POEMS OF ENGLISH HEROISM.

I.

BATTLE OF BRUNANBURH.

I.

ATHELSTAN King,
Lord among Earls,
Bracelet-bestower and

Baron of Barons,

He with his brother,

Edmund Atheling,

Gaining a lifelong

Glory in battle,

Slew with the sword-edge

There by Brunanburh,

Brake the shield-wall,

Hew'd the lindenwood,

Hack'd the battleshield,

Sons of Edward with hammer'd brands.

B

II.

Theirs was a greatness

Got from their Grandsires

Theirs that so often in

Strife with their enemies

Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their

homes.

III.

Bow'd the spoiler,

Bent the Scotsman,

Fell the shipcrews

Doom'd to the death.

All the field with blood of the fighters

Flow'd, from when first the great

Sun-star of morningtide

Lamp of the Lord God

Lord everlasting,

Glode over earth till the glorious creature
Sunk to his setting.

IV.

There lay many a man
Marr'd by the javelin,

Men of the Northland

Shot over shield.

There was the Scotsman

Weary of war.

V.

We the West-Saxons,

Long as the daylight

Lasted, in companies

Troubled the track of the host that we hated,

Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone, Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us.

VI.

Mighty the Mercian,
Hard was his hand-play,
Sparing not any of

Those that with Anlaf

Warriors over the

Weltering waters

Borne in the bark's-bosom,

Drew to this island,

Doom'd to the death.

VII.

Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke,
Seven strong Earls of the army of Anlaf
Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers,
Shipmen and Scotsmen.

VIII.

Then the Norse leader,

Dire was his need of it,

Few were his following,

Fled to his warship:

Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it. Saving his life on the fallow flood

IX.

Also the crafty one,

Constantínus,

Crept to his North again,

Hoar-headed hero!

X.

Slender reason had
He to be proud of

The welcome of war-knives

He that was reft of his

Folk and his friends that had

Fallen in conflict,

Leaving his son too

Lost in the carnage,

Mangled to morsels,
A youngster in war!

XI.

Slender reason had

He to be glad of

The clash of the war-glaive—

Traitor and trickster

And spurner of treaties

He nor had Anlaf

With armies so broken
A reason for bragging
That they had the better
In perils of battle

On places of slaughter-
The struggle of standards,
The rush of the javelins,
The crash of the charges,

The wielding of weapons

The play that they play'd with

The children of Edward.

XII.

Then with their nail'd prows

Parted the Norsemen, a

Blood-redden'd relic of

Javelins over

The jarring breaker, the deepsea billow

Shaping their way toward Dyflen again,
Shamed in their souls.

XIII.

Also the brethren,

King and Atheling,

Each in his glory,

Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,

Glad of the war.