[* _G.K.'s Weekly_, Apr. 16, 1927.]

Gilbert wrote a sketch for the _Daily News_ about this time, telling
how an old woman in a donkey cart whom they had left far behind on
the road went driving triumphantly past when the car they were in
broke down. For this expedition, as so often later, he made full use
of the modern invention he derided. In an open touring car hired for
the occasion, Gilbert in Inverness cape and shapeless hat, Frances
beside him snugly wrapped up, they

Saw the smoke-hued hamlets quaint
With Westland King and Westland Saint,
And watched the western glory faint
Along the road to Frome.

The note struck in the dedication and recurring throughout the poem
is that of the Christian idea which had made England great and which
he had learnt from Frances:

Wherefore I bring these rhymes to you
Who brought the cross to me,
Since on you flaming without flaw
I saw the sign that Guthrum saw
When he let break his ships of awe
And laid peace on the sea.

In the poem Christian men, whether they be Saxon or Roman or Briton
or Celt, are banded together to fight the heathen Danes in defence of
the sacred things of faith, in defence of the human things of daily
life, in defence even of the old traditions of pagan England

. . . because it is only Christian men
guard even heathen things.

Gilbert constantly disclaimed the idea that he took trouble over
anything: "taking trouble has never been a weakness of mine": but in
what might be termed a large and loose way he really did take immense
trouble over what interested him. King Alfred is not an almost
mythical figure like King Arthur and an outline of his story with
legendary fringes can be traced in the Wessex country and confirmed
by literature. Gilbert wanted this general story: he did not want
antiquarian exactness of detail.

Into the mouths of Guthrum and of King Alfred, he put the expression
of the pagan and the Christian outlook. Nor did he hesitate to let
King Alfred prophesy at large concerning the days of G. K.
Chesterton. The poem is a ballad in the sense of the old ballads that
were stirring stories: it is also an expression of the threefold love
of Gilbert's life: his wife, his country and his Faith. And as in all
great poetry, there is a quality of eternity in this poem that has
made it serve as an expression of the eternal Spirit of man.

During the first world war many soldiers had it with them in t