They are, right now, considering new rules to limit what we can say in public and share information on our conduct with the police. Now. This is what they are doing. While we console panicked students and try to put our work back together. senate.universityofcalifornia.edu/_files/under...

P.s. Mark/Marcus is also an awesome character, had to include his big moment

This is all from Chesterton’s epic poem, the Ballad of the White Horse. I have always loved the character of Eldred, a man who has seen too much war. He is brave and skilled, but doesn’t value those things. He values peace, warmth, friends, and hospitality.

On this veterans’ day, we remember.

Right on the Roman shield and sword
Did the spear of the Rhine maids run;
But the shield shifted never,
The sword sang down to sever,
The great Rhine sang for ever,
And the songs of Elf were done.

14/

The Wessex crescent backwards
Crushed, as with the bloody spear
Went Elf roaring and routing,
And Mark against Elf yet shouting,
Shocked, in his mid-career.
13/

But Mark was come of the glittering towns
Where hot white details show,
Where men can number and expound,
And his faith grew in a hard ground
Of doubt and reason and falsehood found,
Where no faith else could grow…
12/

…
For thunder of the captain,
Not less the Wessex line,
Leaned back and reeled a space to rear
As Elf charged with the Rhine maids’ spear,
And roaring like the Rhine …
11/

‘Stand like an oak,’ cried Marcus,
‘Stand like a Roman wall!
Eldred the Good is fallen -
Are you too good to fall?

‘When we were wan and bloodless
He gave you ale enow;
The pirates deal with him as dung,
God! Are you bloodless now?
10/

And a great clamour of Christian men
Went up in agony,
Crying, ‘Fallen is the tower of Wessex
That stood beside the sea.’

Centre and right the Wessex guard
Grew pale for doubt and fear,
And the flank failed at the advance,
For the death-light on the wizard lance -
The star of the evil spear.
9/

Then fell, as falls a battle tower,
On smashed and struggling spears.
Cast down from some unconquered town
That, rushing earthward, carries down
Loads of live men of all renown -
Archers and engineers.
8/

…
Six spears thrust upon Eldred
Were splintered while he laughed;
One spear thrust into Eldred,
Three feet of blade and shaft.

And from the great heart grievously
Came forth the shaft and blade,
And he stood with the face of a dead man,
Stood a little, and swayed -
7/

Even as he strode like a pestilence,
That strides from Rhine to Rome,
He thought how tall his beans might be
If ever he went home.

6/

His face like a sanguine sunset,
His shoulder a Wessex down,
His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;
Men could not count the crests he broke,
So fast the crests went down …

But while he moved like a massacre
He murmured as in sleep,
And his words were all of low hedges
And little fields and sheep.
5/

…
Ethandune: the slaying of the chiefs
…
The centre swat for weariness,
Stemming the screaming horde,
And wearily went Colan’s hands
That swung King Alfred’s sword.

But like a cloud of evening
To westward easily,
Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears
As a tall ship breaks the sea.
4/

‘Your scalds still thunder and prophesy
That crown that never comes;
Friend, I will watch the certain things,
Swine, and slow moons like silver rings,
And the ripening of the plums.’
3/

‘Come not to me, King Alfred,
Save always for the ale;
Why should my harmless hinds be slain
Because the chiefs cry once again,
As in all fights, that we shall gain,
And in all fights we fail?
2/