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

BOW-MAY SINGETH:
Hear ye never a voice come crying
Out from the waste where the winds fare wide?
“Sons of the Wolf, the days are dying,
And where in the clefts of the rocks do ye hide?

“Into your hands hath the Sword been given,
Hard are the palms with the kiss of the hilt;
Through the trackless waste hath the road been riven
For the blade to seek to the heart of the guilt.

“And yet ye bide and yet ye tarry;
Dear deem ye the sleep 'twixt hearth and board,
And sweet the maiden mouths ye marry,
And bright the blade of the bloodless sword.”

WOOD-WISE SINGETH:
Yea, here we dwell in the arms of our Mother
The Shadowy Queen, and the hope of the Waste;
Here first we came, when never another
Adown the rocky stair made haste.

Far is the foe, and no sword beholdeth
What deed we work and whither we wend;
Dear are the days, and the Year enfoldeth
The love of our life from end to end.

Voice of our Fathers, why will ye move us,
And call up the sun our swords to behold?
Why will ye cry on the foeman to prove us?
Why will ye stir up the heart of the bold?

BOW-MAY SINGETH:
Purblind am I, the voice of the chiding;
Then tell me what is the thing ye bear?
What is the gift that your hands are hiding,
The gold-adorned, the dread and dear?

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WOOD-WISE SINGETH:
Dark in the sheath lies the Anvil's Brother,
Hid is the hammered Death of Men.
Would ye look on the gift of the green-clad Mother?
How then shall ye ask for a gift again?

THE WARRIORS SING:
Show we the Sunlight the Gift of the Mother,
As foot follows foot to the foeman's den!
Gleam Sun, breathe Wind, on the Anvil's Brother,
For bare is the hammered Death of Men.