The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

This one more picture gives the ancient book
On which I pray you for a while to look,
If for your tears ye may. For it doth tell
That on a day she sat at Holyfell
Within the bower, another Bodli there
Beside her, son of him who wrought her care;
A travelled man and mighty, gay of weed,
Doer belike of many a desperate deed
Within the huge wall of the Grecian king.
A summer eve it was, and everything
Was calm and fair, the tinkling bells did sound
From the fair chapel on the higher ground
Of the holy hill, the murmur of the sea
Came on the fitful south-west soothingly;
The house-carles sang as homeward now they went
From out the home-field, and the hay's sweet scent
Floated around: and when the sun had died
An hour agone now, Bodli stirred and sighed;
Perchance too clearly felt he life slip by
Amid those pensive things, and certainly
He too was past his youth.

“Mother,” he said,

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“Awhile agone it came into my head
To ask thee somewhat; thou hast loved me well,
And this perchance is no great thing to tell
To one who loves thee.”

With her sightless eyes
Turned on him did she smile in loving wise,
But answered nought; then he went on, and said:
“Which of the men thou knewest—who are dead
Long ago, mother,—didst thou love the best?”

Then her thin hands each upon each she pressed,
And her face quivered, as some memory
Were hard upon her:

“Ah, son! years go by.
When we are young this year we call the worst
That we can know; this bitter day is cursed,
No more such days our hearts can bear, we say.
But yet as time from us falls fast away
There comes a day, son, when all this is fair
And sweet, to what, still living, we must bear—
Bettered is bale by bale that follows it,
The saw saith.”

Silent both awhile did sit
Until she spake again: “Easy to tell
About them, son, my memory serves me well:
A great chief Thorkel was, bounteous and wise,
And ill hap seemed his death in all men's eyes.
Bodli thy sire was mighty of his hands,
Scarce better dwelt in all the northern lands;
Thou wouldst have loved him well. My husband Thord
Was a great man; wise at the council-board,
Well learned in law—for Thorwald, he indeed,
A rash weak heart, like to a stinging weed
Must be pulled up—ah, that was long ago!”

Then Bodli smiled: “Thou wouldst not have me know
Thy thought, O mother—these things know I well,
Old folk about these men e'en such tales tell.”