In the Shadow of Alfred the Great

See you the windy levels spread
About the gates of Rye?
O that was where the Northmen fled,
When Alfred’s ships came by.

-Rudyard Kipling, from “Puck’s Song”

“The high tide!” King Alfred cried.
“The high tide and the turn!“

-G.K. Chesterton, from The Ballad of the White Horse

The praises of Alfred the Great have been sung by hosts of poets and historians even apart from Rudyard Kipling and G.K. Chesterton, the latter of whom wrote an entire book-length epic poem in veneration of the great warrio...