That which never To men has bowed 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 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, Fiery words of lightning sense Where the faithful Severn Lilies, swimming on the mere, 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: Deeds, the circle growing! 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 glori ous 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 Dwarfwrought 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 axeman 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: |