The Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair
Mustering a face of haughtiest sovereignty,
To aid a covert purpose, cried—“O ye
Approaching waters of the deep, that share
With this green isle my fortunes, come not where
Your Master’s throne is set!”—Absurd decree!
A mandate, uttered to the foaming sea,
Is to its motions less than wanton air.
—Then Canute, rising from the invaded Throne,
Said to his servile courtiers, “Poor the reach,
The undisguised extent, of mortal sway!
He only is a king, and he alone
Deserves the name, (this truth the billows preach)
Whose everlasting laws, sea, earth, and heaven obey.”
This just reproof the prosperous Dane
Drew, from the impulse of the Main,
For some whose rugged northern mouths would strain
At oriental flattery;
And Canute (truth more worthy to be known)
From that time forth did for his brows disown
The ostentatious symbol of a Crown;
Esteeming earthly royalty
Contemptible and vain.
Now hear what one of elder days,
Rich theme of England’s fondest praise,
Her darling Alfred, might have spoken;
To cheer the remnant of his host
When he was driven from coast to coast,
Distress’d and harass’d, but with mind unbroken;
“My faithful Followers, lo! the tide is spent;
That rose, and steadily advanced to fill
The shores and channels, working Nature’s will
Among the mazy streams that backward went,
And in the sluggish pools where ships are pent.
And now, its task perform’d, the Flood stands still
At the green base of many an inland hill,
In placid beauty and sublime content!
Such the repose that Sage and Hero find;
Such measured rest the sedulous and good
Of humbler name; whose souls do, like the flood
Of Ocean, press right on; or gently wind,
Neither to be diverted nor withstood,
Until they reach the bounds by Heaven assigned.”
