 | Poems of the war |  |
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ERIC, THE MINSTREL.
A PARABLE.
May 7, 1863.
In a great ring the Danish barons sat;Their bitter hearts were cold within their breasts;
For all that day the fortunes of the fight
Had gone against them, and the Saxon axe
Had hewed their faces, driving them perforce
Back to their moated camp beside the sea.
So in the evening, one by one, they came,
Unsummoned, to the presence of the Prince
For further counsel; though no word as yet
Broke the dark circle, where they brooding sat
With their brown chins upon their sinewy hands.
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And hard, deep-chested spasms of wordless pain;
And many an eye rolled from the piléd arms
To the small harbor, where the rocking ships
Flashed their long spars against the setting sun,
And seemed to beckon them away. Of all
Ragner, the Prince, was gloomiest. His eyes
Were dull and filmy, as a slaughtered wolf's,
Turned up to wither in the staring moon.
His grizzly beard hung down across his knees,
So low he bent, and his great, open face
Was void and stagnant; not a ray of thought
Glimmered upon it. Had not, now and then,
His thick breath hissed between his grinding teeth,
Or a deep groan surged, like a breaking wave,
Through his whole form, none would have said he lived.
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Loud had he boasted of his strength and skill,
His men, his weapons, and his discipline,
That bound them all together in one will.
Much had he sneered at other chiefs, whose deeds
Had failed before the foe, through lack of wit;
Vaunting himself, and stamping on their wrecks.
Was this the issue?—this sad, woe-begone,
Fear-stricken huddle of disheartened men?
His hopes had failed him. A despiséd foe,
Famished, half-clad, unsandalled, scantly armed,
With torn and bleeding hands had struck his swords,
His cunning engines and far-flying shafts,
Down to this ruin: with them, too, the crown,
Growing in fancy o'er his princely house.
Ragner said naught; for there was naught to say,
That babbling gossips might not say as well,
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His brow against the hide-walls of his tent,
And almost wept for shame. The curtains shook:
A face as brilliant as the evening-star,
And cheerful as an angel's that has looked,
A moment since, upon the light of heaven,
Shone steadily above that darkened group,
And drew their eyes together towards its beams.
Eric, the minstrel, entered in the tent,
And softly stepped before the wretched chiefs,
With the bard's license. “Ragner,” he began,
“And you, pale comrades of his misery,
Is this a time for weakness? this a time
To drop your manhood, and to change your sex,
Now while ye need a double share of strength,
Of skill and courage, to make good the loss
That fell upon you in to-day's mishap?
Is this a time for gloomy brows, dead brains,
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To empty memory of its olden stores,
And turn your backs upon your history?
Is this a time for sheep to nibble grass,
And fatten for the butcher, while the plain
Is red with corpses, only fit for wolves
And the swart ravens' talons? If there was
Ever to Danish men the sudden need
Of all God's best endowments, it is now.
Rise, or your lives are forfeit for your sloth!”
They bounded up, as if they felt the foe
Already hacking at their cowering backs,
And bent their glances towards the distant ships,
With sullen meaning. “Rise, rise higher yet!
And turn your faces frowning on the foe;
Or you lose more than life, your honor, chiefs;
The fame that made you, when yon sun arose,
All that you were.” Then, with a feeble groan,
They all sank down upon the ground again.
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Like that which pulses in the summer nights,
Ruddy and frequent. But he calmed himself;
And with a sigh, he took from off his arm
His Norman harp; and whispered to himself,
In tones as tender as his mother used,
“This is the time to sing.” He wound his hands
Round the long wires, and every warbling string
Flickered before him, like a jet of flame
That leaps along the darkness. And he sang
His nation's birth, its growing infancy,
Rocked on the billows in long, pointed ships.
And then he sang how tribe was joined to tribe
In the dark forests, falling with the growth
Of gathered people, till the teeming land
Waved yellow grain, and smoked with forges. How
The streams turned round upon the wheels in foam,
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Then he struck out in triumph from the cords,
And raised his voice, accordant to the theme,
The glory of his nation. How she warred
With neighboring powers, and spread her tongue and laws,
From the cramped borders where her strength was nursed,
Up towards the ice, and downward towards the sun.
The sea became her highway. Here and there
She set her foot upon far distant shores,
And founded other nations. On the name
The Norman carried to the Pyrenees,
He hung in rapture. O'er and o'er again
He sang of Charlemagne and all his peers;
Of Roncesvalles, and of Roland's horn,
Until the horn seemed peeling in their ears;
Or sinking fainter with the hero's breath,
Lower and lower, till the dismal night
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Then he sang other fields, of happier fate;
Drawing his pictures on the painted air
With harp and voice, as plainly to the sense
As any since have wrought with tinted brush;
And snorting steeds and mail-clad men, in square,
In line, in column, thundered past their eyes;
And banners waved, and lances splintered up
On ringing shields and hauberks; till there came
The serious press, at arm's length, of the swords;
When the foe paused, shook, wavered, turned, and fled,
With all the Norman barons, at his heels,
Shouting their triumph in the hot pursuit.
By this, the chiefs had started from the ground,
With the grand light of battle flaming out
From their red eyeballs; and outside the tent,
A murmur circled from the listening host,—
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That made the blood fly leaping through the veins,
And sent the right hand seeking for the sword.
Then Ragner strode from out the tent, and saw
His hurrying soldiers buckling on their arms;
And heard the tested bow-strings snap and twang,
And sheaves of arrows rattling as they swung;
And all the sounds a forming army makes
Came up, like music, to his wondering ears.
So he drew forth his sword amidst his chiefs,
And their swords followed. Then the minstrel stole,
Unthanked, away, to weep beside his harp,
Dejected, prayerful: but that field was won.
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