Classic Poem

Stars wink beyond the downland barrows
Where Alfred marched to meet the Danes,
Far in advance of flinthead arrows
And unaware of aeroplanes
Now the white owl on silent wing
Crosses the looming lonely track;
And here our anti-pagan king
Beat the red-handed plunderers back.

That Eastertide—historians write—
He saved the future by the sword
Which emblemed in barbaric night
The cross of Jesus Christ his Lord.
That was the crucial point, men say:
For Alfred's wisdom was his crown,
Who, in the old skull-shattering way,
Christened the powers of darkness down.

Dawn breaks where tribes once fought with flints;
Where Alfred smote, the white owl flits
Whose instincts are as old as time.
And we—to-day's historian hints—
May all be Alfreds, bombed to bits
In conflict with a creed of crime.