Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953; see also weeks 112 and 263) was a rambunctious, opinionated, larger than life figure whose reputation has suffered partly due to his oft expressed dislike of Jews, though it should be said that he abominated Hitler and totally condemned Nazi anti-semitism. Nor was he alone among intellectuals at the time in holding problematic views: T.S.Eliot’s anti-semitic streak has not stopped him from being venerated in certain quarters, nor has H.G.Wells’s enthusiasm for culling non-white races in the name of eugenics inhibited a continuing interest in his fiction. So maybe Belloc too deserves to be cut some slack, and perhaps anyway we should be wary of demonising writers for one unacceptable opinion and should simply reject that opinion while seeing what else they might have to offer. Which in Belloc’s case, as far as poetry goes, is a quantity of skilful, entertaining and sometimes quite edgy light verse, and some pieces like this which hover somewhere between the light and the serious.

Apparently this particular poem was written in reaction to his failure to obtain a fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford, and expresses a defiant scorn for the academia that has rejected him. It seems odd to me that a poet should wish to compromise his independence of mind by too close an assocation with an academic institution, but evidently it was a lifelong disappointment to him. The poem is a bit of a romantic muddle – I would like to know just how high you would have to fly a winged horse to see the English Channel from anywhere near Wantage, and I’m not sure what the cast of the ‘Chanson de Roland’ are doing on the nearby Lambourn Downs – it’s a long way from Roncesvalles. But you have to admit it goes with a swing.

The Winged Horse: this is a reference to Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology, ridden by the hero Bellephoron who defeated the monster Chimaera. The point here is that Pegasus is said to have created the spring Hippocrene on Mount Helicon by striking his hoof in the earth, and drinking from the Hippocrene was thought to bring poetic inspiration, which ties in with ‘spouting well of joy’ in the last stanza.

Lambourn: a town in Berkshire famous as a centre for the training of racehorses, which are exercised on the nearby downs.

Roland: hero of the 11^th century Old French epic poem ‘Chanson de Roland’, which is very loosely based on a real historical 8^th century incident. In the poem the French emperor Charlemagne is leading his army back from Spain when its rearguard, under the command of his champion Count Roland, is ambushed in a narrow Pyrenean pass by a large army of Saracens (in reality it was a small army of Basques). Not wanting to be thought a coward, Roland refuses to summon help by blowing his horn, despite the repeated urgings of his friend Oliver (‘Cumpaign Rolland, car sunez vostre corn’, which I like to translate as ‘For f—k’s sake, Roland, just blow the bloody horn!’). As a result the entire rearguard is wiped out, with Roland the last to fall.

Marches: here used in the sense of borderlands – the historical Roland was military governor of the Breton March, responsible for defending Francia‘s frontier against the Bretons.

Turpin: a martial archbishop who fell with Roland, the last of his companions to do so. It may seem odd that a churchman should also be a doughty warrior, but it is well attested that among William the Conqueror’s retinue at the Battle of Hastings was a certain Bishop Odo. There is a story, possibly apocryphal, that as his calling forbade him to shed blood, he eschewed the use of a sword and instead bashed people’s brains in with a club. So that was all right.

The Winged Horse

It’s ten years ago today you turned me out o’ doors
To cut my feet on flinty lands and stumble down the shores
And I thought about the all-in-all, oh more than I can tell!
But I caught a horse to ride upon and I rode him very well,
He had flames behind the eyes of him and wings upon his side,
And I ride, and I ride!

I rode him out of Wantage and I rode him up the hill,
And there I saw the Beacon in the morning standing still,
Inkpen and Hackpen and southward and away
High through the middle airs in the strengthening of the day,
And there I saw the channel-glint and England in her pride
And I ride, and I ride!

And once atop of Lambourn Down towards the hill of Clere
I saw the Host of Heaven in rank and Michael with his spear,
And Turpin out of Gascony and Charlemagne the Lord
And Roland of the marches with his hand upon his sword
For the time he should have need of it, and forty more beside
And I ride, and I ride!

For you that took the all-in-all, the things you left were three,
A loud voice for singing and keen eyes to see
And a spouting well of joy that never yet was dried
And I ride.

Hilaire Belloc