geschichte der Menschheit. Werke (1820), vol. vi. P. 153.-ED.

Through the whole of his life, Alfred was subject to grievous maladies. -W. W. 1822.

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'Although disease succeeded disease, and haunted him with tormenting agony, nothing could suppress his unwearied and inextinguishable genius." (Sharon Turner's History of the Anglo-Saxons, vol. i. book iv. chap. v. p. 503.)-ED.

He

§"His mind was far from being prisoned within his own island. sent a Norwegian shipmaster to explore the White Sea. . . . Envoys bore his presents to the Christians of India and Jerusalem, and an annual mission carried Peter's-pence to Rome." (Green's Short History of the English People, i. 5.)-ED.

HIS DESCENDANTS

And Christian India, through her wide-spread clime, In sacred converse gifts with Alfred shares.1 *

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XXVII

HIS DESCENDANTS

WHEN thy great soul was freed from mortal chains,
Darling of England! many a bitter shower
Fell on thy tomb; but emulative power
Flowed in thy line through undegenerate veins.2
The Race of Alfred covet 3 glorious pains †
When dangers threaten, dangers ever new!
Black tempests bursting, blacker still in view!
But manly sovereignty its hold retains ;
The root sincere, the branches bold to strive
With the fierce tempest, while, within the round
Of their protection, gentle virtues thrive;

1 1827.

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And Christian India gifts with Alfred shares
By sacred converse link'd with India's clime.

1822

2 1837.

Can aught survive to linger in the veins Of kindred bodies-an essential power That may not vanish in one fatal hour, And wholly cast away terrestrial chains? 3 1832.

1822.

1822.

covets

4 1827.

to thrive

With the fierce storm; meanwhile,

1822.

* "With Alfred" is in all the editions. The late Bishop of St. Andrews, Charles Wordsworth, suggested that "of Alfred or "from Alfred" would be a better reading.-ED.

† In Eadward the elder, his son; Eadmund I., his grandson; Eadward (the Martyr), grandson of Eadmund I.; and Eadward (the Confessor), nephew to the Martyr.-ED.

As oft, 'mid some green plot of open ground,
Wide as the oak extends its dewy gloom,
The fostered hyacinths spread their purple bloom.*

XXVIII

INFLUENCE ABUSED

URGED by Ambition, who with subtlest skill
Changes her means, the Enthusiast as a dupe
Shall soar, and as a hypocrite can stoop,
And turn the instruments of good to ill,
Moulding the credulous people to his will.
Such DUNSTAN :-from its Benedictine coop
Issues the master Mind,† at whose fell swoop
The chaste affections tremble to fulfil

Their purposes.

Behold, pre-signified,

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The Might of spiritual sway! his thoughts, his dreams,
Do in the supernatural world abide :

So vaunt a throng of Followers, filled with pride
In what they see of virtues pushed to extremes,1
And sorceries of talent misapplied.

1 1837.

In shows of virtue pushed to its extremes,

1822.

II

* As, pre-eminently, in the wood by the road, half-way from Rydal to Ambleside.-ED.

Dunstan was made Abbot of Glastonbury by Eadmund, and there he introduced the Benedictine rule, being the first Benedictine Abbot in England. His aim was a remodelling of the Anglo-Saxon Church, "for which," says Southey, "he was qualified by his rank, his connections, his influence at court, his great and versatile talents, and more than all, it must be added, by his daring ambition, which scrupled at nothing for the furtherance of its purpose." (Book of the Church, i. 6.) "Dunstan stands first in the line of ecclesiastical statesmen, who counted among them Lanfranc and Wolsey, and ended in Laud.' "Raised to the See of Canterbury, he wielded for sixteen years, as the minister of Eadgar, the secular and ecclesiastical powers of the realm." (Green, i. 6.) In the effort to retain the ascendency he had won, he lent himself, however, to superstition and to fraud, to craft and mean device. He was a type of the ecclesiastical sorcerer.-ED.

CANUTE

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XXIX

DANISH CONQUESTS

*

WOE to the Crown that doth the Cowl obey!
Dissension, checking 1 arms that would restrain
The incessant Rovers of the northern main, †
Helps to restore and spread a Pagan sway: 2
But Gospel-truth is potent to allay
Fierceness and rage; and soon the cruel Dane
Feels, through the influence of her gentle reign,
His native superstitions melt away.

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Thus, often, when thick gloom the east o'ershrouds,
The full-orbed Moon, slow-climbing, doth appear 10
Silently to consume the heavy clouds ;
How no one can resolve; but every eye

Around her sees, while air is hushed, a clear
And widening circuit of ethereal sky.

XXX

CANUTE

A PLEASANT music floats along the Mere,
From Monks in Ely chanting service high,
While-as Canùte the King is rowing by :

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* The violent measures carried on under the influence of Dunstan, for strengthening the Benedictine Order, were a leading cause of the second series of Danish invasions. See Turner.-W. W. 1822.

te.g. Anlaef, Haco, Svein. (See Turner's History of the AngloSaxons, book ii. chaps. iii., viii., ix.)—ED.

"My Oarsmen," quoth the mighty King, "draw near,
"That we the sweet song of the Monks may hear !"*
He listens (all past conquests and all schemes
Of future vanishing like empty dreams)

Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear.
The Royal Minstrel, ere the choir is still,1
While his free Barge skims the smooth flood along,
Gives to that rapture an accordant Rhyme.2 †

O suffering Earth! be thankful; sternest clime

And rudest age are subject to the thrill
Of heaven-descended Piety and Song.

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II

XXXI

THE NORMAN CONQUEST

THE woman-hearted Confessor prepares
The evanescence of the Saxon line.

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* A monk of Ely, who wrote a History of the Church (circa 1166), records a fragment of song, said to have been composed by Canute when on his way to a Church festival. He told his rowers to proceed slowly, and near the shore, that he might hear the chanting of the Psalter by the monks, and he then composed a song himself.

Merie sangen the Muneches binnen Ely,
Tha Cnut ching reu therby:

Roweth cnites ner the land

And here ye thes Muneches sang.

ED.

Which is still extant.-W. W. 1822. See last note.-ED. Edward the Confessor (1042-1066)." There was something shadowlike in the thin form, the delicate complexion, the transparent womanly hands, that contrasted with the blue eyes and golden hair of his race; and it is almost as a shadow that he glides over the political stage. The work of government was done by sterner hands." (Green's Short History of the English People, chap. ii. sec. 2.)-ED.

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