Thou hast most timely come
To England, Asser, for thy diligence
Shall bring the grace of letters to this land.
Thy learning shall the better find its course
When I have told thee of the dangerous floods
Through which we passed to the security
Of that rude peace which gives me leisure now
To use thy lore. When late our fathers fared
Along the highroads of these inland seas
To win their doomèd weird of long renown,
Their lust of power kept Britain's lands abroil.
So dured the stress and storm, the surge and seethe,
Till Egbert, the Bretwalda, shaped the dream
That we name England. Then was peace. . . . .

But when those foam-necked cleavers of the wave,
The galleys of the Danes, came down the seas,
And 'gainst the overlords of Æthelred
Prevailing, smote the land, Wessex alone
Of these dominions bent not to the foe,
But fixed herself in island Athelney,
Impregnable. I ruled the Saxons there
With rugged kingcraft, choosing fittest men
For captaincy, and for wise governance,
The rightest laws.

I need not tell thee how
The Wessex arms withstood the battle's brunt:
Their bravery, let Æthandune attest.
I taught my sturdy yeomanry to fight,
And falling, how to rise and fight again;
To win by making failure victory.

And not by land alone we fought the foe,
But built us ships to meet him on the main;
And so at last we won by land and sea
And made our stronger arms invincible.

But when the Northman yielded to our power,
I made him over all the Danelagh, lord,
Well knowing that to mix the Norseman's blood
With ours would make a better, sturdier race.
And once it chanced that in the tide of war
The wife and sons of him who led the Danes
Were in my hands as captives of our arms.
My clemency restored them to his heart
And sought no ransom, knowing well indeed
That gentleness is mightier than might—
A word my mother taught me when a child.

Now all was peace and yet my heart was sad;
The Danish wars had made the Saxons strong
Against their foes, but rude and ignorant
And almost savage in the gentler light
Of those humaner arts of life and peace
That constitute the glory of a race.
Long, long ago, with Æthelwulf my sire,
I sought the home of classic harmonies
And saw the ghosts and glories of old Rome,
Despite time's scathe and havoc, noble still.
My heart was thrilled with dreams of Italy;
I felt the gulf 'twixt her and mine own land.
How far was Roman art beyond the hope
Of Britain! Not a thousand years could weave
Such mysteries of beauty into life;
Yet would I make the humblest British heart
A living spring of justice, strength and joy,
And teach the highest art—greatly to live.
Our ships were idle on the seas; in sooth,
Here was a fleet of warships, but no war.

I freighted them with cargoes of new trade,
Thus, out of strife, won victories of peace
That shame war's goals, however bright they be.
I sought for such as wrought each useful craft,
And failing here, I brought them from afar
To teach the arts of husbandry and peace.

The wasted villages were built again;
The priests proclaimed the ancient moot restored;
The ealdormen of highest lineage spake
And gave their rede to freemen of the shires,
Who lent applause with clash of spear and shield
As in the days of old. The gleemen sang
The Saxon lays to time the festive dance,
And blue-eyed maidens passed the mead-bowl round
While wassail echoed through the timbered hall.

There were no Saxon letters in the land,
But late I traced on parchment what is done
In Britain now, most worthy to be known
In future days. To thee I give the charge
To keep this Anglo-Saxon Chronicle ,
A fountain of our future history,
The first of books in our own language writ.

Thus have I turned to higher ways of good
And reverenced that Power that holdeth all
With strength and kindness in Eternal hands.
Thy piety and learning shall have fruit
In England when our earthly lives have passed
Beyond the dark of death. Be thou, my friend,
Patient and diligent. It is my hope
That here thy heart may find a pleasant home
And high reward—the joy of usefulness—
And every hour, acquittal at the bar
Of thine own conscience.