having trodden in the steps of Him who was High-priest and Victim. Who may abide strict Divine Justice, had not One stood between the sinner and the Judge? Thus ‘Mercy and Truth have met together; Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other.’” THE CAT OF CAT COPSE A HAMPSHIRE TRADITION I The Dane! the Dane! The heathen DaneIs wasting Hampshire’s coast again—From ravaged church and plundered farmFlash the dread beacons of alarm— Fly, helpless peasants, fly!Ytene’s green banks and forest shades,Her heathery slopes and gorse-clad glades Re-echo to the cry—Where is the King, whose strong right handHath oft from danger freed the land?Nor fleet nor covenant availsTo drive aloof those pirate sails, In vain is Alfred’s sword;Vain seems in every sacred faneThe chant—‘From fury of the Dane, Deliver us, good Lord.’ II The long keels have the Needles past,Wight’s fairest bowers are flaming fast;From Solent’s waves rise many a mast,With swelling sails of gold and red,Dragon and serpent at each head,Havoc and slaughter breathing forth,Steer on these locusts of the north.Each vessel bears a deadly freight;Each Viking, fired with greed and hate,His axe is whetting for the strife,And counting how each Christian lifeShall win him fame in Skaldic lays,And in Valhalla endless praise.For Hamble’s river straight they steer;Prayer is in vain, no aid is near—Hopeless and helpless all must die.Oh, fainting heart and failing eye,Look forth upon the foe once more!Why leap they not upon the shore?Why pause their keels upon the strand,As checked by some resistless hand?The sail they spread, the oars they ply,Yet neither may advance nor fly. III Who is it holds them helpless there?’Tis He Who hears the anguished prayer; ’Tis He Who to the waveHath fixed the bound—mud, rock, or sand—To mark how far upon the strand Its foaming sweep may rave.What is it, but the ebbing tide,That leaves them here, by Hamble’s side,So firm embedded in the mudNo force of stream, nor storm, nor flood,Shall ever these five ships bear forthTo fiords and islets of the north;A thousand years shall pass away,And leave those keels in Hamble’s bay. IV Ill were it in my rhyme to tellThe work of slaughter that befell;In sooth it was a savage time—Crime ever will engender crime.Each Viking, as he swam to land,Fell by a
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