And Guthrum heard the soldiers' tale And bade the stranger play;Not harshly, but as one on high,On a marble pillar in the sky,Who sees all folks that live and die — Pigmy and far away.
And Alfred, King of Wessex, Looked on his conqueror —And his hands hardened; but he played;And leaving all later hates unsaid,He sang of some old British raid On the wild west march of yore.
He sang of war in the warm wet shires Where rain nor fruitage fails,Where England of the motley statesDeepens like a garden to the gates In the purple walls of Wales.
He sang of the seas of savage beads, And the seas and seas of spearsBoiling all over Offa's Dyke;What time a Wessex club could strike The kings of the mountaineers.
Till Harold laughed and snatched the harp, The kinsman of the king,
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