Birinus rose,
And stood in calm marmorean. Long he stood,
Not eager, though expectant. By degrees
That tumult lessening, with a quiet smile
And hand extended, noticing for peace,
Thus he addressed that concourse.
'Earls and Thanes,
Among so many here I stand alone,
Why peaceful? why untroubled? In your hands
I see a hundred swords against me bent:
Sirs, should they slay me, Truth remains unpierced.
A thousand wheat ears swayed by summer gust
Affront one oak; it slights the mimic threat:
So slight I, strong in faith, those swords that err--
Your ignorance, not your sin. The truth of God,
The heart of man against you fight this day,
And, with his heart, his hope. In every land,
Through all the unnumbered centuries yet to come,
The cry of women wailing for their babes
Restored through Christ alone, the cry of men
Who know that all is lost if earth is all,
The cry of children still unstained by sin,
The sinner's cry redeemed from yoke of sin,
Thunder against you. Pass to lesser themes.

'Eardulf, that raged against me, told you, Lords,
That Rome was still the hater of your race,
And warred thereon. She warred much more on mine,
Roman but Christian likewise! Ye were foes;
Warring on you she warred on hostile tribes:
In us she tore her proper flesh and blood:
Mailed men were you that gave her blow for blow;
We were her tender children; on her hearths
We dwelt, or delved her fields and dressed her vines.
What moved her hatred? that we loved a God
All love to man. With every God beside
Rome made her traffic: fellowship with such
Unclean we deemed: thenceforth Rome saw in us
Her destined foe.
Three centuries, Earls and Thanes,
Her hand was red against us. Vengeance came:
Who wrought it? Who avenged our martyred Saints
That, resting 'neath God's altar, cried, "How long?"
Alaric, and his, the Goths! And who were they?
Your blood, your bone, your spirit, and your soul!
They with your fathers roamed four hundred years
The Teuton waste; they swam the Teuton floods,
They pointed with the self-same hand of scorn
At Rome, their common foe! In Odin's loins
Together came ye from the shining East:--
True man was he: ye changed him to false god!
That Odin, when the destined ho