Songs from Books

Not to be cowed by the cudgel, scarce to be schooled by the sword;
Quick to turn at their pleasure, cruel to cross in their mood,
And set on paths of their choosing as the hogs of Andred's Wood.
Laws they made in the Witan – the laws of flaying and fine —
Common, loppage and pannage, the theft and the track of kine —
Statutes of tun and market for the fish and the malt and the meal —
The tax on the Bramber packhorse and the tax on the Hastings keel.
Over the graves of the Druids and under the wreck of Rome
Rudely but surely they bedded the plinth of the days to come.
Behind the feet of the Legions and before the Norseman's ire,
Rudely but greatly begat they the framing of state and shire.
Rudely but deeply they laboured, and their labour stands till now,
If we trace on our ancient headlands the twist of their eight-ox plough.
There came a king from Hamtun, by Bosenham he came.
He filled Use with slaughter, and Lewes he gave to flame.
He smote while they sat in the Witan – sudden he smote and sore,
That his fleet was gathered at Selsea ere they mustered at Cymen's Ore.
Blithe went the Saxons to battle, by down and wood and mere,
But thrice the acorns ripened ere the western mark was clear.
Thrice was the beechmast gathered, and the Beltane fires burned
Thrice, and the beeves were salted thrice ere the host returned.
They drove that king from Hamtun, by Bosenham o'erthrown,
Out of Rugnor to Wilton they made his land their own.
Camps they builded at Gilling, at Basing and Alresford,
But wrath abode in the Saxons from cottar to overlord.
Wrath at the weary war-game, at the foe that snapped and ran
Wolf-wise feigning and flying, and wolf-wise snatching his man.
Wrath for their spears unready, their levies new to the blades —
Shame for the helpless sieges and the scornful ambuscades.
At hearth and tavern and market, wherever the tale was told,
Shame and wrath had the Saxons because of their boasts of old.
And some would drink and deny it, and some would pray and atone;
But the most part, after their anger, avouched that the sin was their own.
Wherefore, girding together, up to the Witan they came,
And as they had shouldered their bucklers so did they shoulder their blame.
For that was the wont of the Saxons (the ancient poets sing),
And first they spoke in the Witan and then they spoke to the King:
'Edward King of the Saxons, thou knowest from sire to son,
'One is the King and his People – in gain and ungain one.
'Count we the gain together. With doubtings and spread dismays
'We have broken a foolish people – but after many days.
'Count we the loss together. Warlocks hampered our arms,
'We were tricked as by magic, we were turned as by charms.
'We went down to the battle and the road was plain to keep,
'But our angry eyes were holden, and we struck as they strike in sleep —
'Men new shaken from slumber, sweating, with eyes a-stare
'Little blows uncertain dealt on the useless air.
'Also a vision betrayed us, and a lying tale made bold
'That we looked to hold what we had not and to have what we did not hold:
'That a shield should give us shelter – that a sword should give us power —
'A shield snatched up at a venture and a hilt scarce handled an hour:
'That being rich in the open, we should be strong in the close —
'And the Gods would sell us a cunning for the day that we met our foes.
'This was the work of wizards, but not with our foe they bide,
'In our own camp we took them, and their names are Sloth and Pride.
'Our pride was before the battle: our sloth ere we lifted spear,
'But hid in the heart of the people as the fever hides in the mere,
'Waiting only the war-game, the heat of the strife to rise
'As the ague fumes round Oxeney when the rotting reed-bed dries.
'But now we are purged of that fever – cleansed by the letting of blood,
'Something leaner of body – something keener of mood.
'And the men new-freed from the levies return to the fields again,
'Matching a hundred battles, cottar and lord and thane.
'And they talk aloud in the temples where the ancient wargods are.
'They thumb and mock and belittle the holy harness of war.
'They jest at the sacred chariots, the robes and the gilded staff.
'These things fill them with laughter, they lean on their spears and laugh.
'The men grown old in the war-game, hither and thither they range —
'And scorn and laughter together are sire and dam of change;
'And change may be good or evil – but we know not what it will bring,
'Therefore our King must teach us. That is thy task, O King!'

POSEIDON'S LAW

When the robust and Brass-bound Man commissioned first for sea
His fragile raft, Poseidon laughed, and 'Mariner,' said he,
'Behold, a Law immutable I lay on thee and thine,
That never shall ye act or tell a falsehood at my shrine.

'Let Zeus adjudge your landward kin, whose votive meal and salt
At easy-cheated altars win oblivion for the fault,
But you the unhoodwinked wave shall test – the immediate gulf condemn —
Except ye owe the Fates a jest, be slow to jest with them.

'Ye shall not clear by Greekly speech, nor cozen from your path
The twinkling shoal, the leeward beach, and Hadria's white-lipped wrath;
Nor tempt with painted cloth for wood my fraud-avenging hosts;
Nor make at all, or all make good, your bulwarks and your boasts.

'Now and henceforward serve unshod, through wet and wakeful shifts,
A present and oppressive God, but take, to aid, my gifts —
The wide and windward-opening eye, the large and lavish hand,
The soul that cannot tell a lie – except upon the land!'

In dromond and in catafract – wet, wakeful, windward-eyed —
He kept Poseidon's Law intact (his ship and freight beside),
But, once discharged the dromond's hold, the bireme beached once more,
Splendaciously mendacious rolled the Brass-bound Man ashore.

The thranite now and thalamite are pressures low and high,