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(SAXON INVASION, A.D. 400–600)
WHEN Rome was rotten-ripe to her fall, | |
| And the sceptre passed from her hand, | |
| The pestilent Picts leaped over the wall | |
| To harry the English land. | |
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| The little dark men of the mountain and waste, | 5 |
| So quick to laughter and tears, | |
| They came panting with hate and haste | |
| For the loot of five hundred years. | |
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| They killed the trader, they sacked the shops, | |
| They ruined temple and town— | 10 |
| They swept like wolves through the standing crops | |
| Crying that Rome was down. | |
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| They wiped out all that they could find | |
| Of beauty and strength and worth, | |
| But they could not wipe out the Viking’s Wind, | 15 |
| That brings the ships from the North. | |
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| They could not wipe out the North-East gales, | |
| Nor what those gales set free— | |
| The pirate ships with their close-reefed sails, | |
| Leaping from sea to sea. | 20 |
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| They had forgotten the shield-hung hull | |
| Seen nearer and more plain, | |
| Dipping into the troughs like a gull, | |
| And gull-like rising again— | |
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| The painted eyes that glare and frown, | 25 |
| In the high snake-headed stem, | |
| Searching the beach while her sail comes down, | |
| They had forgotten them! | |
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| There was no Count of the Saxon Shore | |
| To meet her hand to hand, | 30 |
| As she took the beach with a grind and a roar, | |
| And the pirates rushed inland. | |
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