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

[Wolfkettle.]
“White horse, with what are ye laden as ye wade the shallows warm,
But with tidings of the battle, and the fear of the fateful storm?
What loureth now behind us, what pileth clouds before,
On either hand what gathereth save the stormy tide of war?
Now grows midsummer mirky, and fallow falls the morn,
And dusketh the Moon's Sister, and the trees look overworn;
God's Ash-tree shakes and shivers, and the sheer cliff standeth white
As the bones of the giants' father when the Gods first fared to fight.”

[“O sun, pale up in heaven, shrink from us if thou wilt]

[Wolfkettle.]
“O sun, pale up in heaven, shrink from us if thou wilt,
And turn thy face from beholding the shock of guilt with guilt!
Stand still, O blood of summer! and let the harvest fade,

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Till there be nought but fallow where once was bloom and blade!
O day, give out but a glimmer of all thy flood of light,
If it be but enough for our eyen to see the road of fight!
Forget all else and slumber, if still ye let us wake,
And our mouths shall make the thunder, and our swords shall the lightening make,
And we shall be the storm-wind and drive the ruddy rain,
Till the joy of our hearts in battle bring back the day again.”

[“What do ye sons of the War-shield? what tale is there to tell?]

[Thiodolf.]
“What do ye sons of the War-shield? what tale is there to tell?
Is the Kindred fallen tangled in the grasp of the fallow Hell?
Crows the red cock over the homesteads, have we met the foe too late?
For meseems your brows are heavy with the shadowing o'er of fate.”

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[“Still cold with dewin the morning the Shielding Roof-ridge stands]

[Geirbald.]

“Still cold with dewin the morning the Shielding Roof-ridge stands,
Nor yet hath grey Hell bounden the Shielding warriors' hands;
But lo, the swords, O War-duke, how thick in the wind they shake,
Because we bear the message that the battle-road ye take,
Nor tarry for the thunder or the coming on of rain,
Or the windy cloudy night-tide, lest your battle be but vain.
And this is the word that Otter yestre'en hath set in my mouth;
Seek thou the trail of the Aliens of the Cities of the South,
And thou shalt find it leading o'er the heaths to the beechen-wood,
And thence to the stony places where the foxes find their food;
And thence to the tangled thicket where the folkway cleaves it through,
To the eastern edge of Mid-mark where the Bearings deal and do.”

Then said Thiodolf in a cold voice, “What then hath befallen Otter?” Said Geirbald:

“When last I looked upon Otter, all armed he rode the plain,
With his whole host clattering round him like the rush of the summer rain;
To the right or the left they looked not but they rode through the dusk and the dark,
Beholding nought before them but the dream of the foes in the Mark.
So he went; but his word fled from him and on my horse it rode,
And again it saith, O War-duke, seek thou the Bear's abode,
And tarry never a moment for ought that seems of worth,
For there shall ye find the sword-edge and the flame of the foes of the earth.

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[“O sons of Tyr, ye have vanquished, and sore hath been your pain]

[Thiodolf.]
“O sons of Tyr, ye have vanquished, and sore hath been your pain;
But he that smiteth in battle must ever smite again;
And thus with you it fareth, and the day abideth yet
When ye shall hold the Aliens as the fishes in the net.
On the Ridge ye slew a many; but there came a many more
From their strongholds by the water to their new-built garth of war,
And all these have been led by dastards o'er the way our feet must tread
Through the eastern heaths and the beechwood to the door of the Bearing stead,
Now e'en yesterday I deemed it, but I durst not haste away
Ere the word was borne to Otter and 'tis he bids haste to-day;
So now by day and by night-tide it behoveth us to wend
And wind the reel of battle and weave its web to end.
Had ye deemed my eyes foreseeing, I would tell you of my sight,
How I see the folk delivered and the Aliens turned to flight,
While my own feet wend them onwards to the ancient Fathers' Home.
But belike these are but the visions that to many a man shall come
When he goeth adown to the battle, and before him riseth high
The walls of valiant foemen to hide all things anigh.
But indeed I know full surely that no work that we may win
To-morrow or the next day shall quench the Markmen's kin.
On many a day hereafter shall their warriors carry shield;
On many a day their maidens shall drive the kine afield,

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On many a day their reapers bear sickle in the wheat
When the golden wind-wrought ripple stirs round the feast-hall's feet.
Lo, now is the day's work easy—to live and overcome,
Or to die and yet to conquer on the threshold of the Home.”