Part 18 (1/2)

”Yea, whose are yonder gables then, And whose the holy hearths of men?

Whose are the prattling children there, And whose the sunburnt maids and fair?

Whose thralls are ye, hereby that stand, Bearing the freeman's sword in hand?”

As glitters the sun in the rain-washed gra.s.s, So in the tossing swords it was;

As the thunder rattles along and adown E'en so was the voice of the weaponed town.

And there was the steel of the old man's sword.

And there was his hollow voice, and his word:

”Many men, many minds, the old saw saith, Though hereof ye be sure as death.

For what spake the herald yestermorn But this, that ye were thrall-folk born;

That the lord that owneth all and some Would send his men to fetch us home

Betwixt the haysel, and the tide When they shear the corn in the country-side?

O children, Who was the lord? ye say, What prayer to him did our fathers pray?

Did they hold out hands his gyves to bear?

Did their knees his high hall's pavement wear?

Is his house built up in heaven aloft?

Doth he make the sun rise oft and oft?

Doth he hold the rain in his hollow hand?

Hath he cleft this water through the land?

Or doth he stay the summer-tide, And make the winter days abide?

O children, Who is the lord? ye say, Have we heard his name before to-day?

O children, if his name I know, He hight Earl Hugh of the s.h.i.+vering Low:

For that herald bore on back and breast The Black Burg under the Eagle's Nest.”

As the voice of the winter wind that tears At the eaves of the thatch and its emptied ears,

E'en so was the voice of laughter and scorn By the water-side in the mead new-shorn;