Francis T. Palgrave - The Visions of England

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THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND: LYRICS OF LEADING MEN AND EVENTS IN ENGLISH
HISTORY

BY
FRANCIS T. PALGRAVE
_Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford_
_Late Fellow of Exeter College_

TANTA RES EST, UT PAENE VITIO MENTIS TANTUM OPUS INGRESSUS MIHI VIDEAR

CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED:
_LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE_
1889

By the same Author

THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND: Seventy Lyrics on leading Men and Events in
English History: 8vo. 7/6

LYRICAL POEMS, Four Books: Extra Fcap. 8vo. 6/-

ORIGINAL HYMNS: 18mo. 1/6

* * * * *

_Poetry edited by the same_

THE GOLDEN TREASURY OF ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY: 18mo. 4/6

THE CHILDREN'S TREASURY OF ENGLISH LYRICAL POETRY, with Notes and
Glossary: 18mo. 2/6. Or in two parts, 1/- each

SHAKESPEARE'S LYRICS. SONGS FROM THE PLAYS AND SONNETS, with Notes:
18mo. 4/6

SELECTION FROM R. HERRICK'S LYRICAL POETRY, with Essay and Notes: 18mo.
4/6

THE POETICAL WORKS OF J. KEATS, reprinted; _literatim_ from the original
editions, with Notes: 18mo. 4/6

LYRICAL POEMS BY LORD TENNYSON, selected and arranged, with Notes: 18mo.
4/6

GLEN DESSERAY AND OTHER POEMS, by J. C. Shairp, late Principal of the
United College, S. Andrews, and Professor of Poetry in the University of
Oxford. With Essay and Notes. 8vo.

Messrs. MACMILLAN, Bedford St., Covent Garden

* * * * *

_To be published presently_

THE TREASURY OF SACRED SONG, selected from the English Lyrical Poetry of
Four Centuries, with Notes Explanatory and Biographical

CLARENDON PRESS, OXFORD
_Aug_. 1889

INTRODUCTION.

Again, on behalf of readers of this NATIONAL LIBRARY, I have to thank a
poet of our day--in this case the Oxford Professor of Poetry--for joining
his voice to the voices of the past through which our better life is
quickened for the duties of to-day. Not for his own verse only, but for
his fine sense also of what is truest in the poets who have gone before,
the name of Francis Turner Palgrave is familiar to us all. Many a home
has been made the richer for his gathering of voices of the past into a
dainty "Golden Treasury of English Songs." Of this work of his own I may
cite what was said of it in _Macmillan's Magazine_ for October, 1882, by
a writer of high authority in English Literature, Professor A. W. Ward,
of Owens College. "A very eminent authority," said Professor Ward, "has
accorded to Mr. Palgrave's historical insight, praise by the side of
which all words of mine must be valueless," Canon [now Bishop] Stubbs
writes:--"I do not think that there is one of the _Visions_ which does
not carry my thorough consent and sympathy all through."

Here, then, Mr. Palgrave re-issues, for the help of many thousands more,
his own songs of the memories of the Nation, addressed to a Nation that
has not yet forfeited the praise of Milton. Milton said of the
Englishman, "If we look at his native towardliness in the roughcast,
without breeding, some nation or other may haply be better composed to a
natural civility and right judgment than he. But if he get the benefit
once of a wise and well-rectified nurture, I suppose that wherever
mention is made of countries, manners, or men, the English people, among
the first that shall be praised, may deserve to be accounted a right
pious, right honest, and right hardy nation." So much is shown by the
various utterances in this NATIONAL LIBRARY. So much is shown, in the
present volume of it, by a poet's vision of the England that has been
till now, and is what she has been.

H. M.

TO THE NAMES OF
HENRY HALLAM AND FRANCIS PALGRAVE
FRIENDS AND FELLOW-LABOURERS IN ENGLISH HISTORY
FOR FORTY YEARS,
WHO, DIFFERING OFTEN IN JUDGMENT,
WERE AT ONE THROUGHOUT LIFE IN DEVOTED LOVE OF
JUSTICE, TRUTH, AND ENGLAND,
_IN AFFECTIONATE AND REVERENT REMEMBRANCE_
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED AND DEDICATED

PREFACE

As the scheme which the Author has here endeavoured to execute has not,
so far as he knows, the advantage of any near precedent in any
literature, he hopes that a few explanatory words may be offered without
incurring censure for egotism.

Our history is so eminently rich and varied, and at the same time, by the
fact of our insular position, so stamped with unity, that from days very
remote it has supplied matter for song. This, among Celts and Angles, at
first was lyrical. But poetry, for many centuries after the Conquest,
mainly took the annalistic form, and, despite the ability often shown,
was hence predoomed to failure. For a nation's history cannot but
present many dull or confused periods, many men and things intractable by
poetry, though, perhaps, politically effective and important, which
cannot be excluded from any narrative aiming at consecutiveness; and, by
the natural laws of art, these passages, when rendered in verse, in their
effect become more prosaic than they would be in a prose rendering.

My attempt has therefore been to revert to the earlier and more natural
conditions of poetry, and to offer,--not a continuous narrative; not
poems on every critical moment or conspicuous man in our long annals,--but
single lyrical pictures of such leading or typical characters and scenes
in English history, and only such, as have seemed amenable to a strictly
poetical treatment. Poetry, not History, has, hence, been my first and
last aim; or, perhaps I might define it, History for Poetry's sake. At
the same time, I have striven to keep throughout as closely to absolute
historical truth in the design and colouring of the pieces as the
exigencies of poetry permit:--the result aimed at being to unite the
actual tone and spirit of the time concerned, with the best estimate
which has been reached by the research and genius of modern
investigators. Our island story, freed from the 'falsehood of
extremes,'--exorcised, above all, from the seducing demon of
party-spirit, I have thus here done my best to set forth. And as this
line of endeavour has conducted and constrained me, especially when the
seventeenth century is concerned, to judgments--supported indeed by
historians conspicuous for research, ability, and fairness, but often
remote from the views popularized by the writers of our own day,--upon
these points a few justificatory notes have been added.

A double aim has hence governed and limited both the selection and the
treatment of my subjects. The choice has necessarily fallen, often, not
on simply picturesque incident or unfamiliar character, but on the men
and things that we think of first, when thinking of the long chronicle of
England,--or upon such as represent and symbolize the main current of it.
Themes, however, on which able or popular song is already extant,--notably
in case of Scotland,--I have in general avoided. In the rendering, my
desire has been always to rest the poetry of each Vision on its own
intrinsic interest; to write with a straightforward eye to the object
alone; not studious of ornament for ornament's sake; allowing the least
possible overt intrusion of the writer's personality; and, in accordance
with lyrical law, seeking, as a rule, to fix upon some factual picture
for each poem.

* * * * *

To define, thus, the scope of what this book attempts, is, in itself, a
confession of presumptuousness,--the writer's own sense of which is but
feebly and imperfectly expressed in the words from Vergil's letter to
Augustus prefixed as my motto. In truth, so rich and so wide are the
materials, that to scheme a lyrical series which should really paint the
_Gesta Anglorum_ in their fulness might almost argue 'lack of wit,'
_vitium mentis_, in much greater powers than mine. No criticism, however
severe, can add to my own consciousness how far the execution of the
work, in regard to each of its aims, falls below the plan. Yet I would
allow myself the hope, great as the deficiencies may be, that the love of
truth and the love of England are mine by inheritance in a degree
sufficient to exempt this book, (the labour of several years), from
infidelity to either:--that the intrinsic worth and weight of my subject
may commend these songs, both at home, and in the many Englands beyond
sea, to those who, (despite the inevitably more engrossing attractions of
the Present, and the emphatic bias of modern culture towards the
immediate and the tangible), maintain that high and soul-inspiring
interest which, identifying us with our magnificent Past, and all its
varied lessons of defeat and victory, offers at the same time,--under the
guidance from above,--our sole secure guarantee for prosperous and
healthy progress in the Future.

The world has cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o'er again;

and only the nation which, at each moment of political or social
evolution, looks lovingly backward to its own painfully-earned
experience--_Respiciens_, _Prospiciens_, as Tennyson's own chosen device
expresses it--has solid reason to hope, that its movement is true
Advance--that its course is Upward.

* * * * *

It remains only to add, that the book has been carefully revised and
corrected, and that nineteen pieces published in the original volume of
1881 are not reprinted in the present issue.

F. T. P.
_July_, 1889

THE VISIONS OF ENGLAND

PRELUDE

_CAESAR TO EGBERT_

1

England, fair England! Empress isle of isles!
--Round whom the loving-envious ocean plays,
Girdling thy feet with silver and with smiles,
Whilst all the nations crowd thy liberal bays;
With rushing wheel and heart of fire they come,
Or glide and glance like white-wing'd doves that know
And seek their proper home:--
England! not England yet! but fair as now,
When first the chalky strand was stirr'd by Roman prow.

2

On thy dear countenance, great mother-land,
Age after age thy sons have set their sign,
Moulding the features with successive hand
Not always sedulous of beauty's line:--
Yet here Man's art in one harmonious aim
With Nature's gentle moulding, oft has work'd
The perfect whole to frame:
Nor does earth's labour'd face elsewhere, like thee,
Give back her children's heart with such full sympathy

3

--On marshland rough and self-sprung forest gazed
The imperial Roman of the eagle-eye;
Log-splinter'd forts on green hill-summits raised,
Earth huts and rings that dot the chalk-downs high:--
Dark rites of hidden faith in grove and moor;
Idols of monstrous build; wheel'd scythes of war;
Rock tombs and pillars hoar:
Strange races, Finn, Iberian, Belgae, Celt;
While in the wolds huge bulls and antler'd giants dwelt.

4

--Another age!--The spell of Rome has past
Transforming all our Britain; Ruthless plough,
Which plough'd the world, yet o'er the nations cast
The seed of arts, and law, and all that now
Has ripen'd into commonwealths:--Her hand
With network mile-paths binding plain and hill
Arterialized the land:
The thicket yields: the soil for use is clear;
Peace with her plastic touch,--field, farm, and grange are here.

5

Lo, flintwall'd cities, castles stark and square
Bastion'd with rocks that rival Nature's own;
Red-furnaced baths, trim gardens planted fair
With tree and flower the North ne'er yet had known;
Long temple-roofs and statues poised on high
With golden wings outstretch'd for tiptoe flight,
Quivering in summer sky:--
The land had rest, while those stern legions lay
By northern ramparts camp'd, and held the Pict at bay.

6

Imperious Empire! Thrice-majestic Rome!
No later age, as earth's slow centuries glide,
Can raze the footprints stamp'd where thou hast come,
The ne'er-repeated grandeur of thy stride!
--Though now so dense a darkness takes the land,
Law, peace, wealth, letters, faith,--all lights are quench'd
By violent heathen hand:--
Vague warrior kings; names writ in fire and wrong;
Aurelius, Urien, Ida;--shades of ancient song.

7

And Thou--O whether born of flame and wave,
Or Gorlois' son, or Uther's, blameless lord,
True knight, who died for those thou couldst not save
When the Round Table brake their plighted word,--
The lord of song hath set thee in thy grace
And glory, rescued from the phantom world,
Before us face to face;
No more Avilion bowers the King detain;
The mystic child returns; the Arthur reigns again!

8

--Now, as some cloud that hides a mountain bulk
Thins to white smoke, and mounts in lighten'd air,
And through the veil the gray enormous hulk
Burns, and the summit, last, is keen and bare,--
From wasted Britain so the gloaming clears;
Another birth of time breaks eager out,
And England fair appears:--
Imperial youth sign'd on her golden brow,
While the prophetic eyes with hope and promise glow.

9

Then from the wasted places of the land,
Charr'd skeletons of cities, circling walls
Of Roman might, and towers that shatter'd stand
Of that lost world survivors, forth she calls
Her new creation:--O'er the land is wrought
The happy villagedom by English tribes
From Elbe and Baltic brought;
Red kine light up with life the ravaged plain;
The forest glooms are pierced; the plough-land laughs again.

10

Each from its little croft the homesteads peep,
Green apple-garths around, and hedgeless meads,
Smooth-shaven lawns of ever-shifting sheep,
Wolds where his dappled crew the swineherd feeds:--
Pale gold round pure pale foreheads, and their eyes
More dewy blue than speedwell by the brook
When Spring's fresh current flies,
The free fair maids come barefoot to the fount,
Or poppy-crown'd with fire, the car of harvest mount.

11

On the salt stream that rings us, ness and bay,
The nation's old sea-soul beats blithe and strong;
The black foam-breasters taste Biscayan spray,
And where 'neath Polar dawns the narwhals throng:--
Free hands, free hearts, for labour and for glee,
Or village-moot, when thane with churl unites
Beneath the sacred tree;
While wisdom tempers force, and bravery leads,
Till spears beat _Aye_! on shields, and words at once are deeds.

12

Again with life the ruin'd cities smile,
Again from mother-Rome their sacred fire
Knowledge and Faith rekindle through the isle,
Nigh quench'd by barbarous war and heathen ire:--
--No more on Balder's grave let Anglia weep
When winter storms entomb the golden year
Sunk in Adonis-sleep;
Another God has risen, and not in vain!
The Woden-ash is low, the Cross asserts her reign.

13

--Land of the most law-loving,--the most free!
My dear, dear England! sweet and green as now
The flower-illumined garden of the sea,
And Nature least impair'd by axe and plough!
A laughing land!--Thou seest not in the north
How the black Dane and vulture Norseman wait
The sign of coming forth,
The foul Landeyda flap its raven plume,
And all the realms once more eclipsed in pagan gloom!

14

--O race, of many races well compact!
As some rich stream that runs in silver down
From the White Mount:--his baby steps untrack'd
Where clouds and emerald cliffs of crystal frown;
Now, alien founts bring tributary flood,
Or kindred waters blend their native hue,
Some darkening as with blood;
These fraught with iron strength and freshening brine,
And these with lustral waves, to sweeten and refine.

15

Now calm as strong, and clear as summer air,
Blessing and blest of earth and sky, he glides:
Now on some rock-ridge rends his bosom fair,
And foams with cloudy wrath and hissing tides:
Then with full flood of level-gliding force,
His discord-blended melody murmurs low
Down the long seaward course:--
So through Time's mead, great River, greatly glide:
Whither, thou may'st not know:--but He, who knows, will guide.

St. 3 Sketches Prehistoric England. St. 4 _Mile-paths_; old English name
for Roman roads. St. 5 _Tree and flower_; such are reported to have been
naturalized in England by the Romans.--_Northern ramparts_; that of
Agricola and Lollius Urbicus from Forth to Clyde, and the greater work of
Hadrian and Severus between Tyne and Solway. St. 6, 7 The Arthurian
legends,--now revivified for us by Tennyson's magnificent _Idylls of the
King_,--form the visionary links in our history between the decline of
the Roman power and the earlier days of the Saxon conquest. St. 9
_Villagedom_; Angles and Saxons seem at first to have burned the larger
towns of the Romanized Britons and left them deserted, in favour of
village-life. St. 11 _Village-moot_: Held on a little hill or round a
sacred tree: 'the ealdermen spoke, groups of freemen stood round,
clashing shields in applause, settling matters by loud shouts of _Aye_ or
_Nay_.' (J. R. Green, _History of the English People_). St. 12 Balder,
the God of Light, like Adonis in the old Greek story, is a nature-myth,
figuring the Sun, yearly dying in winter, and yearly restored to life.
St. 13 _Landeyda_; Name of Danish banner: 'the desolation of the land.'

For further details upon points briefly noticed in this _Prelude_,
readers are referred to Mr. J. R. Green's _History_, and to Mr. T.
Wright's _The Celt_, _The Roman_, and _The Saxon_, as sources readily
accessible.

THE FIRST AND LAST LAND

_AT SENNEN_

Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!--here, where gray
Belerium fronts the spray
Smiting the bastion'd crags through centuries flown,
While, 'neath the hissing surge,
Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,

As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round:
Nor is there other sound
Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note,
The seabirds' calling cry,
As 'gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,

Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post,
And sentinel the coast:--
Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar'd file,
The lichen-bearded rocks
Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.

--Happy, alone with Nature thus!--Yet here
Dim, primal man is near;--
The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore
Through long Biscayan waves
Star-steer'd adventurous from the Iberic shore

Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight
Oil-olive, fig, and date;
Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes,
Or Tyrian azure glass
Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:--

Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware
Or tin-sand silvery fair,
To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield
Of heroes, arm'd for fight:--
While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield

The treasured ore; nor Alexander's name
Know, nor fair Helen's shame;
Or in his tent how Peleus' wrathful son
Looks toward the sea, nor heeds
The towers of still-unconquer'd Ilion.

_Belerium_; The name given to the Land's End by Diodorus, the Greek
historical compiler. He describes the natives as hospitable and
civilized. They mined tin, which was bought by traders and carried
through Gaul to the south-east, and may, as suggested here, have been
used in their armour by the warriors during the Homeric Siege of Troy.

PAULINUS AND EDWIN

627

The black-hair'd gaunt Paulinus
By ruddy Edwin stood:--
'Bow down, O King of Deira,
Before the holy Rood!
Cast forth thy demon idols,
And worship Christ our Lord!'
--But Edwin look'd and ponder'd,
And answer'd not a word.

Again the gaunt Paulinus
To ruddy Edwin spake:
'God offers life immortal
For His dear Son's own sake!
Wilt thou not hear his message
Who bears the Keys and Sword?'
--But Edwin look'd and ponder'd,
And answer'd not a word.

Rose then a sage old warrior;
Was five-score winters old;
Whose beard from chin to girdle
Like one long snow-wreath roll'd:--
'At Yule-time in our chamber
We sit in warmth and light,
While cavern-black around us
Lies the grim mouth of Night.

'Athwart the room a sparrow
Darts from the open door:
Within the happy hearth-light
One red flash,--and no more!
We see it born from darkness,
And into darkness go:--
So is our life, King Edwin!
Ah, that it should be so!

'But if this pale Paulinus
Have somewhat more to tell;
Some news of whence and whither,
And where the Soul may dwell:--
If on that outer darkness
The sun of Hope may shine;--
He makes life worth the living!
I take his God for mine!'

So spake the wise old warrior;
And all about him cried
'Paulinus' God hath conquer'd!
And he shall he our guide:--
For he makes life worth living,
Who brings this message plain,--
When our brief days are over,
That we shall live again.'

Paulinus was one of the four missionaries sent form Rome by Gregory the
Great in 601. The marriage of Edwin, King of Northumbria, with
Ethelburga, sister to Eadbald of Kent, opened Paulinus' way to northern
England. Bede, born less than fifty years after, has given an admirable
narrative of Edwin's conversion: which is very completely told in
Bright's _Early English Church History_, B. IV.

Deira, (from old-Welsh _deifr_, waters), then comprised Eastern Yorkshire
from Tees to Humber. Goodmanham, where the meeting described was held,
is some 23 miles from York.

ALFRED THE GREAT

849-901

1

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.

2

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 aether atmosphere,
God with thee, and the love that casts out fear!
A 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!

_The fair-hair'd boy_: There is a singular unanimity among historians in
regard to this 'darling of the English,' whose life has been vividly
sketched by Freeman (_Conquest_, ch. ii); by Green (_English People_, B.
I: ch. iii); and, earlier, by my Father in his short _History of the
Anglo-Saxons_, ch. vi-viii.

_Changing at the font_: Alfred was godfather to Guthrun the Dane, when
baptized after his defeat at Ethandune in 878.

A DANISH BARROW

_ON THE EAST DEVON COAST_

Lie still, old Dane, below thy heap!
--A sturdy-back and sturdy-limb,
Whoe'er he was, I warrant him
Upon whose mound the single sheep
Browses and tinkles in the sun,
Within the narrow vale alone.

Lie still, old Dane! This restful scene
Suits well thy centuries of sleep:
The soft brown roots above thee creep,
The lotus flaunts his ruddy sheen,
And,--vain memento of the spot,--
The turquoise-eyed forget-me-not.

Lie still!--Thy mother-land herself
Would know thee not again: no more
The Raven from the northern shore
Hails the bold crew to push for pelf,
Through fire and blood and slaughter'd kings,
'Neath the black terror of his wings.

And thou,--thy very name is lost!
The peasant only knows that here
Bold Alfred scoop'd thy flinty bier,
And pray'd a foeman's prayer, and tost
His auburn, head, and said 'One more
Of England's foes guards England's shore,'

And turn'd and pass'd to other feats,
And left thee in thine iron robe,
To circle with the circling globe,
While Time's corrosive dewdrop eats
The giant warrior to a crust
Of earth in earth, and rust in rust.

So lie: and let the children play
And sit like flowers upon thy grave,
And crown with flowers,--that hardly have
A briefer blooming-tide than they;--
By hurrying years borne on to rest,
As thou, within the Mother's breast.

HASTINGS

October 14: 1066

'Gyrth, is it dawn in the sky that I see? or is all the sky blood?
Heavy and sore was the fight in the North: yet we fought for the good.
O but--Brother 'gainst brother!--'twas hard!--Now I come with a will
To baste the false bastard of France, the hide of the tanyard and mill!
Now on the razor-edge lies
England the priceless, the prize!
God aiding, the Raven at Stamford we smote;
One stroke more for the land here I strike and devote!'

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