| |
| THORKILL and Thorston from Jutland came | |
| To torture us Saxons with sword and flame, | |
| To strip our homesteads and thorps and crofts, | |
| To burn our barns and hovels and lofts, | |
| To fell our kine and slay our deer, | 5 |
| To strip the orchard and drag the mere, | |
| To butcher our sheep and reap our corn, | |
| To fire our coverts of fern and thorn, | |
| Driving the wolves and boars in bands | |
| To raven and prey on our Saxon lands.— | 10 |
| We had watched for their galleys day and night, | |
| From sunrise until beacon-light; | |
| But still the sea lay level and dead, | |
| And never a sail came round the Head.— | |
| We watched in vain till one autumn day, | 15 |
| When a woolly fog that northward lay | |
| Sullenly rose, and the broad gray sea | |
| Sparkled and danced in the full bright sun | |
| (The shadows were purple as they could be): | |
| Then stealing round by Worbarrow Bay, | 20 |
| Past Lulworth Cove and the White Swyre Head, | |
| The black sails came, and every one | |
| When they saw the sight turned pale as the dead. | |
| |
| The black sails spread in a long curved line, | |
| Like a shoal of dog-fish, or rather of sharks, | 25 |
| When, chasing the porpoise in the moonshine, | |
| They leave behind them a drift of sparks. | |
| Those coal-black sails bore slowly on, | |
| Past Kingsland Bay and Osmington, | |
| By the white cliff of Bindon Hill, | 30 |
| Past Kimmeridge and Gad Cliff Mill;— | |
| Then with a bolder, fiercer swoop | |
| Bore down the Danish robber troop, | |
| Skimming around St. Adhelm’s Head, | |
| With its chantry chapel and its rocks | 35 |
| Stained green and brown by tempest shocks, | |
| And its undercliff all moss and heather, | |
| And ivy cable and green fern feather, | |
| And steered straight on for Studland Bay, | |
| Where all our Saxon treasure lay. | 40 |
| |
| Their sails, as black as a starless night, | |
| Came moving on with a sullen might; | |
| Rows of gleaming shields there hung | |
| Over the gunwales, in order slung; | |
| And the broad black banners fluttered and flapped | 45 |
| Like raven’s pinions, as dipped and lapped | |
| The Norsemen’s galleys; their axes shone.— | |
| Every Dane had a hauberk on, | |
| Glittering gold; how each robber lord | |
| Waved in the air his threatening sword!— | 50 |
| One long swift rush through surf and foam, | |
| And they leapt ere the rolling waves had gone, | |
| On our Saxon shore, their new-found home. | |
| With a clash of collars and targe and spear, | |
| With a laughing shout and a rolling cheer, | 55 |
| Like wolf-hounds when the wolf ’s at bay | |
| Those bearded warriors leapt ashore | |
| (If there was one there were forty score), | |
| And dragged their galleys with fierce uproar | |
| To where our fishing-vessels lay: | 60 |
| Who dare resist? Woe worth the day! * * * * * | |
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