 | Poems by Two Brothers |  |
141
THE OLD CHIEFTAIN
“And said I, that my limbs were old!”
Scott.
Raise, raise the song of the hundred shells!
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold;
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old;
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold;
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old;
When my voice was high, and my arm was strong,
And the foeman before my stroke would bow,
And I could have rais'd the sounding song
As loudly as I hear ye now.
And the foeman before my stroke would bow,
And I could have rais'd the sounding song
As loudly as I hear ye now.
For when I have chanted the bold song of death,
Not a page would have stay'd in the hall,
Not a lance in the rest, not a sword in the sheath,
Not a shield on the dim grey wall.
Not a page would have stay'd in the hall,
Not a lance in the rest, not a sword in the sheath,
Not a shield on the dim grey wall.
142
And who might resist the united powers
Of battle and music that day,
When, all martiall'd in arms on the heaven-kissing towers,
Stood the chieftains in peerless array?
Of battle and music that day,
When, all martiall'd in arms on the heaven-kissing towers,
Stood the chieftains in peerless array?
When our enemies sunk from our eyes as the snow
Which falls down the stream in the dell,
When each word that I spake was the death of a foe,
And each note of my harp was his knell?
Which falls down the stream in the dell,
When each word that I spake was the death of a foe,
And each note of my harp was his knell?
So raise ye the song of the hundred shells;
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold,
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old!
Though my hair is grey and my limbs are cold,
Yet in my bosom proudly dwells
The memory of the days of old!
A. T.
| Poems by Two Brothers | |