Book I : The Vision of the King (excerpt)
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.
Book II : The Gathering of the Chiefs (excerpt)
Up across windy wastes and up
Went Alfred over the shaws,
Shaken of the joy of giants,
The joy without a cause,
IN the slopes away to the western bays,
Where blows not over a tree,
He washed his sould in the west wind
And his body in the sea.
And he set to rhyme is ale-measures,
And he sang aloud his laws,
Because of the joy of the giants,
The joy without a cause.
Book III : The Harp of Alfred.(excerpt)
IN a tree that yawned and twisted
The King's few goods were flung,
A mass-book allowed, line by line,
And weapons and a skin on wine,
And an old harp unstrung.
By the yawning tree in the twilights
The King unbound his sword
Severed the harp of all his goods,
And there in the cool and soundless woods
Sounded a single chord.
Then laughed; and watched the finches flash,
The sullen flies in swarm,
And went unarmed over the hills,
With the harp upon his arm,
Until he came to the White Horse Vale
And saw across the plains,
IN the twilight high and far and fell,
Like the fiery terraces of hell,
The camp fires of the Danes
Book IV : The Woman in the Forest (excerpt)
Thick thunder of the snorting swine,
Enormous in the gloam,
Rending among all roots that cling,
And the wild horses whinnying,
Were the night's noises when the King
Shouldering his harp, went home.
Book VI : Ethandune : The Slaying of the Chiefs
As the sea flooding the flat sands
Flew on the sea-born horde,
The two hosts shocked with dust and din,
Left of the Latin paladin,
Clanged all Prince Harold's howling kin
On Colan and the sword.
Crashed in the idst on Marcus,
Ogier with Guthrum by,
And eastward of such central stir,,
Far to the right and faintliler,
The house of Elf the harp-player,
Struck Eldred with a cry.
Book VII : Ethandune : The Last Charge (excerpt)
Where the high saddles jostle
And the horse-tails toss,
There rose to the birds flying
A roar of the dead and dying;
In deafness and strong crying
We signed him with the cross.
Far out to the winding river
The blood ran down for days,
When we put the cross on Guthrum
In the parting of the ways.
Book VIII : The Scouring of the Horse (excerpt)
In the years of the peace of Wesses,
When the good King sat at home;
Years following on that bloody boon
SWhen she that stands above the moon
Stood above death at Ethandune
And saw his kingdom come -
When the pagan people of the sea
Fled to their palisades,
Nailed there with javelins to cling
And wonder smote the pirate king,
And brought him to his christening
And the end of all his raids.
- G.K. Chesterton
