The wind got up with the morning—­
And the fog blew off with the rain,
When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
And the little Blue Devil again. 
‘Did you swim?’ she said.  ‘Did you sink?’ she said,
And the little Blue Devil replied: 
‘For myself I swam, but I think,’ he said,
‘There’s somebody sinking outside.’

THE KING’S TASK

After the sack of the City, when Rome was sunk to a name,
In the years that the lights were darkened, or ever St. Wilfrid came,
Low on the borders of Britain (the ancient poets sing)
Between the Cliff and the Forest there ruled a Saxon King. 
Stubborn all were his people from cottar to overlord—­
Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the sword;
Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood,
And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred’s Wood. 
Laws they made in the Witan—­the laws of flaying and fine—­
Common, loppage and pannage, the theft and the track of kine—­
Statutes of tun and market for the fish and the malt and the meal—­
The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel. 
Over the graves of the Druids and under the wreck of Rome
Rudely but surely they bedded the plinth of the days to come. 
Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Norseman’s ire,
Rudely but greatly begat they the framing of state and shire. 
Rudely but deeply they laboured, and their labour stands till now,
If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough. 
There came a king from Hamtun, by Bosenham he came. 
He filled Use with slaughter, and Lewes he gave to flame. 
He smote while they sat in the Witan—­sudden he smote and sore,
That his fleet was gathered at Selsea ere they mustered at Cymen’s Ore. 
Blithe went the Saxons to battle, by down and wood and mere,
But thrice the acorns ripened ere the western mark was clear. 
Thrice was the beechmast gathered, and the Beltane fires burned
Thrice, and the beeves were salted thrice ere the host returned. 
They drove that king from Hamtun, by Bosenham o’erthrown,
Out of Rugnor to Wilton they made his land their own. 
Camps they builded at Gilling, at Basing and Alresford,
But wrath abode in the Saxons from cottar to overlord. 
Wrath at the weary war-game, at the foe that snapped and ran
Wolf-wise feigning and flying, and wolf-wise snatching his man. 
Wrath for their spears unready, their levies new to the blades—­
Shame for the helpless sieges and the scornful ambuscades. 
At hearth and tavern and market, wherever the tale was told,
Shame and wrath had the Saxons because of their boasts of old. 
And some would drink and deny it, and some would pray and atone;
But the most part, after their anger, avouched that the sin was their own. 
Wherefore, girding together, up to the Witan they