Before the gods that made the gods
          Had seen their sunrise pass,
          The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
          Was cut out of the grass.

          Before the gods that made the gods
          Had drunk at dawn their fill,
          The White Horse of the White Horse Vale
          Was hoary on the hill.

          Age beyond age on British land,
          Aeons on aeons gone,
          Was peace and war in western hills,
          And the White Horse looked on.

          For the White Horse knew England
          When there was none to know;
          He saw the first oar break or bend,
          He saw heaven fall and the world end,
          O God, how long ago.

          For the end of the world was long ago,
          And all we dwell to-day
          As children of some second birth,
          Like a strange people left on earth
          After a judgment day.

          For the end of the world was long ago,
          When the ends of the world waxed free,
          When Rome was sunk in a waste of slaves,
          And the sun drowned in the sea.

          When Caesar's sun fell out of the sky
          And whoso hearkened right
          Could only hear the plunging
          Of the nations in the night.

          When the ends of the earth came marching in
          To torch and cresset gleam.
          And the roads of the world that lead to Rome
          Were filled with faces that moved like foam,
          Like faces in a dream.

          And men rode out of the eastern lands,
          Broad river and burning plain;
          Trees that are Titan flowers to see,
          And tiger skies, striped horribly,
          With tints of tropic rain.

          Where Ind's enamelled peaks arise
          Around that inmost one,
          Where ancient eagles on its brink,
          Vast as archangels, gather and drink
          The sacrament of the sun.

          And men brake out of the northern lands,
          Enormous lands alone,
          Where a spell is laid upon life and lust
          And the rain is changed to a silver dust
          And the sea to a great green stone.

          And a Shape that moveth murkily
          In mirrors of ice and night,
          Hath blanched with fear all beasts and birds,
          As death and a shock of evil words
          Blast a man's hair with white.

          And the cry of the palms and the purple moons,
          Or the cry of the frost and foam,
          Swept ever around an inmost place,
          And the din of distant race on race
          Cried and replied round Rome.

          And there was death on the Emperor
          And night upon the Pope:
          And Alfred, hiding in deep grass,
          Hardened his heart with hope.

          A sea-folk blinder than the sea
          Broke all about his land,
          But Alfred up against them bare
          And gripped the ground and grasped the air,
          Staggered, and strove to stand.

          He bent them back with spear and spade,
          With desperate dyke and wall,
          With foemen leaning on his shield
          And roaring on him when he reeled;
          And no help came at all.

          He broke them with a broken sword
          A little towards the sea,
          And for one hour of panting peace,
          Ringed with a roar that would not cease,
          With golden crown and girded fleece
          Made laws under a tree.

          The Northmen came about our land
          A Christless chivalry:
          Who knew not of the arch or pen,
          Great, beautiful half-witted men
          From the sunrise and the sea.

          Misshapen ships stood on the deep
          Full of strange gold and fire,
          And hairy men, as huge as