Page:King Alfred's Version of the Consolations of Boethius.djvu/264

 together,

Wrapt all his creatures    round and about,

Fixed with fetters,    so that they fail ever

To find any road    to wrest themselves free.

And yet every creature    courses along,

Onward bending,    bound for its goal,

Seeking the kind    that the King of angels,

The Father at first,    firmly appointed.

So now all things    are thitherward moving,

The spacious creation,    save certain angels,

Save man also. Many, too many

Dwellers in the world    war with their nature!

Though you a she-lion    should meet in the land,

A pleasant creature    wondrously tame,

Loving her master    with lively affection,

And yet every day    dreading him also,

If it befall    that savour of blood

She ever tastes,    truly none needs

Ever to hope    that she will hold fast

To her tameness after;    well do I think,

New as it is,    no more she will heed it,

But her wild wont        will soon remember,

The way of her fathers. Fierce she begins

To rend her fetters,    to roar and growl,

And first she bites,    before all others,

Her own house-master,    and hastily thereafter

Each single man    that she may meet

Naught she leaves    that owns life,

Nor beast nor man,    mangling all she finds.

Thus too the wood-birds,    wondrous gentle,