University of Virginia Library

The full moon glitters on the sand,
The North Sea ripples on the strand,
The low cliff's shadow from above
Falls on a little landlock'd cove,
Which, deep and dang'rous to the edge,
Mines underneath the chalky ledge,
Save where the bank, with gentle sink,
Slopes downward to the water's brink.
Here Harold stood: the night was clear,
And through the purple atmosphere
The stars shone brightly, and the sea
Sang chorus to his rhapsody:
A man whom all might happy deem,
And women love, and men esteem;
Full broad of shoulder, strong of arm,
And deaf to anger or alarm,
But chivalrous in hastiness
To champion trouble or distress;
As great in spirit as in frame,
In danger and distress the same,
With wild, dark, handsome, haunting face—
And strength in manhood serves for grace:
Able was he to hold his own,
And worthy admiration;
Accustom'd since he scarce could stand
To the stern pastimes of his land:
At first to shoulder off the stool
The other little boys at school,
And then to wrestle and to fight
With ten-year rivals, his delight;
Then competition took the place
Of stand-up fighting face to face;
There were brave battles to be fought
In beating other boys at sport;
And as the rolling years went on
Great glory in such sports he won;
Fours to true leg, straight spanking drives
Snick'd twos and threes, clean cuts for fives,
Fast ripping balls, well on the wicket,
Made him renown'd in Rugby cricket.
Hot ‘hacks’ exchanged, ‘tries’ dearly bought;
A hero in the sterner sport.
He'd stalk'd the red deer over Highland rocks;
He'd ‘taken’ untried fences for the fox;
In Kentish copses, 'neath an autumn sun,
The largest bag had fallen to his gun;
In Norway rivers, waist-deep in the flood,
Salmon of weight had yielded to his rod:
Alone, afoot, on many a weary day,
O'er steep wet moor and featureless highway,
He strode to fields of unforgotten fights
Of Rupert's cavaliers and Clifford's knights;
To storied castles shatter'd in the war
'Twixt Crown and Commons, minsters where of yore
Dunstan and Baeda fed the sacred light
Of learning in the long dark English night;
To abbeys rich with knightly founders' bones,
And gifts of bygone heroes and kings' sons;
To great cathedrals hallow'd by the pray'r
Of great dead men; to cities famed and fair;
To torrents foaming, fretting, falling fast,
And mighty rivers slowly sailing past
By stately halls and immemorial trees;
To lonely wolds and humming village leas,
Green downs, and grey gaunt mountains, and broad plains
Strewn with old chieftains' tombs and fallen fanes;
To silent reed-fring'd lake and lone sea-shore,
As silent, save for surf and storm wind's roar.
He knew the names of all known stars in heaven—
The heralds of the morning and the even;
He knew the names of all the birds that fly,
And beasts that range beneath the Northern sky,
And many fish that in the north seas ply;
He knew the gauzy denizens of air,
And had a hoard wherein the rich and rare
Of daily butterfly and nightly moth
Were ranged together, and he knew in troth
The name of every flow'r that wood and field
From Cornwall to Northumberland do yield.