Book VI: Ethandune: The Slaying of the Chiefs

As the sea flooding the flat sandsFlew on the sea-born horde,The two hosts shocked with dust and din,Left of the Latian paladin,Clanged all Prince Harold's howling kinOn Colan and the sword.

Crashed in the midst on Marcus,Ogier with Guthrum by,And eastward of such central stir,Far to the right and faintlier,The house of Elf the harp-player,Struck Eldred's with a cry.

The centre swat for weariness,Stemming the screaming horde,And wearily went Colan's handsThat swung King Alfred's sword.

But like a cloud of morningTo eastward easily,Tall Eldred broke the sea of spearsAs a tall ship breaks the sea.

His face like a sanguine sunset,His shoulder a Wessex down,His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;Men could not count the crests he broke,So fast the crests went down.

As the tall white devil of the PlagueMoves out of Asian skies,With his foot on a waste of citiesAnd his head in a cloud of flies;

Or purple and peacock skies grow darkWith a moving locust-tower;Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,Like hell's red banners beat and fly,When death comes out of Araby,Was Eldred in his hour.

But while he moved like a massacreHe murmured as in sleep,And his words were all of low hedgesAnd little fields and sheep.

Even as he strode like a pestilence,That strides from Rhine to Rome,He thought how tall his beans might beIf ever he went home.

Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,Dull as the distant chimes,That thanked our God for good eatingAnd corn and quiet times--

Till on the helm of a high chiefFell shatteringly his brand,And the helm broke and the bone brokeAnd the sword broke in his hand.

Then from the yelling NorthmenDriven splintering on him ranFull seven spears, and the seventhWas never made by man.

Seven spears, and the seventhWas wrought as the faerie blades,And given to Elf the minstrelBy the monstrous water-maids;

By them that dwell where luridlyLost waters of the RhineMove among roots of nations,Being sunken for a sign.

Under all graves they murmur,They murmur and rebel,Down to the buried kingdoms creep,And like a lost rain roar and weepO'er the red heavens of hell.

Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,And washed as dead on sand;And the third time men found himThe spear was in his hand.

Seven spears went about Eldred,Like stays about a mast;But there was sorrow by the seaFor the driving of the last.

Six spears thrust upon EldredWere splintered while he laughed;One spear thrust into Eldred,Three feet of blade and shaft.

And from the great heart grievouslyCame forth the shaft and blade,And he stood with the face of a dead man,Stood a little, and swayed--

Then fell, as falls a battle-tower,On smashed and struggling spears.Cast down from some unconquered townThat, rushing earthward, carries downLoads of live men of all renown--Archers and engineers.

And a great clamour of Christian menWent up in agony,Crying, "Fallen is the tower of WessexThat stood beside the sea."

Centre and right the Wessex guardGrew pale for doubt and fear,And the flank failed at the advance,For the death-light on the wizard lance--The star of the evil spear.

"Stand like an oak," cried Marcus,"Stand like a Roman wall!Eldred the Good is fallen--Are you too good to fall?

"When we were wan and bloodlessHe gave you ale enow;The pirates deal with him as dung,God! are you bloodless now?"

"Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!Slaves, and I make you free!Stamp, Hildred hard in English land,Stand Gurth, stand Gorlias, Gawen stand!Hold, Halfgar, with the other hand,Halmer, hold up on knee!

"The lamps are dying in your homes,The fruits upon your bough;Even now your old thatch smoulders, Gurth,Now is the judgment of the earth,Now is the death-grip, now!"

For thunder of the captain,Not less the Wessex line,Leaned back and reeled a space to rearAs Elf charged with the Rhine maids' spear,And roaring like the Rhine.

For the men were borne by the waving wallsOf woods and clouds that pass,By dizzy plains and drifting sea,And they mixed God with glamoury,God with the gods of the burning treeAnd the wizard's tower and glass.

But Mark was come of the glittering townsWhere hot white details show,Where men can number and expound,And his faith grew in a hard groundOf doubt and reason and falsehood found,Where no faith else could grow.

Belief that grew of all beliefsOne moment back was blownAnd belief that stood on unbeliefStood up iron and alone.

The Wessex crescent backwardsCrushed, as with bloody spearWent Elf roaring and routing,And Mark against Elf yet shouting,Shocked, in his mid-career.

Right on the Roman shield and swordDid spear of the Rhine maids run;But the shield shifted never,The sword rang down to sever,The great Rhine sang for ever,And the songs of Elf were done.

And a great thunder of Christian menWent up against the sky,Saying, "God hath broken the evil spearEre the good man's blood was dry."

"Spears at the charge!" yelled Mark amain."Death on the gods of death!Over the thrones of doom and bloodGoeth God that is a craftsman good,And gold and iron, earth and wood,Loveth and laboureth.

"The fruits leap up in all your farms,The lamps in each abode;God of all good things done on earth,All wheels or webs of any worth,The God that makes the roof, Gurth,The God that makes the road.

"The God that heweth kings in oakWriteth songs on vellum,God of gold and flaming glass,Confregit potentiasAcrcuum, scutum, Gorlias,Gladium et bellum."

Steel and lightning broke about him,Battle-bays and palm,All the sea-kings swayed amongWoods of the Wessex arms upflung,The trumpet of the Roman tongue,The thunder of the psalm.

And midmost of that rolling fieldRan Ogier ragingly,Lashing at Mark, who turned his blow,And brake the helm about his brow,And broke him to his knee.

Then Ogier heaved over his headHis huge round shield of proof;But Mark set one foot on the shield,One on some sundered rock upheeled,And towered above the tossing field,A statue on a roof.

Dealing far blows about the fight,Like thunder-bolts a-roam,Like birds about the battle-field,While Ogier writhed under his shieldLike a tortoise in his dome.

But hate in the buried OgierWas strong as pain in hell,With bare brute hand from the insideHe burst the shield of brass and hide,And a death-stroke to the Roman's sideSent suddenly and well.

Then the great statue on the shieldLooked his last look aroundWith level and imperial eye;And Mark, the man from Italy,Fell in the sea of agony,And died without a sound.

And Ogier, leaping up alive,Hurled his huge shield awayFlying, as when a juggler flingsA whizzing plate in play.

And held two arms up rigidly,And roared to all the Danes:"Fallen is Rome, yea, fallenThe city of the plains!

"Shall no man born remember,That breaketh wood or weald,How long she stood on the roof of the worldAs he stood on my shield.

"The new wild world forgetteth herAs foam fades on the sea,How long she stood with her foot on ManAs he with his foot on me.

"No more shall the brown men of the southMove like the ants in lines,To quiet men with olivesOr madden men with vines.

"No more shall the white towns of the south,Where Tiber and Nilus run,Sitting around a secret seaWorship a secret sun.

"The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,And forum and garland gone,For the ice of the north is broken,And the sea of the north comes on.

"The blind gods roar and rave and dreamOf all cities under the sea,For the heart of the north is broken,And the blood of the north is free.

"Down from the dome of the world we come,Rivers on rivers down,Under us swirl the sects and hordesAnd the high dooms we drown.

"Down from the dome of the world and down,Struck flying as a skiffOn a river in spate is spun and swirledUntil we come to the end of the worldThat breaks short, like a cliff.

"And when we come to the end of the worldFor me, I count it fitTo take the leap like a good river,Shot shrieking over it.

"But whatso hap at the end of the world,Where Nothing is struck and sounds,It is not, by Thor, these monkish menThese humbled Wessex hounds--

"Not this pale line of Christian hinds,This one white string of men,Shall keep us back from the end of the world,And the things that happen then.

"It is not Alfred's dwarfish sword,Nor Egbert's pigmy crown,Shall stay us now that descend in thunder,Rending the realms and the realms thereunder,Down through the world and down."

There was that in the wild men back of him,There was that in his own wild song,A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,That dazed to death all Wessex folk,And swept their spears along.

Vainly the sword of ColanAnd the axe of Alfred plied--The Danes poured in like a brainless plague,And knew not when they died.

Prince Colan slew a score of them,And was stricken to his knee;King Alfred slew a score and sevenAnd was borne back on a tree.

Back to the black gate of the woods,Back up the single way,Back by the place of the parting waysChrist's knights were whirled away.

And when they came to the parting waysDoom's heaviest hammer fell,For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,Down the right lane with his array,But Colan swept the other way,Where he smote great strokes and fell.

The thorn-woods over EthanduneStand sharp and thick as spears,By night and furze and forest-harmsFar sundered were the friends in arms;The loud lost blows, the last alarms,Came not to Alfred's ears.

The thorn-woods over EthanduneStand stiff as spikes in mail;As to the Haut King came at mornDead Roland on a doubtful horn,Seemed unto Alfred lightly borneThe last cry of the Gael.