 | The Poetical Works of Robert Story |  |
VI.
I said, before the Saxon King they bent.I dreamed not, Harold, of the base descent!
Proud as if still I led an army's van,
I scorned to bend the knee to mortal man;
And, though in regal presence, hardly saw
The Prince to whom my captors knelt in awe.
Contemning my own fate, aside I looked
To see how his the noble Guthrum brooked—
His soul was strung up to the highest tone;
His glance was free and fearless as my own!
And had the Monarch given, that moment, breath
To one brief word, and that brief word been—Death—
He would have marked, my son, no terror-sign
Either on Guthrum's visage, or on mine.
Brothers in many a former field of strife,
And more than brothers now in parting life,
Fixing on Alfred stern and scornful eye,
Both would have died—as heroes ever die!
While glanced across my spirit some such thought,
My stern and scornful eye the Monarch sought:
But scarce I gave to my own sight belief—
I saw—I saw—the young Northumbrian Chief
And the same instant I perceived, my son,
The Saxon Monarch and that Chief were one!
| The Poetical Works of Robert Story | |