Naught for Your Comfort
December 31, 2010
JOE LONG writes:
G.K. Chesterton’s “Ballad of the White Horse” expresses the spirit of virtuous defiance described in the previous entry. In the poem, King Alfred, facing an apparently unstoppable Viking invasion, sees a vision of Mary, who promises him…nothing. In response to his request for a prophecy telling him whether he can succeed in his last ditch defense, she responds,
“…you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.
“I tell you naught for your comfort,
Yea, naught for your desire,
Save that the sky grows darker yet
And the sea rises higher.
“Night shall be thrice night over you,
And heaven an iron cope.
Do you have joy without a cause,
Yea, faith without a hope?”
As the poem continues, Alfred recruits three war chieftains with the simple appeal that the sky grows darker, and the sea rises higher. His final rallying speech at the battle of Ethandune chills the blood and stiffens the spine of any good reactionary:
“Though all your thunder-sworded thanes
With proud hearts died among the Danes,
While a man remains, great war remains:
Now is a war of men.”
Tolkien must have spent time with this tremendous poem; indeed, its Book VII, “The Scouring of the Horse”, is an epilogue in the manner of “The Scouring of the Shire.” Chesteron includes a final prophecy of our own bitter fight, a return of the heathen who “shall come mild as monkish clerks” – but “by this sign shall you know them, that they ruin and make dark.” It’s the “Ballad of the White Horse” I turn to, when the mild barbarians advance in their hordes and something much stronger than optimism is called for.
I enjoy your blog in a not-entirely-unrelated fashion. Keep it up!
Laura writes:
Thank you.
These are inspirational words, perfect for another year of darkening skies and mild barbarians. Happy New Year! I will definitely keep it up.
Peter S. writes:
It is worth quoting the passage on Alfred’s vision of the future return of the heathen – Chesterton’s own damning analysis and prophecy of his times – in full:
I know that weeds shall grow in it
Faster than men can burn;
And though they scatter now and go,
In some far century, sad and slow,
I have a vision, and I know
The heathen shall return.
They shall not come with warships,
They shall not waste with brands,
But books be all their eating,
And ink be on their hands.
Not with the humour of hunters
Or savage skill in war,
But ordering all things with dead words,
Strings shall they make of beasts and birds,
And wheels of wind and star.
They shall come mild as monkish clerks,
With many a scroll and pen;
And backward shall ye turn and gaze,
Desiring one of Alfred’s days,
When pagans still were men.
The dear sun dwarfed of dreadful suns,
Like fiercer flowers on stalk,
Earth lost and little like a pea
In high heaven’s towering forestry,
–These be the small weeds ye shall see
Crawl, covering the chalk.
But though they bridge St. Mary’s sea,
Or steal St. Michael’s wing–
Though they rear marvels over us,
Greater than great Vergilius
Wrought for the Roman king;
By this sign you shall know them,
The breaking of the sword,
And man no more a free knight,
That loves or hates his lord.
Yea, this shall be the sign of them,
The sign of the dying fire;
And Man made like a half-wit,
That knows not of his sire.
What though they come with scroll and pen,
And grave as a shaven clerk,
By this sign you shall know them,
That they ruin and make dark;
By all men bond to Nothing,
Being slaves without a lord,
By one blind idiot world obeyed,
Too blind to be abhorred;
By terror and the cruel tales
Of curse in bone and kin,
By weird and weakness winning,
Accursed from the beginning,
By detail of the sinning,
And denial of the sin;
By thought a crawling ruin,
By life a leaping mire,
By a broken heart in the breast of the world,
And the end of the world’s desire;
By God and man dishonoured,
By death and life made vain,
Know ye the old barbarian,
The barbarian come again–
When is great talk of trend and tide,
And wisdom and destiny,
Hail that undying heathen
That is sadder than the sea.
In what wise men shall smite him,
Or the Cross stand up again,
Or charity or chivalry,
My vision saith not; and I see
No more; but now ride doubtfully
To the battle of the plain.
