When our brief days are over,
That we shall live again.'

Paulinus was one of the four missionaries sent form Rome by Gregory the
Great in 601. The marriage of Edwin, King of Northumbria, with
Ethelburga, sister to Eadbald of Kent, opened Paulinus' way to northern
England. Bede, born less than fifty years after, has given an admirable
narrative of Edwin's conversion: which is very completely told in
Bright's _Early English Church History_, B. IV.

Deira, (from old-Welsh _deifr_, waters), then comprised Eastern Yorkshire
from Tees to Humber. Goodmanham, where the meeting described was held,
is some 23 miles from York.



ALFRED THE GREAT


849-901

1

The fair-hair'd boy is at his mother's knee,
A many-colour'd page before them spread,
Gay summer harvest-field of gold and red,
With lines and staves of ancient minstrelsy.
But through her eyes alone the child can see,
From her sweet lips partake the words of song,
And looks as one who feels a hidden wrong,