Part 28 (1/2)

And when the roaring hillside broke, And all our world fell down in rain, We saved him, we the Little Folk; But lo! he does not come again!

Mourn now, we saved him for the sake Of such poor love as wild ones may.

Mourn ye! Our brother will not wake, And his own kind drive us away!

_The Miracle of Purun Bhagat._

THE EGG-Sh.e.l.l

The wind took off with the sunset-- The fog came up with the tide, When the Witch of the North took an Egg-sh.e.l.l With a little Blue Devil inside.

'Sink,' she said, 'or swim,' she said, 'It's all you will get from me.

And that is the finish of _him_!' she said.

And the Egg-sh.e.l.l went to sea.

The wind fell dead with the midnight-- The fog shut down like a sheet, When the Witch of the North heard the Egg-sh.e.l.l Feeling by hand for a fleet.

'Get!' she said, 'or you're gone,' she said, But the little Blue Devil said 'No!'

'The sights are just coming on,' he said, And he let the Whitehead go.

The wind got up with the morning-- And the fog blew off with the rain, When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-sh.e.l.l And the little Blue Devil again.

'Did you swim?' she said. 'Did you sink?' she said, And the little Blue Devil replied: 'For myself I swam, but I think,' he said, 'There's somebody sinking outside.'

THE KING'S TASK

After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name, In the years that the lights were darkened, or ever St. Wilfrid came, Low on the borders of Britain (the ancient poets sing) Between the Cliff and the Forest there ruled a Saxon King.

Stubborn all were his people from cottar to overlord-- Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the sword; Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood, And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood.

Laws they made in the Witan--the laws of flaying and fine-- Common, loppage and pannage, the theft and the track of kine-- Statutes of tun and market for the fish and the malt and the meal-- The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.

Over the graves of the Druids and under the wreck of Rome Rudely but surely they bedded the plinth of the days to come.

Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Norseman's ire, Rudely but greatly begat they the framing of state and s.h.i.+re.

Rudely but deeply they laboured, and their labour stands till now, If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.

There came a king from Hamtun, by Bosenham he came.

He filled Use with slaughter, and Lewes he gave to flame.

He smote while they sat in the Witan--sudden he smote and sore, That his fleet was gathered at Selsea ere they mustered at Cymen's Ore.

Blithe went the Saxons to battle, by down and wood and mere, But thrice the acorns ripened ere the western mark was clear.

Thrice was the beechmast gathered, and the Beltane fires burned Thrice, and the beeves were salted thrice ere the host returned.

They drove that king from Hamtun, by Bosenham o'erthrown, Out of Rugnor to Wilton they made his land their own.

Camps they builded at Gilling, at Basing and Alresford, But wrath abode in the Saxons from cottar to overlord.

Wrath at the weary war-game, at the foe that snapped and ran Wolf-wise feigning and flying, and wolf-wise s.n.a.t.c.hing his man.

Wrath for their spears unready, their levies new to the blades-- Shame for the helpless sieges and the scornful ambuscades.

At hearth and tavern and market, wherever the tale was told, Shame and wrath had the Saxons because of their boasts of old.