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(From The Pirate, Chap. XV)
THE SUN is rising dimly red, | |
| The wind is wailing low and dread; | |
| From his cliff the eagle sallies, | |
| Leaves the wolf his darksome valleys; | |
| In the midst the ravens hover, | 5 |
| Peep the wild dogs from the cover, | |
| Screaming, croaking, baying, yelling, | |
| Each in his wild accents telling, | |
| “Soon we feast on dead and dying, | |
| Fair-haired Harold’s flag is flying.” | 10 |
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| Many a crest on air is streaming, | |
| Many a helmet darkly gleaming, | |
| Many an arm the axe uprears, | |
| Doomed to hew the wood of spears. | |
| All along the crowded ranks | 15 |
| Horses neigh and armor clanks; | |
| Chiefs are shouting, clarions ringing, | |
| Louder still the bard is singing, | |
| “Gather footmen, gather horsemen, | |
| To the field, ye valiant Norsemen! | 20 |
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| “Halt ye not for food or slumber, | |
| View not vantage, count not number; | |
| Jolly reapers, forward still, | |
| Grow the crop on vale or hill, | |
| Thick or scattered, stiff or lithe, | 25 |
| It shall down before the scythe. | |
| Forward with your sickles bright, | |
| Reap the harvest of the fight.— | |
| Onward footmen, onward horsemen, | |
| To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen! | 30 |
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| “Fatal choosers of the slaughter, | |
| O’er you hovers Odin’s daughter; | |
| Hear the choice she spreads before ye,— | |
| Victory and wealth and glory; | |
| Or old Valhalla’s roaring hail, | 35 |
| Her ever-circling mead and ale, | |
| Where for eternity unite | |
| The joys of wassail and of fight. | |
| Headlong forward, foot and horsemen, | |
| Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen.” | 40 |
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