wage;
And worketh still for God! If God desired
A people for His sacrificial lamb,
Happiest of nations should that nation be
Which died His willing victim!'
'King, and Son,'
With voice a moment troubled he resumed,
'Thy future rests with God! Yet shake, Oh shake
One boding grief--'tis causeless--from thy breast,
Deeming thy race less valiant than the North:
Faithfuller they stand and nearer to their sires!
Remorseless less to others and to self
I grant them; that implies not valiant less:
The brave are still in spirit the merciful;
Far down within their being stirs a sense
Of more than race or realm. Some claim world-wide,
Whereof the prophet is the wailing babe,
Smites on their hearts--a cradle decks therein
For Him they know not yet, the Bethlehem Babe.
That claim thy fathers felt! Through Teuton woods
(Dead Rome's historian saw what he records[25]),
Moved forth of old in cyclic pilgrimage
Thick-veiled, the sacred image of the Earth,
All reverend Mother, crowned Humanity!
Not war-steeds haled her car, but oxen meek;
And, as it passed oppugnant bounds, the trump
Ceased from its blare; the lance, the war-axe fell;
Grey foes shook hands; their children played together:
Beyond the limit line of dateless wars
Looked forth the vision thus of endless peace.
Think'st thou that here was lack of manly heart?
King, this was manhood's self!'
While thus he spake,
Alfred, and Mildrede, children of the King,
That long time, by that voice majestic charmed,
Had turned from distant sports, upon their knees
Softly and slowly to Birinus crept,
Their wide eyes from his countenance moving not,
And so knelt on; Alfred, the star-eyed boy
Supported by his father's sceptre-staff,
His plaything late, now clasped in hands high-held.
Him with a casual eye Birinus marked
At first; then stood, with upward brow, in trance--
Sudden, as though with Pentecostal flame,
His whole face brightened; on him fell from God
Spirit Divine; and thus the prophet cried:

'Who speaks of danger when the Lord of all
Decrees high triumph? Victory's chariot winged
Up-climbs the frowning mountains of Dismay,
As when above the sea's nocturnal verge
Twin beams, divergent horns of orient light,