The ballad of the white horse

" DEDICATIONOf great limbs gone to chaos,A great face turned to night--Why bend above a shapeless shroudSeeking in such archaic cloudSight of strong lords and light?Where seven sunken EnglandsLie buried one by one,Why should one idle spade, I wonder,Shake up the dust of thanes like thunderTo smoke and choke the sun?In cloud of clay so cast to heavenWhat shape shall man discern?These lords may light the mysteryOf mastery or victory,And these ride high in history,But these shall not return.Gored on the Norman gonfalonThe Golden Dragon died:We shall not wake with ballad stringsThe good time of the smaller things,We shall not see the holy kingsRide down by Severn side.Stiff, strange, and quaintly colouredAs the broidery of BayeuxThe England of that dawn remains,And this of Alfred and the DanesSeems like the tales a whole tribe feignsToo English to be true."