Poems. Volume 2

III

I

 
Lord Dusiote sprang from priest and squire;
   He gazed at her lighted room:
The laughter in his heart grew slack;
He knew not the force that pushed him back
   From her and the morn in bloom.
 

II

 
Like a drowned man’s length on the strong flood-tide,
   Like the shade of a bird in the sun,
He fled from his lady whom he might claim
As ghost, and who made the daybeams flame
   To scare what he had done.
 

III

 
There was grief at Court for one so gay,
   Though he was a lord less keen
For training the vine than at vintage-press;
But in her soul the young princess
   Believed that love had been.
 

IV

 
Lord Dusiote fled the Court and land,
   He crossed the woeful seas,
Till his traitorous doing seemed clearer to burn,
And the lady beloved drew his heart for return,
   Like the banner of war in the breeze.
 

V

 
He neared the palace, he spied the Court,
   And music he heard, and they told
Of foreign lords arrived to bring
The nuptial gifts of a bridegroom king
   To the princess grave and cold.
 

VI

 
The masque and the dance were cloud on wave,
   And down the masque and the dance
Lord Dusiote stepped from dame to dame,
And to the young princess he came,
   With a bow and a burning glance.
 

VII

 
Do you take a new husband to-morrow, lady?
   She shrank as at prick of steel.
Must the first yield place to the second, he sighed.
Her eyes were like the grave that is wide
   For the corpse from head to heel.
 

VIII

 
My lady, my love, that little hand
   Has mine ringed fast in plight:
I bear for your lips a lawful thirst,
And as justly the second should follow the first,
   I come to your door this night.
 

IX

 
If a ghost should come a ghost will go:
   No more the lady said,
Save that ever when he in wrath began
To swear by the faith of a living man,
   She answered him, You are dead.
 

IV

I

 
The soft night-wind went laden to death
   With smell of the orange in flower;
The light leaves prattled to neighbour ears;
The bird of the passion sang over his tears;
   The night named hour by hour.
 

II

 
Sang loud, sang low the rapturous bird
   Till the yellow hour was nigh,
Behind the folds of a darker cloud:
He chuckled, he sobbed, alow, aloud;
   The voice between earth and sky.
 

III

 
O will you, will you, women are weak;
   The proudest are yielding mates
For a forward foot and a tongue of fire:
So thought Lord Dusiote’s trusty squire,
   At watch by the palace-gates.
 

IV

 
The song of the bird was wine in his blood,
   And woman the odorous bloom:
His master’s great adventure stirred
Within him to mingle the bloom and bird,
   And morn ere its coming illume.
 

V

 
Beside him strangely a piece of the dark
   Had moved, and the undertones
Of a priest in prayer, like a cavernous wave,
He heard, as were there a soul to save
   For urgency now in the groans.
 

VI

 
No priest was hired for the play this night:
   And the squire tossed head like a deer
At sniff of the tainted wind; he gazed
Where cresset-lamps in a door were raised,
   Belike on a passing bier.
 

VII

 
All cloaked and masked, with naked blades,
   That flashed of a judgement done,
The lords of the Court, from the palace-door,
Came issuing silently, bearers four,
   And flat on their shoulders one.
 

VIII

 
They marched the body to squire and priest,
   They lowered it sad to earth:
The priest they gave the burial dole,
Bade wrestle hourly for his soul,
   Who was a lord of worth.
 

IX

 
One said, farewell to a gallant knight!
   And one, but a restless ghost!
’Tis a year and a day since in this place
He died, sped high by a lady of grace
   To join the blissful host.
 

X

 
Not vainly on us she charged her cause,
   The lady whom we revere
For faith in the mask of a love untrue
To the Love we honour, the Love her due,
   The Love we have vowed to rear.
 

XI

 
A trap for the sweet tooth, lures for the light,
   For the fortress defiant a mine:
Right well!  But not in the South, princess,
Shall the lady snared of her nobleness
   Ever shamed or a captive pine.
 

XII

 
When the South had voice of a nightingale
   Above a Maying bower,
On the heights of Love walked radiant peers;
The bird of the passion sang over his tears
   To the breeze and the orange-flower.
 

KING HARALD’S TRANCE

I

 
Sword in length a reaping-hook amain
Harald sheared his field, blood up to shank:
      ’Mid the swathes of slain,
      First at moonrise drank.
 

II

 
Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife,
Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach
      Home and his young wife,
      Nigh the sea-ford beach.
 

III

 
After battle keen to feed was he:
Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast,
      Like an angry sea
      Ships from keel to mast.
 

IV

 
Name us glory, singer, name us pride
Matching Harald’s in his deeds of strength;
      Chiefs, wife, sword by side,
      Foemen stretched their length!
 

V

 
Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed,
Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high,
      Till awink he bade
      Wife to chamber fly.
 

VI

 
Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,
Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;
      Mountain on his trunk,
      Ocean on his head.
 

VII

 
Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked
Whispers that at heart made iron-clang:
      Here fool-women clucked,
      There men held harangue.
 

VIII

 
Burial to fit their lord of war
They decreed him: hailed the kingling: ha!
      Hateful! but this Thor
      Failed a weak lamb’s baa.
 

IX

 
King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,
Weighted so, like quaking shingle spume,
      When his blood’s own heir
      Ripened in the womb!
 

X

 
Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran
Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw:
      Woman stood with man
      Mouthing low, at paw.
 

XI

 
Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing
Armed to split a mountain, sunder seas:
      Still the frozen king
      Lay and felt him freeze.
 

XII

 
Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced,
Riderless, in ghost across a ground
      Flint of breast, blank-faced,
      Past the fleshly bound.
 

XIII

 
Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might:
Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand:
      Hand for sword at right
      Groped, the great haft spanned.
 

XIV

 
Wonder struck to ice his people’s eyes:
Him they saw, the prone upon the bier,
      Sheer from backbone rise,
      Sword uplifting peer.
 

XV

 
Sitting did he breathe against the blade,
Standing kiss it for that proof of life:
      Strode, as netters wade,
      Straightway to his wife.
 

XVI

 
Her he eyed: his judgement was one word,
Foulbed! and she fell: the blow clove two.
      Fearful for the third,
      All their breath indrew.
 

XVII

 
Morning danced along the waves to beach;
Dumb his chiefs fetched breath for what might hap:
      Glassily on each
      Stared the iron cap.
 

XVIII

 
Sudden, as it were a monster oak
Split to yield a limb by stress of heat,
      Strained he, staggered, broke
      Doubled at their feet.
 

WHIMPER OF SYMPATHY

 
Hawk or shrike has done this deed
Of downy feathers: rueful sight!
Sweet sentimentalist, invite
Your bosom’s Power to intercede.
 
 
So hard it seems that one must bleed
Because another needs will bite!
All round we find cold Nature slight
The feelings of the totter-knee’d.
 
 
O it were pleasant with you
To fly from this tussle of foes,
The shambles, the charnel, the wrinkle!
To dwell in yon dribble of dew
On the cheek of your sovereign rose,
And live the young life of a twinkle.
 

YOUNG REYNARD

I

 
Gracefullest leaper, the dappled fox-cub
Curves over brambles with berries and buds,
Light as a bubble that flies from the tub,
Whisked by the laundry-wife out of her suds.
Wavy he comes, woolly, all at his ease,
Elegant, fashioned to foot with the deuce;
Nature’s own prince of the dance: then he sees
Me, and retires as if making excuse.
 

II

 
Never closed minuet courtlier!  Soon
Cub-hunting troops were abroad, and a yelp
Told of sure scent: ere the stroke upon noon
Reynard the younger lay far beyond help.
Wild, my poor friend, has the fate to be chased;
Civil will conquer: were ’t other ’twere worse;
Fair, by the flushed early morning embraced,
Haply you live a day longer in verse.
 

MANFRED

I

 
Projected from the bilious Childe,
This clatterjaw his foot could set
On Alps, without a breast beguiled
To glow in shedding rascal sweat.
Somewhere about his grinder teeth,
He mouthed of thoughts that grilled beneath,
And summoned Nature to her feud
With bile and buskin Attitude.
 

II

 
Considerably was the world
Of spinsterdom and clergy racked
While he his hinted horrors hurled,
And she pictorially attacked.
A duel hugeous.  Tragic?  Ho!
The cities, not the mountains, blow
Such bladders; in their shapes confessed
An after-dinner’s indigest.
 

HERNANI

 
Cistercians might crack their sides
With laughter, and exemption get,
At sight of heroes clasping brides,
And hearing—O the horn! the horn!
The horn of their obstructive debt!
 
 
But quit the stage, that note applies
For sermons cosmopolitan,
Hernani.  Have we filched our prize,
Forgetting . . .?  O the horn! the horn!
The horn of the Old Gentleman!
 

THE NUPTIALS OF ATTILA

I

 
Flat as to an eagle’s eye,
   Earth hung under Attila.
Sign for carnage gave he none.
In the peace of his disdain,
Sun and rain, and rain and sun,
Cherished men to wax again,
Crawl, and in their manner die.
On his people stood a frost.
Like the charger cut in stone,
Rearing stiff, the warrior host,
Which had life from him alone,
Craved the trumpet’s eager note,
As the bridled earth the Spring.
Rusty was the trumpet’s throat.
He let chief and prophet rave;
Venturous earth around him string
Threads of grass and slender rye,
Wave them, and untrampled wave.
O for the time when God did cry,
   Eye and have, my Attila!
 

II

 
Scorn of conquest filled like sleep
Him that drank of havoc deep
When the Green Cat pawed the globe:
When the horsemen from his bow
Shot in sheaves and made the foe
Crimson fringes of a robe,
Trailed o’er towns and fields in woe;
When they streaked the rivers red,
When the saddle was the bed.
   Attila, my Attila!
 

III

 
He breathed peace and pulled a flower.
   Eye and have, my Attila!
This was the damsel Ildico,
Rich in bloom until that hour:
Shyer than the forest doe
Twinkling slim through branches green.
Yet the shyest shall be seen.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

IV

 
Seen of Attila, desired,
She was led to him straightway:
Radiantly was she attired;
Rifled lands were her array,
Jewels bled from weeping crowns,
Gold of woeful fields and towns.
She stood pallid in the light.
How she walked, how withered white,
From the blessing to the board,
She who would have proudly blushed,
Women whispered, asking why,
Hinting of a youth, and hushed.
Was it terror of her lord?
Was she childish? was she sly?
Was it the bright mantle’s dye
Drained her blood to hues of grief
Like the ash that shoots the spark?
See the green tree all in leaf:
See the green tree stripped of bark!—
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

V

 
Round the banquet-table’s load
Scores of iron horsemen rode;
Chosen warriors, keen and hard;
Grain of threshing battle-dints;
Attila’s fierce body-guard,
Smelling war like fire in flints.
Grant them peace be fugitive!
Iron-capped and iron-heeled,
Each against his fellow’s shield
Smote the spear-head, shouting, Live,
   Attila! my Attila!
Eagle, eagle of our breed,
Eagle, beak the lamb, and feed!
Have her, and unleash us! live,
   Attila! my Attila!
 

VI

 
He was of the blood to shine
Bronze in joy, like skies that scorch.
Beaming with the goblet wine
In the wavering of the torch,
Looked he backward on his bride.
   Eye and have, my Attila!
Fair in her wide robe was she:
Where the robe and vest divide,
Fair she seemed surpassingly:
Soft, yet vivid as the stream
Danube rolls in the moonbeam
Through rock-barriers: but she smiled
Never, she sat cold as salt:
Open-mouthed as a young child
Wondering with a mind at fault.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

VII

 
Under the thin hoop of gold
Whence in waves her hair outrolled,
’Twixt her brows the women saw
Shadows of a vulture’s claw
Gript in flight: strange knots that sped
Closing and dissolving aye:
Such as wicked dreams betray
When pale dawn creeps o’er the bed.
They might show the common pang
Known to virgins, in whom dread
Hunts their bliss like famished hounds;
While the chiefs with roaring rounds
Tossed her to her lord, and sang
Praise of him whose hand was large,
Cheers for beauty brought to yield,
Chirrups of the trot afield,
Hurrahs of the battle-charge.
 

VIII

 
Those rock-faces hung with weed
Reddened: their great days of speed,
Slaughter, triumph, flood and flame,
Like a jealous frenzy wrought,
Scoffed at them and did them shame,
Quaffing idle, conquering nought.
O for the time when God decreed
   Earth the prey of Attila!
God called on thee in his wrath,
Trample it to mire!  ’Twas done.
Swift as Danube clove our path
Down from East to Western sun.
Huns! behold your pasture, gaze,
Take, our king said: heel to flank
(Whisper it, the war-horse neighs!)
Forth we drove, and blood we drank
Fresh as dawn-dew: earth was ours:
Men were flocks we lashed and spurned:
Fast as windy flame devours,
Flame along the wind, we burned.
Arrow javelin, spear, and sword!
Here the snows and there the plains;
On! our signal: onward poured
Torrents of the tightened reins,
Foaming over vine and corn
Hot against the city-wall.
Whisper it, you sound a horn
To the grey beast in the stall!
Yea, he whinnies at a nod.
O for sound of the trumpet-notes!
O for the time when thunder-shod,
He that scarce can munch his oats,
Hung on the peaks, brooded aloof,
Champed the grain of the wrath of God,
Pressed a cloud on the cowering roof,
Snorted out of the blackness fire!
Scarlet broke the sky, and down,
Hammering West with print of his hoof,
He burst out of the bosom of ire
Sharp as eyelight under thy frown,
   Attila, my Attila!
 

IX

 
Ravaged cities rolling smoke
Thick on cornfields dry and black,
Wave his banners, bear his yoke.
Track the lightning, and you track
Attila.  They moan: ’tis he!
Bleed: ’tis he!  Beneath his foot
Leagues are deserts charred and mute;
Where he passed, there passed a sea.
   Attila, my Attila!
 

X

 
—Who breathed on the king cold breath?
Said a voice amid the host,
He is Death that weds a ghost,
Else a ghost that weds with Death?
Ildico’s chill little hand
Shuddering he beheld: austere
Stared, as one who would command
Sight of what has filled his ear:
Plucked his thin beard, laughed disdain.
Feast, ye Huns!  His arm be raised,
Like the warrior, battle-dazed,
Joining to the fight amain.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XI

 
Silent Ildico stood up.
King and chief to pledge her well,
Shocked sword sword and cup on cup,
Clamouring like a brazen bell.
Silent stepped the queenly slave.
Fair, by heaven! she was to meet
On a midnight, near a grave,
Flapping wide the winding-sheet.
 

XII

 
Death and she walked through the crowd,
Out beyond the flush of light.
Ceremonious women bowed
Following her: ’twas middle night.
Then the warriors each on each
Spied, nor overloudly laughed;
Like the victims of the leech,
Who have drunk of a strange draught.
 

XIII

 
Attila remained.  Even so
Frowned he when he struck the blow,
Brained his horse, that stumbled twice,
On a bloody day in Gaul,
Bellowing, Perish omens!  All
Marvelled at the sacrifice,
But the battle, swinging dim,
Rang off that axe-blow for him.
   Attila, my Attila!
 

XIV

 
Brightening over Danube wheeled
Star by star; and she, most fair,
Sweet as victory half-revealed,
Seized to make him glad and young;
She, O sweet as the dark sign
Given him oft in battles gone,
When the voice within said, Dare!
And the trumpet-notes were sprung
Rapturous for the charge in line:
She lay waiting: fair as dawn
Wrapped in folds of night she lay;
Secret, lustrous; flaglike there,
Waiting him to stream and ray,
With one loosening blush outflung,
Colours of his hordes of horse
Ranked for combat; still he hung
Like the fever dreading air,
Cursed of heat; and as a corse
Gathers vultures, in his brain
Images of her eyes and kiss
Plucked at the limbs that could remain
Loitering nigh the doors of bliss.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XV

 
Passion on one hand, on one,
Destiny led forth the Hun.
Heard ye outcries of affright,
Voices that through many a fray,
In the press of flag and spear,
Warned the king of peril near?
Men were dumb, they gave him way,
Eager heads to left and right,
Like the bearded standard, thrust,
As in battle, for a nod
From their lord of battle-dust.
   Attila, my Attila!
Slow between the lines he trod.
Saw ye not the sun drop slow
On this nuptial day, ere eve
Pierced him on the couch aglow?
   Attila, my Attila!
Here and there his heart would cleave
Clotted memory for a space:
Some stout chief’s familiar face,
Choicest of his fighting brood,
Touched him, as ’twere one to know
Ere he met his bride’s embrace.
   Attila, my Attila!
Twisting fingers in a beard
Scant as winter underwood,
With a narrowed eye he peered;
Like the sunset’s graver red
Up old pine-stems.  Grave he stood
Eyeing them on whom was shed
Burning light from him alone.
   Attila, my Attila!
Red were they whose mouths recalled
Where the slaughter mounted high,
High on it, o’er earth appalled,
He; heaven’s finger in their sight
Raising him on waves of dead,
Up to heaven his trumpets blown.
O for the time when God’s delight
   Crowned the head of Attila!
Hungry river of the crag
Stretching hands for earth he came:
Force and Speed astride his name
Pointed back to spear and flag.
He came out of miracle cloud,
Lightning-swift and spectre-lean.
Now those days are in a shroud:
Have him to his ghostly queen.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XVI

 
One, with winecups overstrung,
Cried him farewell in Rome’s tongue.
Who? for the great king turned as though
Wrath to the shaft’s head strained the bow.
Nay, not wrath the king possessed,
But a radiance of the breast.
In that sound he had the key
Of his cunning malady.
Lo, where gleamed the sapphire lake,
Leo, with his Rome at stake,
Drew blank air to hues and forms;
Whereof Two that shone distinct,
Linked as orbed stars are linked,
Clear among the myriad swarms,
In a constellation, dashed
Full on horse and rider’s eyes
Sunless light, but light it was—
Light that blinded and abashed,
Froze his members, bade him pause,
Caught him mid-gallop, blazed him home.
   Attila, my Attila!
What are streams that cease to flow?
What was Attila, rolled thence,
Cheated by a juggler’s show?
Like that lake of blue intense,
Under tempest lashed to foam,
Lurid radiance, as he passed,
Filled him, and around was glassed,
When deep-voiced he uttered, Rome!
 

XVII

 
Rome! the word was: and like meat
Flung to dogs the word was torn.
Soon Rome’s magic priests shall bleat
Round their magic Pope forlorn!
Loud they swore the king had sworn
Vengeance on the Roman cheat,
Ere he passed, as, grave and still,
Danube through the shouting hill:
Sworn it by his naked life!
Eagle, snakes these women are:
Take them on the wing! but war,
Smoking war’s the warrior’s wife!
Then for plunder! then for brides
Won without a winking priest!—
Danube whirled his train of tides
Black toward the yellow East.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XVIII

 
Chirrups of the trot afield,
Hurrahs of the battle-charge,
How they answered, how they pealed,
When the morning rose and drew
Bow and javelin, lance and targe,
In the nuptial casement’s view!
   Attila, my Attila!
Down the hillspurs, out of tents
Glimmering in mid-forest, through
Mists of the cool morning scents,
Forth from city-alley, court,
Arch, the bounding horsemen flew,
Joined along the plains of dew,
Raced and gave the rein to sport,
Closed and streamed like curtain-rents
Fluttered by a wind, and flowed
Into squadrons: trumpets blew,
Chargers neighed, and trappings glowed
Brave as the bright Orient’s.
Look on the seas that run to greet
Sunrise: look on the leagues of wheat:
Look on the lines and squares that fret
Leaping to level the lance blood-wet.
Tens of thousands, man and steed,
Tossing like field-flowers in Spring;
Ready to be hurled at need
Whither their great lord may sling.
Finger Romeward, Romeward, King!
   Attila, my Attila!
Still the woman holds him fast
As a night-flag round the mast.
 

XIX

 
Nigh upon the fiery noon,
Out of ranks a roaring burst.
’Ware white women like the moon!
They are poison: they have thirst
First for love, and next for rule.
Jealous of the army, she?
Ho, the little wanton fool!
We were his before she squealed
Blind for mother’s milk, and heeled
Kicking on her mother’s knee.
His in life and death are we:
She but one flower of a field.
We have given him bliss tenfold
In an hour to match her night:
   Attila, my Attila!
Still her arms the master hold,
As on wounds the scarf winds tight.
 

XX

 
Over Danube day no more,
Like the warrior’s planted spear,
Stood to hail the King: in fear
Western day knocked at his door.
   Attila, my Attila!
Sudden in the army’s eyes
Rolled a blast of lights and cries:
Flashing through them: Dead are ye!
Dead, ye Huns, and torn piecemeal!
See the ordered army reel
Stricken through the ribs: and see,
Wild for speed to cheat despair,
Horsemen, clutching knee to chin,
Crouch and dart they know not where.
   Attila, my Attila!
Faces covered, faces bare,
Light the palace-front like jets
Of a dreadful fire within.
Beating hands and driving hair
Start on roof and parapets.
Dust rolls up; the slaughter din.
—Death to them who call him dead!
Death to them who doubt the tale!
Choking in his dusty veil,
Sank the sun on his death-bed.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XXI

 
’Tis the room where thunder sleeps.
Frenzy, as a wave to shore
Surging, burst the silent door,
And drew back to awful deeps
Breath beaten out, foam-white.  Anew
Howled and pressed the ghastly crew,
Like storm-waters over rocks.
   Attila, my Attila!
One long shaft of sunset red
Laid a finger on the bed.
Horror, with the snaky locks,
Shocked the surge to stiffened heaps,
Hoary as the glacier’s head
Faced to the moon.  Insane they look.
God it is in heaven who weeps
Fallen from his hand the Scourge he shook.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XXII

 
Square along the couch, and stark,
Like the sea-rejected thing
Sea-sucked white, behold their King.
   Attila, my Attila!
Beams that panted black and bright,
Scornful lightnings danced their sight:
Him they see an oak in bud,
Him an oaklog stripped of bark:
Him, their lord of day and night,
White, and lifting up his blood
Dumb for vengeance.  Name us that,
Huddled in the corner dark
Humped and grinning like a cat,
Teeth for lips!—’tis she! she stares,
Glittering through her bristled hairs.
Rend her!  Pierce her to the hilt!
She is Murder: have her out!
What! this little fist, as big
As the southern summer fig!
She is Madness, none may doubt.
Death, who dares deny her guilt!
Death, who says his blood she spilt!
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XXIII

 
Torch and lamp and sunset-red
Fell three-fingered on the bed.
In the torch the beard-hair scant
With the great breast seemed to pant:
In the yellow lamp the limbs
Wavered, as the lake-flower swims:
In the sunset red the dead
Dead avowed him, dry blood-red.
 

XXIV

 
Hatred of that abject slave,
Earth, was in each chieftain’s heart.
Earth has got him, whom God gave,
Earth may sing, and earth shall smart!
   Attila, my Attila!
 

XXV

 
Thus their prayer was raved and ceased.
Then had Vengeance of her feast
Scent in their quick pang to smite
Which they knew not, but huge pain
Urged them for some victim slain
Swift, and blotted from the sight.
Each at each, a crouching beast,
Glared, and quivered for the word.
Each at each, and all on that,
Humped and grinning like a cat,
Head-bound with its bridal-wreath.
Then the bitter chamber heard
Vengeance in a cauldron seethe.
Hurried counsel rage and craft
Yelped to hungry men, whose teeth
Hard the grey lip-ringlet gnawed,
Gleaming till their fury laughed.
With the steel-hilt in the clutch,
Eyes were shot on her that froze
In their blood-thirst overawed;
Burned to rend, yet feared to touch.
She that was his nuptial rose,
She was of his heart’s blood clad:
Oh! the last of him she had!—
Could a little fist as big
As the southern summer fig,
Push a dagger’s point to pierce
Ribs like those?  Who else!  They glared
Each at each.  Suspicion fierce
Many a black remembrance bared.
   Attila, my Attila!
Death, who dares deny her guilt!
Death, who says his blood she spilt!
Traitor he, who stands between!
Swift to hell, who harms the Queen!
She, the wild contention’s cause,
Combed her hair with quiet paws.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XXVI

 
Night was on the host in arms.
Night, as never night before,
Hearkened to an army’s roar
Breaking up in snaky swarms:
Torch and steel and snorting steed,
Hunted by the cry of blood,
Cursed with blindness, mad for day.
Where the torches ran a flood,
Tales of him and of the deed
Showered like a torrent spray.
Fear of silence made them strive
Loud in warrior-hymns that grew
Hoarse for slaughter yet unwreaked.
Ghostly Night across the hive,
With a crimson finger drew
Letters on her breast and shrieked.
Night was on them like the mould
On the buried half alive.
Night, their bloody Queen, her fold
Wound on them and struck them through.
   Make the bed for Attila!
 

XXVII

 
Earth has got him whom God gave,
Earth may sing, and earth shall smart!
None of earth shall know his grave.
They that dig with Death depart.
   Attila, my Attila!
 

XXVIII

 
Thus their prayer was raved and passed:
Passed in peace their red sunset:
Hewn and earthed those men of sweat
Who had housed him in the vast,
Where no mortal might declare,
There lies he—his end was there!
   Attila, my Attila!
 

XXIX

 
Kingless was the army left:
Of its head the race bereft.
Every fury of the pit
Tortured and dismembered it.
Lo, upon a silent hour,
When the pitch of frost subsides,
Danube with a shout of power
Loosens his imprisoned tides:
Wide around the frighted plains
Shake to hear his riven chains,
Dreadfuller than heaven in wrath,
As he makes himself a path:
High leap the ice-cracks, towering pile
Floes to bergs, and giant peers
Wrestle on a drifted isle;
Island on ice-island rears;
Dissolution battles fast:
Big the senseless Titans loom,
Through a mist of common doom
Striving which shall die the last:
Till a gentle-breathing morn
Frees the stream from bank to bank.
So the Empire built of scorn
Agonized, dissolved and sank.
Of the Queen no more was told
Than of leaf on Danube rolled.
   Make the bed for Attila!