Part 30

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.