Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/271
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The Angel's Visit.
It was about the feast of Christmas-tide,When gentle love should tread on human pride,That Alfred, our great Saxon hero, layConcealed within the isle of Athelney.
The island was a lonely spot of ground,By quaking marshes and dark bogs shut round;A grudging piece of earth, which only boreBanged briers, and moss, and grasses lank and poor.Look where you would, no sight could you descryBut the black fens, and the void wastes of sky,And the dull river, always loitering by.
Alfred—constrained by Fate himself to hideFrom the Dane's legions, thick on every side—In this bare isle, and in as bare a hut,With a few comrades and his queen was shut.The iron winter stabbed them with his sword—Coarse were their robes, and meagre was their board—Bread, and the flesh of fowls, bitter and harsh,Caught with sore travail in the reedy marsh.
The King in this poor dwelling sat one night,Intently reading by a feeble light.His friends had all gone forth, in search of prey,Like hunted beasts that dare not walk by day;And there was quiet all about the isle.In sacred peace sat Alfred for awhile,Until a knocking at the door at lastSnapped short the silence. The King rose, and passedStraight to the threshold, and beheld an oldAnd ragged pilgrim standing in the cold,Who said: "Lo! here upon this ground I dieFor very hunger, unless presentlyThou giv'st me food! It is a grievous wayThat I have footed since the dawn of day;And now I stagger like a man in drink,For weariness, and I must shortly sink.The stinging marsh-dews clasp me round like death,And my brain darkens, and I lose my breath."
"Now, God be thanked," cried Alfred, "that He sendsTo one poor man a poorer! Want makes friendsOf its own fellows, when the alien richFear its accusing rags, and in some ditch