Chapter 14

_Cory._

CXI

THE TWO CAPTAINS

When George the Third was reigning a hundred years ago, He ordered Captain Farmer to chase the foreign foe. 'You're not afraid of shot,' said he, 'you're not afraid of wreck, So cruise about the west of France in the frigate called _Quebec_.

Quebec was once a Frenchman's town, but twenty years ago King George the Second sent a man called General Wolfe, you know, To clamber up a precipice and look into Quebec, As you'd look down a hatchway when standing on the deck.

If Wolfe could beat the Frenchmen then so you can beat them now. Before he got inside the town he died, I must allow. But since the town was won for us it is a lucky name, And you'll remember Wolfe's good work, and you shall do the same.'

Then Farmer said, 'I'll try, sir,' and Farmer bowed so low That George could see his pigtail tied in a velvet bow. George gave him his commission, and that it might be safer, Signed 'King of Britain, King of France,' and sealed it with a wafer.

Then proud was Captain Farmer in a frigate of his own, And grander on his quarter-deck than George upon the throne. He'd two guns in his cabin, and on the spar-deck ten, And twenty on the gun-deck, and more than ten score men.

And as a huntsman scours the brakes with sixteen brace of dogs, With two-and-thirty cannon the ship explored the fogs. From Cape la Hogue to Ushant, from Rochefort to Belleisle, She hunted game till reef and mud were rubbing on her keel.

The fogs are dried, the frigate's side is bright with melting tar, The lad up in the foretop sees square white sails afar; The east wind drives three square-sailed masts from out the Breton bay, And 'Clear for action!' Farmer shouts, and reefers yell 'Hooray!'

The Frenchman's captain had a name I wish I could pronounce; A Breton gentleman was he, and wholly free from bounce, One like those famous fellows who died by guillotine For honour and the fleurs-de-lys and Antoinette the Queen.

The Catholic for Louis, the Protestant for George, Each captain drew as bright a sword as saintly smiths could forge; And both were simple seamen, but both could understand How each was bound to win or die for flag and native land.

The French ship was _la Surveillante_, which means the watchful maid; She folded up her head-dress and began to cannonade. Her hull was clean, and ours was foul; we had to spread more sail. On canvas, stays, and topsail yards her bullets came like hail.

Sore smitten were both captains, and many lads beside, And still to cut our rigging the foreign gunners tried. A sail-clad spar came flapping down athwart a blazing gun; We could not quench the rushing flames, and so the Frenchman won.

Our quarter-deck was crowded, the waist was all aglow; Men hung upon the taffrail half scorched, but loth to go; Our captain sat where once he stood, and would not quit his chair. He bade his comrades leap for life, and leave him bleeding there.

The guns were hushed on either side, the Frenchmen lowered boats, They flung us planks and hencoops, and everything that floats. They risked their lives, good fellows! to bring their rivals aid. 'Twas by the conflagration the peace was strangely made.

_La Surveillante_ was like a sieve; the victors had no rest, They had to dodge the east wind to reach the port of Brest, And where the waves leapt lower, and the riddled ship went slower, In triumph, yet in funeral guise, came fisher-boats to tow her.

They dealt with us as brethren, they mourned for Farmer dead; And as the wounded captives passed each Breton bowed the head. Then spoke the French Lieutenant, ''Twas fire that won, not we. You never struck your flag to us; you'll go to England free.'

'Twas the sixth day of October, seventeen hundred seventy-nine, A year when nations ventured against us to combine, _Quebec_ was burnt and Farmer slain, by us remembered not; But thanks be to the French book wherein they're not forgot.

Now you, if you've to fight the French, my youngster, bear in mind Those seamen of King Louis so chivalrous and kind; Think of the Breton gentlemen who took our lads to Brest, And treat some rescued Breton as a comrade and a guest.

_Cory._

CXII

THE HEAD OF BRAN

When the head of Bran Was firm on British shoulders, God made a man! Cried all beholders.

Steel could not resist The weight his arm would rattle; He with naked fist Has brained a knight in battle.

He marched on the foe, And never counted numbers; Foreign widows know The hosts he sent to slumbers.

As a street you scan That's towered by the steeple, So the head of Bran Rose o'er his people.

'Death's my neighbour,' Quoth Bran the blest; 'Christian labour Brings Christian rest. From the trunk sever The head of Bran, That which never Has bent to man!

That which never To men has bowed Shall live ever To shame the shroud: Shall live ever To face the foe; Sever it, sever, And with one blow.

Be it written, That all I wrought Was for Britain, In deed and thought: Be it written, That, while I die, "Glory to Britain!" Is my last cry.

"Glory to Britain!" Death echoes me round. Glory to Britain! The world shall resound. Glory to Britain! In ruin and fall, Glory to Britain! Is heard over all.'

Burn, Sun, down the sea! Bran lies low with thee.

Burst, Morn, from the main! Bran so shall rise again.

Blow, Wind, from the field! Bran's Head is the Briton's shield.

Beam, Star, in the west! Bright burns the Head of Bran the Blest.

Crimson-footed like the stork, From great ruts of slaughter, Warriors of the Golden Torque Cross the lifting water. Princes seven, enchaining hands, Bear the live Head homeward. Lo! it speaks, and still commands; Gazing far out foamward.

Fiery words of lightning sense Down the hollows thunder; Forest hostels know not whence Comes the speech, and wonder. City-castles, on the steep Where the faithful Severn House at midnight, hear in sleep Laughter under heaven.

Lilies, swimming on the mere, In the castle shadow, Under draw their heads, and Fear Walks the misty meadow; Tremble not, it is not Death Pledging dark espousal: 'Tis the Head of endless breath, Challenging carousal!

Brim the horn! a health is drunk, Now, that shall keep going: Life is but the pebble sunk, Deeds, the circle growing! Fill, and pledge the Head of Bran! While his lead they follow, Long shall heads in Britain plan Speech Death cannot swallow.

_George Meredith._

CXIII

THE SLAYING OF THE NIBLUNGS

HOGNI

Ye shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the house Were many carven doorways whose work was glorious With marble stones and gold-work, and their doors of beaten brass: Lo now, in the merry morning how the story cometh to pass! --While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears, And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears, All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel, The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal: They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe, And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know: Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runs All adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty ones; All eyes are set upon them, hard drawn is every breath, Ere the foremost points be mingled and death be blent with death. --All eyes save the eyes of Hogni; but e'en as the edges meet, He turneth about for a moment to the gold of the kingly seat, Then aback to the front of battle; there then, as the lightning-flash Through the dark night showeth the city when the clouds of heaven clash, And the gazer shrinketh backward, yet he seeth from end to end The street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend, And the pavement where his footsteps yester'en returning trod, Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God; So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know, Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted brow With half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and cold Laid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's moveless fold.

Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from where he stood, And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe-man in a wood: Before his sword was a champion, and the edges clave to the chin, And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that should fall therein. Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung host of war Was swept by the leaping iron, as the rock anigh the shore By the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment Gunnar stayed As high in his hand unblooded he shook his awful blade; And he cried: 'O Eastland champions, do ye behold it here, The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have no fear, But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's will it be! Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden guests are we: So forbear, if ye wander hood-winked, nor for nothing slay and be slain; For I know not what to tell you of the dead that live again.'

So he saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on high, But all about and around him goes up a bitter cry From the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steel Sends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reel Behind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo! have ye seen the corn, While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind-streak overborne When the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black, And the smitten wood-side roareth 'neath the driving thunder-wrack? So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East, As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast. There he smote, and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his edges stopped; He smote, and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he lopped; There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred; Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the dead; And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a throat he thrust, But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the ruddy dust, And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet: Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set; Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell, Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell, And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew, And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through; And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite, And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight, And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes, And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.

GUNNAR

Now fell the sword of Gunnar, and rose up red in the air, And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and clear, And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the rings Of a Giant of King Atli and a murder-wolf of kings; But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his breast, And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest, But fell upon Atli's brother, and stayed not in his brain; Then he fell, and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain, And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe, and thrust a lord in the throat, And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote; Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their war-shields drave While the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he clave Whom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold; And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar, and over his war-shield rolled, And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on, And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won, And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst, As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed, And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung song Through the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong: Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood, And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet with blood.

Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home, As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam: They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the wall, And a few last spears from the fleeing amidst their shield-hedge fall: But the doors clash to in their faces, as the fleeing rout they drive, And fain would follow after; and none is left alive In the feast-hall of King Atli, save those fishes of the net, And the white and silent woman above the slaughter set.

Then biddeth the heart-wise Hogni, and men to the windows climb, And uplift the war-grey corpses, dead drift of the stormy time, And cast them adown to their people: thence they come aback and say That scarce shall ye see the houses, and no whit the wheel-worn way For the spears and shields of the Eastlands that the merchant city throng; And back to the Niblung burg-gate the way seemed weary-long.

Yet passeth hour on hour, and the doors they watch and ward But a long while hear no mail-clash, nor the ringing of the sword; Then droop the Niblung children, and their wounds are waxen chill, And they think of the burg by the river, and the builded holy hill, And their eyes are set on Gudrun as of men who would beseech; But unlearned are they in craving, and know not dastard's speech. Then doth Giuki's first-begotten a deed most fair to be told, For his fair harp Gunnar taketh, and the warp of silver and gold; With the hand of a cunning harper he dealeth with the strings, And his voice in their midst goeth upward, as of ancient days he sings, Of the days before the Niblungs, and the days that shall be yet; Till the hour of toil and smiting the warrior hearts forget, Nor hear the gathering foemen, nor the sound of swords aloof: Then clear the song of Gunnar goes up to the dusky roof, And the coming spear-host tarries, and the bearers of the woe Through the cloisters of King Atli with lingering footsteps go.

But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees, And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees: Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo! the open door, And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor, For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe, And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.

GUDRUN

Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid; But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid, And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall, And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall; For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes, And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise, And he saith: 'We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days, And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.'

Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth aback That the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack: Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat, And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet, That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithal He casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall: But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to fight, Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite: Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side; As death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he stride. And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of men From the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again. Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold; But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they behold Upright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more, Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war, And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.

Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat, And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the harp-strings ran, And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of man, And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning, And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring; He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding of broil. And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is fashioned of toil: Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise, When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead shall arise, And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall pray, And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost day. So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he saw His sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw: But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was, And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass, Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown, And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.

THE SONS OF GIUKI

Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose, And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes: They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of dead; No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led, But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from afar, Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war: Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen acold, And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold: Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King, Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring; And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded sore, And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore, So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall; And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.

Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves accurst, But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and thirst; And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood, Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they stood, And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote, Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat, Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields aside And caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside, And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death: And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath; Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born, Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn; But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forth To the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.

Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last: Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast, And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away, For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay, Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore The cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war; But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown, So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown; And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes: Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close, Nor looked on the foeman's faces as their wild eyes drew anear, And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their fear; But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk, Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.

Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal, Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel, And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly now As the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough, When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land. There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand, There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes, And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise, And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of war. Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar, And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran: But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man, And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the sea The doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery, And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps, And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps: So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hall Did the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall: Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lie Till the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.

_William Morris._

CXIV

IS LIFE WORTH LIVING

Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo's song, To show that she is here; So long as May of April takes, In smiles and tears, farewell, And windflowers dapple all the brakes, And primroses the dell; While children in the woodlands yet Adorn their little laps With ladysmock and violet, And daisy-chain their caps; While over orchard daffodils Cloud-shadows float and fleet, And ousel pipes and laverock trills, And young lambs buck and bleat; So long as that which bursts the bud And swells and tunes the rill Makes springtime in the maiden's blood, Life is worth living still.