Classic Poem

In valleys moon-hid or far wastes forlorn,
The pipes of battle skirl.
Whirl, battle, whirl!
From the long tables of the feast
Troop the war-maidens. Monstrous shapes and dim,
Black-winged stallions, shed with flame, await;
" To horse! " shrieks Heindall. " In the mystic East,
The thin stars waver and grow pale. "
And straight
Up the wide arc of empty sky they spring
Swift galloping:
While on their gleaming mail,
Soft star-fire fades and flickers.

Weep not for those that died.
Full thousand years ago, the shapeless Norns,
In caverned dusk, beat out the fateful runes
On Odin's shield. All lovely April morns,
All golden afternoons summer afternoons.
All joy, all pain,
Are but a stop in the resistless march
Of world on world;
Until the Giants break the rainbow arch,
And all the Gods are into chaos hurled,
And the All-Father is alone again.
O gently lift the warrior-dead, —
Cool hands immaculate, —
Smooth from his brow all suffering and hate,
Crown the fair wounded head
With gnome-wrought circlet of red gold.
Mid whirr of countless wings invisible,
They soar and sweep through pale dawn-glimmering, —
Torn by the talons of the rising gale,
The hurrying clouds are hurled
Across the pallid moon; and o'er the world
The lights die one by one ...
O what avail
The useless graves upon the hill —
The winding-sheets by mother-fingers spun ...?
Stark through the wailing of the wind, unbound,
The brazen war-throats burst,
Accurst!
And break the column still,
A flaming rocket-star of sound.

Down the white highway panic hoof-beats thrum,
Wild-horsed, one thunders past
Storm-throated. Villages afar
Wake to a scream above the whistling blast,
" War! War! "
And now they come,
From rose-wreathed farm and quiet hamlet creeping,
Flaring the fight, red-nostriled, helmeted, —
High-hearted Youth,
Thin faces sure led with Truth.
A million dead,
Weary of war, stir in their ageless sleeping ...

In the high heaven, beyond the utmost gate
That mortal vision bars,
Where summer days unborn
Sleep mid the windy stars, —
Elate
Blares Baldur's silver trumpet-call,
From Odin's court-yard. Up the warriors leap,
In the high-vaulted here-hall,
For somewhere down the weary world asleep,
Far, far below, a vanquished King,
Fear-driven down the world,
Hears faintly in the voices of the gale
A mighty shout where, Orient-impearled,
Valhalla opens wide its gate:
" Hail, hero, Hail! "

In royal state,
Quaff deep the Ever-Living; then alone,
The youngest Valkyr climbs the winding stair
To Odin's empty throne,
Soft comes the sound of revelry
Into the pale and nervous air;
And a thin melody
Is all the shouting battle-song.
On God's far garden-wall the maiden sees,
March up the East dawn's awful blazonries,
All tremulous, the slendor hands of day,
And sails adream the azure deep along;
All wastrels of the night that hide away
At sunrise; every flower and bird and tree,
Each slumbering wee child, —
The fisher's shelter by the sea,
And the lone huntsman in the wild ...

See! In the youngest Valkyr's eyes,
Swift tears arise —
For in a cottage where the roses creep,
A smiling mother whispers in her sleep.