CVIIAPOLLOThrough the black, rushing smoke-burstsThick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee.But, where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,Where the moon-silvered inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,O speed, and rejoice!On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks.On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lulled by the rills,Lie wrapt in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flowered broom?What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night's balmy prime?—'Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.—The leader is fairest,But all are divine.They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?—They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by the road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?—What will be for ever;What was from of old.First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.Arnold.CVIIITHE DEATH OF SOHRABTHE DUELHe spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,And he too drew his sword; at once they rushedTogether, as two eagles on one preyCome rushing down together from the clouds,One from the east, one from the west; their shieldsDashed with a clang together, and a dinRose, such as that the sinewy woodcuttersMake often in the forest's heart at morn,Of hewing axes, crashing trees—such blowsRustum and Sohrab on each other hailed.And you would say that sun and stars took partIn that unnatural conflict; for a cloudGrew suddenly in Heaven, and darkened the sunOver the fighters' heads; and a wind roseUnder their feet, and moaning swept the plain,And in a sandy whirlwind wrapped the pair.In gloom they twain were wrapped, and they alone;For both the on-looking hosts on either handStood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream.But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyesAnd labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shieldWhich Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spearRent the tough plates, but failed to reach the skin,And Rustum plucked it back with angry groan.Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crestHe shore away, and that proud horsehair plume,Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;And Rustum bowed his head; but then the gloomGrew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,Who stood at hand, uttered a dreadful cry;—No horse's cry was that, most like the roarOf some pained desert-lion, who all dayHath trailed the hunter's javelin in his side,And comes at night to die upon the sand.The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,And Oxus curdled as it crossed his stream.But Sohrab heard, and quailed not, but rushed on,And struck again; and again Rustum bowedHis head; but this time all the blade, like glass,Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm,And in the hand the hilt remained alone.Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyesGlared, and he shook on high his menacing spear,And shouted:Rustum!—Sohrab heard that shout,And shrank amazed; back he recoiled one step,And scanned with blinking eyes the advancing form;And then he stood bewildered; and he droppedHis covering shield, and the spear pierced his side.He reeled, and staggering back, sank to the ground;And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,And the bright sun broke forth, and melted allThe cloud; and the two armies saw the pair—Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet,And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.SOHRABThen with a bitter smile, Rustum began:—‘Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to killA Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse,And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent.Or else that the great Rustum would come downHimself to fight, and that thy wiles would moveHis heart to take a gift, and let thee go.And then that all the Tartar host would praiseThy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,To glad thy father in his weak old age.Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!Dearer to the red jackels shalt thou beThan to thy friends, and to thy father old,’And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:—‘Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.For were I matched with ten such men as thee,And I were that which till to-day I was,They should be lying here, I standing there.But that beloved name unnerved my arm—That name, and something, I confess, in thee,Which troubles all my heart, and made my shieldFall; and thy spear transfix an unarmed foe.And now thou boastest, and insultest my fate.But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear:The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!My father, whom I seek through all the world,He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!’As when some hunter in the spring hath foundA breeding eagle sitting on her nest,Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,And followed her to find her where she fellFar off;—anon her mate comes winging backFrom hunting, and a great way off decriesHis huddling young left-sole; at that he checksHis pinion, and with short uneasy sweepsCircles above his eyry, with loud screamsChiding his mate back to her nest; but sheLies dying, with the arrow in her side,In some far stony gorge out of his ken,A heap of fluttering feathers—never moreShall the lake glass her, flying over it;Never the black and dripping precipicesEcho her stormy scream as she sails by—As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stoodOver his dying son, and knew him not.But, with a cold, incredulous voice he said:‘What prate is this of fathers and revenge?The mighty Rustum never had a son.’And with a failing voice Sohrab replied:‘Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I,Surely the news will one day reach his ear,Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long,Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;And pierce him like a stab, and make him leapTo arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?O could I live, till I that grief had seen!Yet him I pity not so much, but her,My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwellsWith that old king, her father, who grows greyWith age, and rules over the valiant Koords.Her most I pity, who no more will seeSohrab returning from the Tartar camp,With spoils and honour, when the war is done.But a dark rumour will be bruited up,From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;And then will that defenceless woman learnThat Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,But that in battle with a nameless foe,By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.’THE RECOGNITIONHe spoke, and as he ceased he wept aloud,Thinking of her he left, and his own death.He spoke; but Rustum listened plunged in thought.Nor did he yet believe it was his sonWho spoke, although he called back names he knew;For he had had sure tidings that the babe,Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,Had been a puny girl, no boy at all—So that sad mother sent him word, for fearRustum should seek the boy, to train in arms.And as he deemed that either Sohrab took,By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son;Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.So deemed he; yet he listened plunged in thought;And his soul set to grief, as the vast tideOf the bright rocking Ocean sets to shoreAt the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes;For he remembered his own early youth,And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descriesA far, bright city, smitten by the sun,Through many rolling clouds—so Rustum sawHis youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;And that old king, her father, who loved wellHis wandering guest, and gave him his fair childWith joy; and all the pleasant life they led,They three, in that long-distant summer-time—The castle, and the dewy woods, and huntAnd hound, and morn on those delightful hillsIn Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth,Of age and looks to be his own dear son,Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand,Like some rich hyacinth which by the scytheOf an unskilful gardener has been cut,Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,On the mown, dying grass—so Sohrab lay,Lovely in death, upon the common sand.And Rustum gazed on him in grief, and said:‘O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a sonWhom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved:Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else menHave told thee false—thou art not Rustum's son.For Rustum had no son; one child he had—But one—a girl; who with her mother nowPlies some light female task, nor dreams of us—Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.’But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for nowThe anguish of the deep-fixed spear grew fierce,And he desirèd to draw forth the steel,And let the blood flow free, and so to die—But first he would convince his stubborn foe;And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:‘Man, who art thou who dost deny my words?Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bearThat seal which Rustum to my mother gave,That she might prick it on the babe she bore.’He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,And his knees tottered, and he smote his handAgainst his breast, his heavy mailèd hand,That the hard iron corselet clanked aloud;And to his heart he pressed the other hand,And in a hollow voice he spake and said:‘Sohrab, that were a proof that could not lie!If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son.’Then with weak hasty fingers Sohrab loosedHis belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,And showed a sign in faint vermilion pointsPricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin,Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,An emperor's gift—at early morn he paints,And all day long, and, when night comes, the lampLights up his studious forehead and thin hands—So delicately pricked the sign appearedOn Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.It was that griffin, which of old reared Zal,Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks;Him that kind creature found, and reared, and loved—Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign.And Sohrab bared that image on his arm,And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes,And then he touched it with his hand and said:—‘How sayest thou? Is that sign the proper signOf Rustum's son, or of some other man's?’RUKSH THE HORSEHe spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stoodSpeechless; and then he uttered one sharp cry:O boy—thy father!—and his voice choked there.And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes,And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and castHis arms about his neck, and kissed his lips,And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,Trying to call him back to life; and lifeCame back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,And they stood wide with horror; and he seizedIn both his hands the dust which lay around,And threw it on his head, and smirched his hair,—His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his sword,To draw it, and for ever let life out.But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands,And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:‘Father, forbear! for I but meet to-dayThe doom which at my birth was written downIn Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,I know it! but fate trod these promptings downUnder its iron heel; fate, fate engagedThe strife, and hurled me on my father's spear.But let us speak no more of this! I findMy father; let me feel that I have found!Come, sit beside me on this sand, and takeMy head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,And wash them with thy tears, and say:My son!Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life,And swift; for like the lightning to this fieldI came, and like the wind I go away—Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.But it was writ in Heaven that this should be.’So said he, and his voice released the heartOf Rustum and his tears broke forth; he castHis arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts,When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh the horse,With his head bowing to the ground and maneSweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woeFirst to the one, then to the other movedHis head, as if inquiring what their griefMight mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the sand.But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:—‘Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feetShould first have rotted on their nimble joints,Or ere they brought thy master to this field!’But Sohrab looked upon the horse and said:‘Is this, then, Ruksh? How often in past days,My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,That I should one day find thy lord and thee.Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;For thou hast gone where I shall never go,And snuffed the breezes of my father's home.And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan,And seen the river of Helmund, and the LakeOf Zirrah; and the aged Zal himselfHas often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine,And said:O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!—but IHave never known my grandsire's furrowed face,Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;But lodged among my father's foes, and seenAfrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,And the black Toorkman tents; and only drunkThe desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend,Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream,The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.’RUSTUMThen with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed:‘O that its waves were flowing over me!O that I saw its grains of yellow siltRoll tumbling in the current o'er my head!’But with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:—‘Desire not that, my father! thou must live.For some are born to do great deeds, and live,As some are born to be obscured, and die.Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,And reap a second glory in thine age;Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.But come! thou seest this great host of menWhich follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!Let me entreat for them; what have they done?They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star.Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,But carry me with thee to Seistan,And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends.And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,And heap a stately mound above my bones,And plant a far-seen pillar over all.That so the passing horseman on the wasteMay see my tomb a great way off, and cry;Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies here,Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!And I be not forgotten in my grave.’And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:‘Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,And carry thee away to Seistan,And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,And heap a stately mound above thy bones,And plant a far-seen pillar over all,And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!What should I do with slaying any more?For would that all whom I have ever slainMight be once more alive—my bitterest foes,And they who were called champions in their time,And through whose death I won that fame I have—And I were nothing but a common man,A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!Or rather would that I, even I myself,Might now be lying on this bloody sand,Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou;And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan;And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;And say:O Son, I weep thee not too sore,For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!But now in blood and battles was my youth,And full of blood and battles is my age,And I shall never end this life of blood.’Then at the point of death, Sohrab replied:‘A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man!But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now,Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship,Thou and the other peers of Kai KhosrooReturning home over the salt blue sea,From laying thy dear master in his grave.’NIGHTAnd Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:‘Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea!Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.’He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and tookThe spear, and drew it from his side, and easedHis wound's imperious anguish; but the bloodCame welling from the open gash, and lifeFlowed with the stream;—all down his cold white sideThe crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled,Like the soiled tissue of white violetsLeft, freshly gathered, on their native bank,By children whom their nurses call with hasteIndoors from the sun's eye; his head dropped low,His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay—White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps,Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,Convulsed him back to life, he opened them,And fixed them feebly on his father's face;Till now all strength was ebbed, and from his limbsUnwillingly the spirit fled away,Regretting the warm mansion which it left,And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloakDown o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.As those black granite pillars once high-rearedBy Jemshid in Persepolis, to bearHis house, now 'mid their broken flights of stepsLie prone, enormous, down the mountain side,So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.And night came down over the solemn waste,And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night,Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,As of a great assembly loosed, and firesBegan to twinkle through the fog; for nowBoth armies moved to camp, and took their meal;The Persians took it on the open sandsSouthward, the Tartars by the river marge;And Rustum and his son were left alone.But the majestic river floated on,Out of the mist and hum of that low land,Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,Under the solitary moon;—he flowedRight for the polar star, past Orgunjè,Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands beginTo hem his watery march, and dam his streams,And split his currents; that for many a leagueThe shorn and parcelled Oxus strains alongThrough beds of sand and matted rushy isles—Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he hadIn his high mountain cradle in PamereA foiled circuitous wanderer—till at lastThe longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wideHis luminous home of waters opens, brightAnd tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed starsEmerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.Arnold.CIXFLEE FRO' THE PRESSO born in days when wits were fresh and clearAnd life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;Before this strange disease of modern life,With its sick hurry, its divided aims,Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife—Fly hence, our contact fear!Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!Averse, as Dido did with gesture sternFrom her false friend's approach in Hades turn,Wave us away and keep thy solitude!Still nursing the unconquerable hope,Still clutching the inviolable shade,With a free, onward impulse brushing through,By night, the silvered branches of the glade—Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,On some mild pastoral slopeEmerge, and resting on the moonlit palesFreshen thy flowers as in former yearsWith dew, or listen with enchanted ears,From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!For strong the infection of our mental strife,Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;And we should win thee from thy own fair life,Like us distracted, and like us unblest.Soon, soon thy cheer would die,Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers,And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,Descried at sunrise an emerging prowLifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,The fringes of a southward-facing browAmong the Ægæan isles;And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine—And knew the intruders on his ancient home,The young light-hearted masters of the waves—And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;And day and night held on indignantlyO'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,To where the Atlantic ravesOutside the western straits; and unbent sailsThere, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;And on the beach undid his corded bales.Arnold.CXSCHOOL FENCIBLESWe come in arms, we stand ten score,Embattled on the castle green;We grasp our firelocks tight, for warIs threatening, and we see our Queen.And ‘Will the churls last out till weHave duly hardened bones and thewsFor scouring leagues of swamp and seaOf braggart mobs and corsair crews?’We ask; we fear not scoff or smileAt meek attire of blue and grey,For the proud wrath that thrills our isleGives faith and force to this array.So great a charm is England's right,That hearts enlarged together flow,And each man rises up a knightTo work the evil-thinkers woe.And, girt with ancient truth and grace,We do our service and our suit,And each can be, whate'er his race,A Chandos or a Montacute.Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day,Bless the real swords that we shall wield,Repeat the call we now obeyIn sunset lands, on some fair field.Thy flag shall make some Huron rockAs dear to us as Windsor's keep,And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mockThe surgings of th' Ontarian deep.The stately music of thy Guards,Which times our march beneath thy ken,Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards,From heart to heart, when we are men.And when we bleed on alien earth,We'll call to mind how cheers of oursProclaimed a loud uncourtly mirthAmongst thy glowing orange bowers.And if for England's sake we fall,So be it, so thy cross be won,Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall,And worn in death, for duty done.Ah! thus we fondle Death, the soldier's mate,Blending his image with the hopes of youthTo hallow all; meanwhile the hidden fateChills not our fancies with the iron truth.Death from afar we call, and Death is here,To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien;And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer,Breaks through the shield of love to pierce our Queen.Cory.CXITHE TWO CAPTAINSWhen George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago,He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.‘You're not afraid of shot,’ said he, ‘you're not afraid of wreck,So cruise about the west of France in the frigate calledQuebec.Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years agoKing George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know,To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec,As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can beat them now.Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name,And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same.’Then Farmer said, ‘I'll try, sir,’ and Farmer bowed so lowThat George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow.George gave him his commission, and that it might be safer,Signed ‘King of Britain, King of France,’ and sealed it with a wafer.Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his own,And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon the throne.He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten,And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score men.And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen brace of dogs,With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs.From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to Belleisle,She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on her keel.The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with melting tar,The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar;The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from out the Breton bay,And ‘Clear for action!’ Farmer shouts, and reefers yell ‘Hooray!’The Frenchman's captain had a name I wish I could pronounce;A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from bounce,One like those famous fellows who died by guillotineFor honour and the fleurs-de-lys and Antoinette the Queen.The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George,Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths could forge;And both were simple seamen, but both could understandHow each was bound to win or die for flag and native land.The French ship wasla Surveillante, which means the watchful maid;She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade.Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail.On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came like hail.Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside,And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried.A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing gun;We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the Frenchman won.Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all aglow;Men hung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth to go;Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not quit his chair.He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him bleeding there.The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen lowered boats,They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything that floats.They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their rivals aid.'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely made.La Surveillantewas like a sieve; the victors had no rest,They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of Brest,And where the waves leapt lower, and the riddled ship went slower,In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to tow her.They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead;And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head.Then spoke the French Lieutenant, ‘'Twas fire that won, not we.You never struck your flag to us; you'll go to England free.’'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred seventy-nine,A year when nations ventured against us to combine,Quebecwas burnt and Farmer slain, by us remembered not;But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mindThose seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind;Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest,And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.Cory.CXIITHE HEAD OF BRANWhen the head of BranWas firm on British shoulders,God made a man!Cried all beholders.Steel could not resistThe weight his arm would rattle;He with naked fistHas brained a knight in battle.He marched on the foe,And never counted numbers;Foreign widows knowThe hosts he sent to slumbers.As a street you scanThat's towered by the steeple,So the head of BranRose o'er his people.‘Death's my neighbour,’Quoth Bran the blest;‘Christian labourBrings Christian rest.From the trunk severThe head of Bran,That which neverHas bent to man!That which neverTo men has bowedShall live everTo shame the shroud:Shall live everTo face the foe;Sever it, sever,And with one blow.Be it written,That all I wroughtWas for Britain,In deed and thought:Be it written,That, while I die,“Glory to Britain!”Is my last cry.“Glory to Britain!”Death echoes me round.Glory to Britain!The world shall resound.Glory to Britain!In ruin and fall,Glory to Britain!Is heard over all.’Burn, Sun, down the sea!Bran lies low with thee.Burst, Morn, from the main!Bran so shall rise again.Blow, Wind, from the field!Bran's Head is the Briton's shield.Beam, Star, in the west!Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.Crimson-footed like the stork,From great ruts of slaughter,Warriors of the Golden TorqueCross the lifting water.Princes seven, enchaining hands,Bear the live Head homeward.Lo! it speaks, and still commands;Gazing far out foamward.Fiery words of lightning senseDown the hollows thunder;Forest hostels know not whenceComes the speech, and wonder.City-castles, on the steepWhere the faithful SevernHouse at midnight, hear in sleepLaughter under heaven.Lilies, swimming on the mere,In the castle shadow,Under draw their heads, and FearWalks the misty meadow;Tremble not, it is not DeathPledging dark espousal:'Tis the Head of endless breath,Challenging carousal!Brim the horn! a health is drunk,Now, that shall keep going:Life is but the pebble sunk,Deeds, the circle growing!Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran!While his lead they follow,Long shall heads in Britain planSpeech Death cannot swallow.George Meredith.CXIIITHE SLAYING OF THE NIBLUNGSHOGNIYe shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the houseWere many carven doorways whose work was gloriousWith marble stones and gold-work, and their doors of beaten brass:Lo now, in the merry morning how the story cometh to pass!—While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears,And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears,All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel,The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal:They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe,And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know:Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runsAll adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty ones;All eyes are set upon them, hard drawn is every breath,Ere the foremost points be mingled and death be blent with death.—All eyes save the eyes of Hogni; but e'en as the edges meet,He turneth about for a moment to the gold of the kingly seat,Then aback to the front of battle; there then, as the lightning-flashThrough the dark night showeth the city when the clouds of heaven clash,And the gazer shrinketh backward, yet he seeth from end to endThe street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend,And the pavement where his footsteps yester'en returning trod,Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God;So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know,Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted browWith half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and coldLaid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's moveless fold.Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from where he stood,And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe-man in a wood:Before his sword was a champion, and the edges clave to the chin,And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that should fall therein.Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung host of warWas swept by the leaping iron, as the rock anigh the shoreBy the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment Gunnar stayedAs high in his hand unblooded he shook his awful blade;And he cried: ‘O Eastland champions, do ye behold it here,The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have no fear,But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's will it be!Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden guests are we:So forbear, if ye wander hood-winked, nor for nothing slay and be slain;For I know not what to tell you of the dead that live again.’So he saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on high,But all about and around him goes up a bitter cryFrom the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steelSends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reelBehind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo! have ye seen the corn,While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind-streak overborneWhen the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black,And the smitten wood-side roareth 'neath the driving thunder-wrack?So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East,As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast.There he smote, and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his edges stopped;He smote, and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he lopped;There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred;Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the dead;And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a throat he thrust,But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the ruddy dust,And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet:Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell,Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell,And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew,And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite,And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight,And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes,And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.GUNNARNow fell the sword of Gunnar, and rose up red in the air,And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and clear,And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the ringsOf a Giant of King Atli and a murder-wolf of kings;But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his breast,And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest,But fell upon Atli's brother, and stayed not in his brain;Then he fell, and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain,And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe, and thrust a lord in the throat,And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote;Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their war-shields draveWhile the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he claveWhom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold;And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar, and over his war-shield rolled,And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on,And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won,And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst,As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed,And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung songThrough the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong:Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood,And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet with blood.Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home,As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam:They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the wall,And a few last spears from the fleeing amidst their shield-hedge fall:But the doors clash to in their faces, as the fleeing rout they drive,And fain would follow after; and none is left aliveIn the feast-hall of King Atli, save those fishes of the net,And the white and silent woman above the slaughter set.Then biddeth the heart-wise Hogni, and men to the windows climb,And uplift the war-grey corpses, dead drift of the stormy time,And cast them adown to their people: thence they come aback and sayThat scarce shall ye see the houses, and no whit the wheel-worn wayFor the spears and shields of the Eastlands that the merchant city throng;And back to the Niblung burg-gate the way seemed weary-long.Yet passeth hour on hour, and the doors they watch and wardBut a long while hear no mail-clash, nor the ringing of the sword;Then droop the Niblung children, and their wounds are waxen chill,And they think of the burg by the river, and the builded holy hill,And their eyes are set on Gudrun as of men who would beseech;But unlearned are they in craving, and know not dastard's speech.Then doth Giuki's first-begotten a deed most fair to be told,For his fair harp Gunnar taketh, and the warp of silver and gold;With the hand of a cunning harper he dealeth with the strings,And his voice in their midst goeth upward, as of ancient days he sings,Of the days before the Niblungs, and the days that shall be yet;Till the hour of toil and smiting the warrior hearts forget,Nor hear the gathering foemen, nor the sound of swords aloof:Then clear the song of Gunnar goes up to the dusky roof,And the coming spear-host tarries, and the bearers of the woeThrough the cloisters of King Atli with lingering footsteps go.But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees,And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees:Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo! the open door,And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor,For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe,And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.GUDRUNStill the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid;But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid,And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall,And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall;For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes,And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise,And he saith: ‘We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days,And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.’Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth abackThat the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack:Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat,And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet,That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithalHe casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall:But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to fight,Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite:Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side;As death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he stride.And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of menFrom the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again.Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold;But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they beholdUpright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more,Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war,And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat,And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the harp-strings ran,And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of man,And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning,And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring;He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding of broil.And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is fashioned of toil:Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise,When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead shall arise,And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall pray,And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost day.So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he sawHis sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw:But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was,And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass,Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown,And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.THE SONS OF GIUKINow the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose,And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes:They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of dead;No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led,But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from afar,Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war:Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen acold,And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold:Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King,Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring;And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded sore,And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore,So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall;And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves accurst,But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and thirst;And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood,Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they stood,And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote,Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat,Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields asideAnd caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside,And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death:And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath;Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born,Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn;But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forthTo the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last:Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast,And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away,For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay,Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-boreThe cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war;But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown,So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown;And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes:Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close,Nor looked on the foeman's faces as their wild eyes drew anear,And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their fear;But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk,Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal,Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel,And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly nowAs the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough,When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land.There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand,There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes,And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise,And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of war.Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar,And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran:But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man,And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the seaThe doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery,And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps,And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps:So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hallDid the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall:Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lieTill the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.William Morris.
Through the black, rushing smoke-burstsThick breaks the red flame;All Etna heaves fiercelyHer forest-clothed frame.
Not here, O Apollo!Are haunts meet for thee.But, where Helicon breaks downIn cliff to the sea,
Where the moon-silvered inletsSend far their light voiceUp the still vale of Thisbe,O speed, and rejoice!
On the sward at the cliff-topLie strewn the white flocks.On the cliff-side the pigeonsRoost deep in the rocks.
In the moonlight the shepherds,Soft lulled by the rills,Lie wrapt in their blanketsAsleep on the hills.
—What forms are these comingSo white through the gloom?What garments out-glisteningThe gold-flowered broom?
What sweet-breathing presenceOut-perfumes the thyme?What voices enraptureThe night's balmy prime?—
'Tis Apollo comes leadingHis choir, the Nine.—The leader is fairest,But all are divine.
They are lost in the hollows!They stream up again!What seeks on this mountainThe glorified train?—
They bathe on this mountain,In the spring by the road;Then on to Olympus,Their endless abode.
—Whose praise do they mention?Of what is it told?—What will be for ever;What was from of old.
First hymn they the FatherOf all things; and then,The rest of immortals,The action of men.
The day in his hotness,The strife with the palm;The night in her silence,The stars in their calm.
Arnold.
He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts,And he too drew his sword; at once they rushedTogether, as two eagles on one preyCome rushing down together from the clouds,One from the east, one from the west; their shieldsDashed with a clang together, and a dinRose, such as that the sinewy woodcuttersMake often in the forest's heart at morn,Of hewing axes, crashing trees—such blowsRustum and Sohrab on each other hailed.And you would say that sun and stars took partIn that unnatural conflict; for a cloudGrew suddenly in Heaven, and darkened the sunOver the fighters' heads; and a wind roseUnder their feet, and moaning swept the plain,And in a sandy whirlwind wrapped the pair.In gloom they twain were wrapped, and they alone;For both the on-looking hosts on either handStood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure,And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream.But in the gloom they fought, with bloodshot eyesAnd labouring breath; first Rustum struck the shieldWhich Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spearRent the tough plates, but failed to reach the skin,And Rustum plucked it back with angry groan.Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm,Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crestHe shore away, and that proud horsehair plume,Never till now defiled, sank to the dust;And Rustum bowed his head; but then the gloomGrew blacker, thunder rumbled in the air,And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse,Who stood at hand, uttered a dreadful cry;—No horse's cry was that, most like the roarOf some pained desert-lion, who all dayHath trailed the hunter's javelin in his side,And comes at night to die upon the sand.The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear,And Oxus curdled as it crossed his stream.But Sohrab heard, and quailed not, but rushed on,And struck again; and again Rustum bowedHis head; but this time all the blade, like glass,Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm,And in the hand the hilt remained alone.Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyesGlared, and he shook on high his menacing spear,And shouted:Rustum!—Sohrab heard that shout,And shrank amazed; back he recoiled one step,And scanned with blinking eyes the advancing form;And then he stood bewildered; and he droppedHis covering shield, and the spear pierced his side.He reeled, and staggering back, sank to the ground;And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell,And the bright sun broke forth, and melted allThe cloud; and the two armies saw the pair—Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet,And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand.
Then with a bitter smile, Rustum began:—‘Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to killA Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse,And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent.Or else that the great Rustum would come downHimself to fight, and that thy wiles would moveHis heart to take a gift, and let thee go.And then that all the Tartar host would praiseThy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame,To glad thy father in his weak old age.Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man!Dearer to the red jackels shalt thou beThan to thy friends, and to thy father old,’And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied:—‘Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain.Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man!No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart.For were I matched with ten such men as thee,And I were that which till to-day I was,They should be lying here, I standing there.But that beloved name unnerved my arm—That name, and something, I confess, in thee,Which troubles all my heart, and made my shieldFall; and thy spear transfix an unarmed foe.And now thou boastest, and insultest my fate.But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear:The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death!My father, whom I seek through all the world,He shall avenge my death, and punish thee!’As when some hunter in the spring hath foundA breeding eagle sitting on her nest,Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake,And pierced her with an arrow as she rose,And followed her to find her where she fellFar off;—anon her mate comes winging backFrom hunting, and a great way off decriesHis huddling young left-sole; at that he checksHis pinion, and with short uneasy sweepsCircles above his eyry, with loud screamsChiding his mate back to her nest; but sheLies dying, with the arrow in her side,In some far stony gorge out of his ken,A heap of fluttering feathers—never moreShall the lake glass her, flying over it;Never the black and dripping precipicesEcho her stormy scream as she sails by—As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss,So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stoodOver his dying son, and knew him not.But, with a cold, incredulous voice he said:‘What prate is this of fathers and revenge?The mighty Rustum never had a son.’And with a failing voice Sohrab replied:‘Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I,Surely the news will one day reach his ear,Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long,Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here;And pierce him like a stab, and make him leapTo arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee.Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son!What will that grief, what will that vengeance be?O could I live, till I that grief had seen!Yet him I pity not so much, but her,My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwellsWith that old king, her father, who grows greyWith age, and rules over the valiant Koords.Her most I pity, who no more will seeSohrab returning from the Tartar camp,With spoils and honour, when the war is done.But a dark rumour will be bruited up,From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear;And then will that defenceless woman learnThat Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more,But that in battle with a nameless foe,By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain.’
He spoke, and as he ceased he wept aloud,Thinking of her he left, and his own death.He spoke; but Rustum listened plunged in thought.Nor did he yet believe it was his sonWho spoke, although he called back names he knew;For he had had sure tidings that the babe,Which was in Ader-baijan born to him,Had been a puny girl, no boy at all—So that sad mother sent him word, for fearRustum should seek the boy, to train in arms.And as he deemed that either Sohrab took,By a false boast, the style of Rustum's son;Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame.So deemed he; yet he listened plunged in thought;And his soul set to grief, as the vast tideOf the bright rocking Ocean sets to shoreAt the full moon; tears gathered in his eyes;For he remembered his own early youth,And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn,The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descriesA far, bright city, smitten by the sun,Through many rolling clouds—so Rustum sawHis youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom;And that old king, her father, who loved wellHis wandering guest, and gave him his fair childWith joy; and all the pleasant life they led,They three, in that long-distant summer-time—The castle, and the dewy woods, and huntAnd hound, and morn on those delightful hillsIn Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth,Of age and looks to be his own dear son,Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand,Like some rich hyacinth which by the scytheOf an unskilful gardener has been cut,Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed,And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom,On the mown, dying grass—so Sohrab lay,Lovely in death, upon the common sand.And Rustum gazed on him in grief, and said:‘O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a sonWhom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved:Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else menHave told thee false—thou art not Rustum's son.For Rustum had no son; one child he had—But one—a girl; who with her mother nowPlies some light female task, nor dreams of us—Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war.’But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for nowThe anguish of the deep-fixed spear grew fierce,And he desirèd to draw forth the steel,And let the blood flow free, and so to die—But first he would convince his stubborn foe;And, rising sternly on one arm, he said:‘Man, who art thou who dost deny my words?Truth sits upon the lips of dying men,And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine.I tell thee, pricked upon this arm I bearThat seal which Rustum to my mother gave,That she might prick it on the babe she bore.’He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks,And his knees tottered, and he smote his handAgainst his breast, his heavy mailèd hand,That the hard iron corselet clanked aloud;And to his heart he pressed the other hand,And in a hollow voice he spake and said:‘Sohrab, that were a proof that could not lie!If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son.’Then with weak hasty fingers Sohrab loosedHis belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm,And showed a sign in faint vermilion pointsPricked; as a cunning workman, in Pekin,Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain vase,An emperor's gift—at early morn he paints,And all day long, and, when night comes, the lampLights up his studious forehead and thin hands—So delicately pricked the sign appearedOn Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal.It was that griffin, which of old reared Zal,Rustum's great father, whom they left to die,A helpless babe, among the mountain rocks;Him that kind creature found, and reared, and loved—Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign.And Sohrab bared that image on his arm,And himself scanned it long with mournful eyes,And then he touched it with his hand and said:—‘How sayest thou? Is that sign the proper signOf Rustum's son, or of some other man's?’
He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stoodSpeechless; and then he uttered one sharp cry:O boy—thy father!—and his voice choked there.And then a dark cloud passed before his eyes,And his head swam, and he sank down to earth.But Sohrab crawled to where he lay, and castHis arms about his neck, and kissed his lips,And with fond faltering fingers stroked his cheeks,Trying to call him back to life; and lifeCame back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes,And they stood wide with horror; and he seizedIn both his hands the dust which lay around,And threw it on his head, and smirched his hair,—His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms;And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast,And his sobs choked him; and he clutched his sword,To draw it, and for ever let life out.But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands,And with a soothing voice he spake, and said:‘Father, forbear! for I but meet to-dayThe doom which at my birth was written downIn Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand.Surely my heart cried out that it was thou,When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too,I know it! but fate trod these promptings downUnder its iron heel; fate, fate engagedThe strife, and hurled me on my father's spear.But let us speak no more of this! I findMy father; let me feel that I have found!Come, sit beside me on this sand, and takeMy head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks,And wash them with thy tears, and say:My son!Quick! quick! for numbered are my sands of life,And swift; for like the lightning to this fieldI came, and like the wind I go away—Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind.But it was writ in Heaven that this should be.’So said he, and his voice released the heartOf Rustum and his tears broke forth; he castHis arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud,And kissed him. And awe fell on both the hosts,When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh the horse,With his head bowing to the ground and maneSweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woeFirst to the one, then to the other movedHis head, as if inquiring what their griefMight mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes,The big warm tears rolled down, and caked the sand.But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said:—‘Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy feetShould first have rotted on their nimble joints,Or ere they brought thy master to this field!’But Sohrab looked upon the horse and said:‘Is this, then, Ruksh? How often in past days,My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed,My terrible father's terrible horse! and said,That I should one day find thy lord and thee.Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane!O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;For thou hast gone where I shall never go,And snuffed the breezes of my father's home.And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan,And seen the river of Helmund, and the LakeOf Zirrah; and the aged Zal himselfHas often stroked thy neck, and given thee food,Corn in a golden platter soaked with wine,And said:O Ruksh! bear Rustum well!—but IHave never known my grandsire's furrowed face,Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan,Nor slaked my thirst at the clear Helmund stream;But lodged among my father's foes, and seenAfrasiab's cities only, Samarcand,Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,And the black Toorkman tents; and only drunkThe desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend,Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream,The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.’
Then with a heavy groan, Rustum bewailed:‘O that its waves were flowing over me!O that I saw its grains of yellow siltRoll tumbling in the current o'er my head!’But with a grave mild voice, Sohrab replied:—‘Desire not that, my father! thou must live.For some are born to do great deeds, and live,As some are born to be obscured, and die.Do thou the deeds I die too young to do,And reap a second glory in thine age;Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine.But come! thou seest this great host of menWhich follow me; I pray thee, slay not these!Let me entreat for them; what have they done?They followed me, my hope, my fame, my star.Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace.But me thou must bear hence, not send with them,But carry me with thee to Seistan,And place me on a bed, and mourn for me,Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends.And thou must lay me in that lovely earth,And heap a stately mound above my bones,And plant a far-seen pillar over all.That so the passing horseman on the wasteMay see my tomb a great way off, and cry;Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies here,Whom his great father did in ignorance kill!And I be not forgotten in my grave.’And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied:‘Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son,So shall it be; for I will burn my tents,And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me,And carry thee away to Seistan,And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee,With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends.And I will lay thee in that lovely earth,And heap a stately mound above thy bones,And plant a far-seen pillar over all,And men shall not forget thee in thy grave.And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go!Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace!What should I do with slaying any more?For would that all whom I have ever slainMight be once more alive—my bitterest foes,And they who were called champions in their time,And through whose death I won that fame I have—And I were nothing but a common man,A poor, mean soldier, and without renown,So thou mightest live too, my son, my son!Or rather would that I, even I myself,Might now be lying on this bloody sand,Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine,Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou;And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan;And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine;And say:O Son, I weep thee not too sore,For willingly, I know, thou met'st thine end!But now in blood and battles was my youth,And full of blood and battles is my age,And I shall never end this life of blood.’Then at the point of death, Sohrab replied:‘A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man!But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now,Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day,When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship,Thou and the other peers of Kai KhosrooReturning home over the salt blue sea,From laying thy dear master in his grave.’
And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said:‘Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea!Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure.’He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and tookThe spear, and drew it from his side, and easedHis wound's imperious anguish; but the bloodCame welling from the open gash, and lifeFlowed with the stream;—all down his cold white sideThe crimson torrent ran, dim now and soiled,Like the soiled tissue of white violetsLeft, freshly gathered, on their native bank,By children whom their nurses call with hasteIndoors from the sun's eye; his head dropped low,His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay—White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps,Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame,Convulsed him back to life, he opened them,And fixed them feebly on his father's face;Till now all strength was ebbed, and from his limbsUnwillingly the spirit fled away,Regretting the warm mansion which it left,And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world.So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead;And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloakDown o'er his face, and sate by his dead son.As those black granite pillars once high-rearedBy Jemshid in Persepolis, to bearHis house, now 'mid their broken flights of stepsLie prone, enormous, down the mountain side,So in the sand lay Rustum by his son.And night came down over the solemn waste,And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair,And darkened all; and a cold fog, with night,Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose,As of a great assembly loosed, and firesBegan to twinkle through the fog; for nowBoth armies moved to camp, and took their meal;The Persians took it on the open sandsSouthward, the Tartars by the river marge;And Rustum and his son were left alone.But the majestic river floated on,Out of the mist and hum of that low land,Into the frosty starlight, and there moved,Rejoicing, through the hushed Chorasmian waste,Under the solitary moon;—he flowedRight for the polar star, past Orgunjè,Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands beginTo hem his watery march, and dam his streams,And split his currents; that for many a leagueThe shorn and parcelled Oxus strains alongThrough beds of sand and matted rushy isles—Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he hadIn his high mountain cradle in PamereA foiled circuitous wanderer—till at lastThe longed-for dash of waves is heard, and wideHis luminous home of waters opens, brightAnd tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed starsEmerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea.
Arnold.
O born in days when wits were fresh and clearAnd life ran gaily as the sparkling Thames;Before this strange disease of modern life,With its sick hurry, its divided aims,Its heads o'ertaxed, its palsied hearts, was rife—Fly hence, our contact fear!Still fly, plunge deeper in the bowering wood!Averse, as Dido did with gesture sternFrom her false friend's approach in Hades turn,Wave us away and keep thy solitude!
Still nursing the unconquerable hope,Still clutching the inviolable shade,With a free, onward impulse brushing through,By night, the silvered branches of the glade—Far on the forest-skirts, where none pursue,On some mild pastoral slopeEmerge, and resting on the moonlit palesFreshen thy flowers as in former yearsWith dew, or listen with enchanted ears,From the dark dingles, to the nightingales!
But fly our paths, our feverish contact fly!For strong the infection of our mental strife,Which, though it gives no bliss, yet spoils for rest;And we should win thee from thy own fair life,Like us distracted, and like us unblest.Soon, soon thy cheer would die,Thy hopes grow timorous, and unfixed thy powers,And thy clear aims be cross and shifting made;And then thy glad perennial youth would fade,Fade, and grow old at last, and die like ours.
Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,Descried at sunrise an emerging prowLifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,The fringes of a southward-facing browAmong the Ægæan isles;And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,Green, bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine—And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
The young light-hearted masters of the waves—And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;And day and night held on indignantlyO'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily,To where the Atlantic ravesOutside the western straits; and unbent sailsThere, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;And on the beach undid his corded bales.
Arnold.
We come in arms, we stand ten score,Embattled on the castle green;We grasp our firelocks tight, for warIs threatening, and we see our Queen.And ‘Will the churls last out till weHave duly hardened bones and thewsFor scouring leagues of swamp and seaOf braggart mobs and corsair crews?’We ask; we fear not scoff or smileAt meek attire of blue and grey,For the proud wrath that thrills our isleGives faith and force to this array.So great a charm is England's right,That hearts enlarged together flow,And each man rises up a knightTo work the evil-thinkers woe.And, girt with ancient truth and grace,We do our service and our suit,And each can be, whate'er his race,A Chandos or a Montacute.Thou, Mistress, whom we serve to-day,Bless the real swords that we shall wield,Repeat the call we now obeyIn sunset lands, on some fair field.Thy flag shall make some Huron rockAs dear to us as Windsor's keep,And arms thy Thames hath nerved shall mockThe surgings of th' Ontarian deep.The stately music of thy Guards,Which times our march beneath thy ken,Shall sound, with spells of sacred bards,From heart to heart, when we are men.And when we bleed on alien earth,We'll call to mind how cheers of oursProclaimed a loud uncourtly mirthAmongst thy glowing orange bowers.And if for England's sake we fall,So be it, so thy cross be won,Fixed by kind hands on silvered pall,And worn in death, for duty done.Ah! thus we fondle Death, the soldier's mate,Blending his image with the hopes of youthTo hallow all; meanwhile the hidden fateChills not our fancies with the iron truth.Death from afar we call, and Death is here,To choose out him who wears the loftiest mien;And Grief, the cruel lord who knows no peer,Breaks through the shield of love to pierce our Queen.
Cory.
When George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago,He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe.‘You're not afraid of shot,’ said he, ‘you're not afraid of wreck,So cruise about the west of France in the frigate calledQuebec.
Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years agoKing George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know,To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec,As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.
If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can beat them now.Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow.But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name,And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same.’
Then Farmer said, ‘I'll try, sir,’ and Farmer bowed so lowThat George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow.George gave him his commission, and that it might be safer,Signed ‘King of Britain, King of France,’ and sealed it with a wafer.
Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his own,And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon the throne.He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten,And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score men.
And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen brace of dogs,With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs.From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to Belleisle,She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on her keel.
The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with melting tar,The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar;The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from out the Breton bay,And ‘Clear for action!’ Farmer shouts, and reefers yell ‘Hooray!’
The Frenchman's captain had a name I wish I could pronounce;A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from bounce,One like those famous fellows who died by guillotineFor honour and the fleurs-de-lys and Antoinette the Queen.
The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George,Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths could forge;And both were simple seamen, but both could understandHow each was bound to win or die for flag and native land.
The French ship wasla Surveillante, which means the watchful maid;She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade.Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail.On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came like hail.
Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside,And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried.A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing gun;We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the Frenchman won.
Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all aglow;Men hung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth to go;Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not quit his chair.He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him bleeding there.
The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen lowered boats,They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything that floats.They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their rivals aid.'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely made.
La Surveillantewas like a sieve; the victors had no rest,They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of Brest,And where the waves leapt lower, and the riddled ship went slower,In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to tow her.
They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead;And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head.Then spoke the French Lieutenant, ‘'Twas fire that won, not we.You never struck your flag to us; you'll go to England free.’
'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred seventy-nine,A year when nations ventured against us to combine,Quebecwas burnt and Farmer slain, by us remembered not;But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.
Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mindThose seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind;Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest,And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.
Cory.
When the head of BranWas firm on British shoulders,God made a man!Cried all beholders.
Steel could not resistThe weight his arm would rattle;He with naked fistHas brained a knight in battle.
He marched on the foe,And never counted numbers;Foreign widows knowThe hosts he sent to slumbers.
As a street you scanThat's towered by the steeple,So the head of BranRose o'er his people.
‘Death's my neighbour,’Quoth Bran the blest;‘Christian labourBrings Christian rest.From the trunk severThe head of Bran,That which neverHas bent to man!
That which neverTo men has bowedShall live everTo shame the shroud:Shall live everTo face the foe;Sever it, sever,And with one blow.
Be it written,That all I wroughtWas for Britain,In deed and thought:Be it written,That, while I die,“Glory to Britain!”Is my last cry.
“Glory to Britain!”Death echoes me round.Glory to Britain!The world shall resound.Glory to Britain!In ruin and fall,Glory to Britain!Is heard over all.’
Burn, Sun, down the sea!Bran lies low with thee.
Burst, Morn, from the main!Bran so shall rise again.
Blow, Wind, from the field!Bran's Head is the Briton's shield.
Beam, Star, in the west!Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.
Crimson-footed like the stork,From great ruts of slaughter,Warriors of the Golden TorqueCross the lifting water.Princes seven, enchaining hands,Bear the live Head homeward.Lo! it speaks, and still commands;Gazing far out foamward.
Fiery words of lightning senseDown the hollows thunder;Forest hostels know not whenceComes the speech, and wonder.City-castles, on the steepWhere the faithful SevernHouse at midnight, hear in sleepLaughter under heaven.
Lilies, swimming on the mere,In the castle shadow,Under draw their heads, and FearWalks the misty meadow;Tremble not, it is not DeathPledging dark espousal:'Tis the Head of endless breath,Challenging carousal!
Brim the horn! a health is drunk,Now, that shall keep going:Life is but the pebble sunk,Deeds, the circle growing!Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran!While his lead they follow,Long shall heads in Britain planSpeech Death cannot swallow.
George Meredith.
Ye shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the houseWere many carven doorways whose work was gloriousWith marble stones and gold-work, and their doors of beaten brass:Lo now, in the merry morning how the story cometh to pass!—While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears,And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears,All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel,The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal:They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe,And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know:Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runsAll adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty ones;All eyes are set upon them, hard drawn is every breath,Ere the foremost points be mingled and death be blent with death.—All eyes save the eyes of Hogni; but e'en as the edges meet,He turneth about for a moment to the gold of the kingly seat,Then aback to the front of battle; there then, as the lightning-flashThrough the dark night showeth the city when the clouds of heaven clash,And the gazer shrinketh backward, yet he seeth from end to endThe street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend,And the pavement where his footsteps yester'en returning trod,Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God;So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know,Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted browWith half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and coldLaid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's moveless fold.
Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from where he stood,And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe-man in a wood:Before his sword was a champion, and the edges clave to the chin,And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that should fall therein.Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung host of warWas swept by the leaping iron, as the rock anigh the shoreBy the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment Gunnar stayedAs high in his hand unblooded he shook his awful blade;And he cried: ‘O Eastland champions, do ye behold it here,The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have no fear,But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's will it be!Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden guests are we:So forbear, if ye wander hood-winked, nor for nothing slay and be slain;For I know not what to tell you of the dead that live again.’
So he saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on high,But all about and around him goes up a bitter cryFrom the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steelSends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reelBehind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo! have ye seen the corn,While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind-streak overborneWhen the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black,And the smitten wood-side roareth 'neath the driving thunder-wrack?So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East,As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast.There he smote, and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his edges stopped;He smote, and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he lopped;There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred;Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the dead;And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a throat he thrust,But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the ruddy dust,And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet:Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell,Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell,And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew,And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite,And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight,And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes,And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.
Now fell the sword of Gunnar, and rose up red in the air,And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and clear,And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the ringsOf a Giant of King Atli and a murder-wolf of kings;But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his breast,And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest,But fell upon Atli's brother, and stayed not in his brain;Then he fell, and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain,And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe, and thrust a lord in the throat,And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote;Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their war-shields draveWhile the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he claveWhom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold;And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar, and over his war-shield rolled,And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on,And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won,And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst,As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed,And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung songThrough the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong:Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood,And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet with blood.
Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home,As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam:They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the wall,And a few last spears from the fleeing amidst their shield-hedge fall:But the doors clash to in their faces, as the fleeing rout they drive,And fain would follow after; and none is left aliveIn the feast-hall of King Atli, save those fishes of the net,And the white and silent woman above the slaughter set.
Then biddeth the heart-wise Hogni, and men to the windows climb,And uplift the war-grey corpses, dead drift of the stormy time,And cast them adown to their people: thence they come aback and sayThat scarce shall ye see the houses, and no whit the wheel-worn wayFor the spears and shields of the Eastlands that the merchant city throng;And back to the Niblung burg-gate the way seemed weary-long.
Yet passeth hour on hour, and the doors they watch and wardBut a long while hear no mail-clash, nor the ringing of the sword;Then droop the Niblung children, and their wounds are waxen chill,And they think of the burg by the river, and the builded holy hill,And their eyes are set on Gudrun as of men who would beseech;But unlearned are they in craving, and know not dastard's speech.Then doth Giuki's first-begotten a deed most fair to be told,For his fair harp Gunnar taketh, and the warp of silver and gold;With the hand of a cunning harper he dealeth with the strings,And his voice in their midst goeth upward, as of ancient days he sings,Of the days before the Niblungs, and the days that shall be yet;Till the hour of toil and smiting the warrior hearts forget,Nor hear the gathering foemen, nor the sound of swords aloof:Then clear the song of Gunnar goes up to the dusky roof,And the coming spear-host tarries, and the bearers of the woeThrough the cloisters of King Atli with lingering footsteps go.
But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees,And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees:Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo! the open door,And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor,For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe,And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.
Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid;But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid,And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall,And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall;For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes,And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise,And he saith: ‘We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days,And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.’
Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth abackThat the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack:Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat,And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet,That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithalHe casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall:But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to fight,Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite:Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side;As death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he stride.And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of menFrom the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again.Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold;But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they beholdUpright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more,Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war,And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.
Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat,And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the harp-strings ran,And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of man,And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning,And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring;He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding of broil.And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is fashioned of toil:Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise,When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead shall arise,And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall pray,And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost day.So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he sawHis sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw:But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was,And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass,Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown,And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.
Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose,And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes:They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of dead;No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led,But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from afar,Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war:Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen acold,And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold:Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King,Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring;And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded sore,And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore,So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall;And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.
Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves accurst,But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and thirst;And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood,Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they stood,And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote,Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat,Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields asideAnd caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside,And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death:And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath;Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born,Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn;But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forthTo the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.
Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last:Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast,And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away,For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay,Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-boreThe cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war;But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown,So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown;And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes:Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close,Nor looked on the foeman's faces as their wild eyes drew anear,And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their fear;But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk,Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.
Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal,Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel,And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly nowAs the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough,When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land.There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand,There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes,And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise,And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of war.Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar,And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran:But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man,And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the seaThe doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery,And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps,And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps:So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hallDid the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall:Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lieTill the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.
William Morris.