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<h2> BOOK VI. ETHANDUNE: THE SLAYING OF THE CHIEFS </h2>
<p>As the sea flooding the flat sands<br/>
Flew on the sea-born horde,<br/>
The two hosts shocked with dust and din,<br/>
Left of the Latian paladin,<br/>
Clanged all Prince Harold's howling kin<br/>
On Colan and the sword.<br/>
<br/>
Crashed in the midst on Marcus,<br/>
Ogier with Guthrum by,<br/>
And eastward of such central stir,<br/>
Far to the right and faintlier,<br/>
The house of Elf the harp-player,<br/>
Struck Eldred's with a cry.<br/>
<br/>
The centre swat for weariness,<br/>
Stemming the screaming horde,<br/>
And wearily went Colan's hands<br/>
That swung King Alfred's sword.<br/>
<br/>
But like a cloud of morning<br/>
To eastward easily,<br/>
Tall Eldred broke the sea of spears<br/>
As a tall ship breaks the sea.<br/>
<br/>
His face like a sanguine sunset,<br/>
His shoulder a Wessex down,<br/>
His hand like a windy hammer-stroke;<br/>
Men could not count the crests he broke,<br/>
So fast the crests went down.<br/>
<br/>
As the tall white devil of the Plague<br/>
Moves out of Asian skies,<br/>
With his foot on a waste of cities<br/>
And his head in a cloud of flies;<br/>
<br/>
Or purple and peacock skies grow dark<br/>
With a moving locust-tower;<br/>
Or tawny sand-winds tall and dry,<br/>
Like hell's red banners beat and fly,<br/>
When death comes out of Araby,<br/>
Was Eldred in his hour.<br/>
<br/>
But while he moved like a massacre<br/>
He murmured as in sleep,<br/>
And his words were all of low hedges<br/>
And little fields and sheep.<br/>
<br/>
Even as he strode like a pestilence,<br/>
That strides from Rhine to Rome,<br/>
He thought how tall his beans might be<br/>
If ever he went home.<br/>
<br/>
Spoke some stiff piece of childish prayer,<br/>
Dull as the distant chimes,<br/>
That thanked our God for good eating<br/>
And corn and quiet times—<br/>
<br/>
Till on the helm of a high chief<br/>
Fell shatteringly his brand,<br/>
And the helm broke and the bone broke<br/>
And the sword broke in his hand.<br/>
<br/>
Then from the yelling Northmen<br/>
Driven splintering on him ran<br/>
Full seven spears, and the seventh<br/>
Was never made by man.<br/>
<br/>
Seven spears, and the seventh<br/>
Was wrought as the faerie blades,<br/>
And given to Elf the minstrel<br/>
By the monstrous water-maids;<br/>
<br/>
By them that dwell where luridly<br/>
Lost waters of the Rhine<br/>
Move among roots of nations,<br/>
Being sunken for a sign.<br/>
<br/>
Under all graves they murmur,<br/>
They murmur and rebel,<br/>
Down to the buried kingdoms creep,<br/>
And like a lost rain roar and weep<br/>
O'er the red heavens of hell.<br/>
<br/>
Thrice drowned was Elf the minstrel,<br/>
And washed as dead on sand;<br/>
And the third time men found him<br/>
The spear was in his hand.<br/>
<br/>
Seven spears went about Eldred,<br/>
Like stays about a mast;<br/>
But there was sorrow by the sea<br/>
For the driving of the last.<br/>
<br/>
Six spears thrust upon Eldred<br/>
Were splintered while he laughed;<br/>
One spear thrust into Eldred,<br/>
Three feet of blade and shaft.<br/>
<br/>
And from the great heart grievously<br/>
Came forth the shaft and blade,<br/>
And he stood with the face of a dead man,<br/>
Stood a little, and swayed—<br/>
<br/>
Then fell, as falls a battle-tower,<br/>
On smashed and struggling spears.<br/>
Cast down from some unconquered town<br/>
That, rushing earthward, carries down<br/>
Loads of live men of all renown—<br/>
Archers and engineers.<br/>
<br/>
And a great clamour of Christian men<br/>
Went up in agony,<br/>
Crying, "Fallen is the tower of Wessex<br/>
That stood beside the sea."<br/>
<br/>
Centre and right the Wessex guard<br/>
Grew pale for doubt and fear,<br/>
And the flank failed at the advance,<br/>
For the death-light on the wizard lance—<br/>
The star of the evil spear.<br/>
<br/>
"Stand like an oak," cried Marcus,<br/>
"Stand like a Roman wall!<br/>
Eldred the Good is fallen—<br/>
Are you too good to fall?<br/>
<br/>
"When we were wan and bloodless<br/>
He gave you ale enow;<br/>
The pirates deal with him as dung,<br/>
God! are you bloodless now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Grip, Wulf and Gorlias, grip the ash!<br/>
Slaves, and I make you free!<br/>
Stamp, Hildred hard in English land,<br/>
Stand Gurth, stand Gorlias, Gawen stand!<br/>
Hold, Halfgar, with the other hand,<br/>
Halmer, hold up on knee!<br/>
<br/>
"The lamps are dying in your homes,<br/>
The fruits upon your bough;<br/>
Even now your old thatch smoulders, Gurth,<br/>
Now is the judgment of the earth,<br/>
Now is the death-grip, now!"<br/>
<br/>
For thunder of the captain,<br/>
Not less the Wessex line,<br/>
Leaned back and reeled a space to rear<br/>
As Elf charged with the Rhine maids' spear,<br/>
And roaring like the Rhine.<br/>
<br/>
For the men were borne by the waving walls<br/>
Of woods and clouds that pass,<br/>
By dizzy plains and drifting sea,<br/>
And they mixed God with glamoury,<br/>
God with the gods of the burning tree<br/>
And the wizard's tower and glass.<br/>
<br/>
But Mark was come of the glittering towns<br/>
Where hot white details show,<br/>
Where men can number and expound,<br/>
And his faith grew in a hard ground<br/>
Of doubt and reason and falsehood found,<br/>
Where no faith else could grow.<br/>
<br/>
Belief that grew of all beliefs<br/>
One moment back was blown<br/>
And belief that stood on unbelief<br/>
Stood up iron and alone.<br/>
<br/>
The Wessex crescent backwards<br/>
Crushed, as with bloody spear<br/>
Went Elf roaring and routing,<br/>
And Mark against Elf yet shouting,<br/>
Shocked, in his mid-career.<br/>
<br/>
Right on the Roman shield and sword<br/>
Did spear of the Rhine maids run;<br/>
But the shield shifted never,<br/>
The sword rang down to sever,<br/>
The great Rhine sang for ever,<br/>
And the songs of Elf were done.<br/>
<br/>
And a great thunder of Christian men<br/>
Went up against the sky,<br/>
Saying, "God hath broken the evil spear<br/>
Ere the good man's blood was dry."<br/>
<br/>
"Spears at the charge!" yelled Mark amain.<br/>
"Death on the gods of death!<br/>
Over the thrones of doom and blood<br/>
Goeth God that is a craftsman good,<br/>
And gold and iron, earth and wood,<br/>
Loveth and laboureth.<br/>
<br/>
"The fruits leap up in all your farms,<br/>
The lamps in each abode;<br/>
God of all good things done on earth,<br/>
All wheels or webs of any worth,<br/>
The God that makes the roof, Gurth,<br/>
The God that makes the road.<br/>
<br/>
"The God that heweth kings in oak<br/>
Writeth songs on vellum,<br/>
God of gold and flaming glass,<br/>
Confregit potentias<br/>
Acrcuum, scutum, Gorlias,<br/>
Gladium et bellum."<br/>
<br/>
Steel and lightning broke about him,<br/>
Battle-bays and palm,<br/>
All the sea-kings swayed among<br/>
Woods of the Wessex arms upflung,<br/>
The trumpet of the Roman tongue,<br/>
The thunder of the psalm.<br/>
<br/>
And midmost of that rolling field<br/>
Ran Ogier ragingly,<br/>
Lashing at Mark, who turned his blow,<br/>
And brake the helm about his brow,<br/>
And broke him to his knee.<br/>
<br/>
Then Ogier heaved over his head<br/>
His huge round shield of proof;<br/>
But Mark set one foot on the shield,<br/>
One on some sundered rock upheeled,<br/>
And towered above the tossing field,<br/>
A statue on a roof.<br/>
<br/>
Dealing far blows about the fight,<br/>
Like thunder-bolts a-roam,<br/>
Like birds about the battle-field,<br/>
While Ogier writhed under his shield<br/>
Like a tortoise in his dome.<br/>
<br/>
But hate in the buried Ogier<br/>
Was strong as pain in hell,<br/>
With bare brute hand from the inside<br/>
He burst the shield of brass and hide,<br/>
And a death-stroke to the Roman's side<br/>
Sent suddenly and well.<br/>
<br/>
Then the great statue on the shield<br/>
Looked his last look around<br/>
With level and imperial eye;<br/>
And Mark, the man from Italy,<br/>
Fell in the sea of agony,<br/>
And died without a sound.<br/>
<br/>
And Ogier, leaping up alive,<br/>
Hurled his huge shield away<br/>
Flying, as when a juggler flings<br/>
A whizzing plate in play.<br/>
<br/>
And held two arms up rigidly,<br/>
And roared to all the Danes:<br/>
"Fallen is Rome, yea, fallen<br/>
The city of the plains!<br/>
<br/>
"Shall no man born remember,<br/>
That breaketh wood or weald,<br/>
How long she stood on the roof of the world<br/>
As he stood on my shield.<br/>
<br/>
"The new wild world forgetteth her<br/>
As foam fades on the sea,<br/>
How long she stood with her foot on Man<br/>
As he with his foot on me.<br/>
<br/>
"No more shall the brown men of the south<br/>
Move like the ants in lines,<br/>
To quiet men with olives<br/>
Or madden men with vines.<br/>
<br/>
"No more shall the white towns of the south,<br/>
Where Tiber and Nilus run,<br/>
Sitting around a secret sea<br/>
Worship a secret sun.<br/>
<br/>
"The blind gods roar for Rome fallen,<br/>
And forum and garland gone,<br/>
For the ice of the north is broken,<br/>
And the sea of the north comes on.<br/>
<br/>
"The blind gods roar and rave and dream<br/>
Of all cities under the sea,<br/>
For the heart of the north is broken,<br/>
And the blood of the north is free.<br/>
<br/>
"Down from the dome of the world we come,<br/>
Rivers on rivers down,<br/>
Under us swirl the sects and hordes<br/>
And the high dooms we drown.<br/>
<br/>
"Down from the dome of the world and down,<br/>
Struck flying as a skiff<br/>
On a river in spate is spun and swirled<br/>
Until we come to the end of the world<br/>
That breaks short, like a cliff.<br/>
<br/>
"And when we come to the end of the world<br/>
For me, I count it fit<br/>
To take the leap like a good river,<br/>
Shot shrieking over it.<br/>
<br/>
"But whatso hap at the end of the world,<br/>
Where Nothing is struck and sounds,<br/>
It is not, by Thor, these monkish men<br/>
These humbled Wessex hounds—<br/>
<br/>
"Not this pale line of Christian hinds,<br/>
This one white string of men,<br/>
Shall keep us back from the end of the world,<br/>
And the things that happen then.<br/>
<br/>
"It is not Alfred's dwarfish sword,<br/>
Nor Egbert's pigmy crown,<br/>
Shall stay us now that descend in thunder,<br/>
Rending the realms and the realms thereunder,<br/>
Down through the world and down."<br/>
<br/>
There was that in the wild men back of him,<br/>
There was that in his own wild song,<br/>
A dizzy throbbing, a drunkard smoke,<br/>
That dazed to death all Wessex folk,<br/>
And swept their spears along.<br/>
<br/>
Vainly the sword of Colan<br/>
And the axe of Alfred plied—<br/>
The Danes poured in like a brainless plague,<br/>
And knew not when they died.<br/>
<br/>
Prince Colan slew a score of them,<br/>
And was stricken to his knee;<br/>
King Alfred slew a score and seven<br/>
And was borne back on a tree.<br/>
<br/>
Back to the black gate of the woods,<br/>
Back up the single way,<br/>
Back by the place of the parting ways<br/>
Christ's knights were whirled away.<br/>
<br/>
And when they came to the parting ways<br/>
Doom's heaviest hammer fell,<br/>
For the King was beaten, blind, at bay,<br/>
Down the right lane with his array,<br/>
But Colan swept the other way,<br/>
Where he smote great strokes and fell.<br/>
<br/>
The thorn-woods over Ethandune<br/>
Stand sharp and thick as spears,<br/>
By night and furze and forest-harms<br/>
Far sundered were the friends in arms;<br/>
The loud lost blows, the last alarms,<br/>
Came not to Alfred's ears.<br/>
<br/>
The thorn-woods over Ethandune<br/>
Stand stiff as spikes in mail;<br/>
As to the Haut King came at morn<br/>
Dead Roland on a doubtful horn,<br/>
Seemed unto Alfred lightly borne<br/>
The last cry of the Gael.<br/></p>
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