Part 3

"Power, fired power, blank and bright! A fit hilt for the hand! The one good sword for a freeman, While yet the cold stars stand!"

Their shouts rolled to the rafters, The air was thick with wine. _I only knew her deep eyes, And felt her hand in mine.

Softly as quiet water, One finger touched my cheek; Her face like gracious moonlight -- I might not move nor speak.

I only saw that beauty, I only felt that form There, in the silken darkness -- God wot my heart was warm!_

Their shouts rolled to the rafters, Another chief began; His slit lips showed him for a Hun; He was an evil man.

"Sing to the joys of women!" he yelled, "The hot delicious tents, The soft couch, and the white limbs; The air a steam of scents!"

His eyes gleamed, and he wet his lips, The rafters shook with cheers, As he sang of woman, who is man's slave For all unhonored years.

"Whether the wanton laughs amain, With one white shoulder bare, Or in a sacked room you unbind Some crouching maiden's hair;

"This is the only good for man, Like spices of the South -- To see the glimmering body laid As pasture to his mouth!

"To leave no lees within the cup, To see and take and rend; To lap a girl's limbs up like wine, And laugh, knowing the end!"

Only, like low, still breathing, I heard one voice, one word; And hot speech poured upon my lips, As my hands held a sword.

"Fools, thrice fools of lust!" I cried, "Your eyes are blind to see Eternal beauty, moving far, More glorious than horns of war! But though my eyes were one blind scar, That sight is shown to me!

"You nuzzle at the ivory side, You clasp the golden head; Fools, fools, who chatter and sing, You have taken the sign of a terrible thing, You have drunk down God with your beeswing, And broken the saints for bread!

"For God moves darkly, In silence and in storm; But in the body of woman He shows one burning form.

"For God moves blindly, In darkness and in dread; But in the body of woman He raises up the dead.

"Gracile and straight as birches, Swift as the questing birds, They fill true-lovers' drink-horns up, Who speak not, having no words.

"Love is not delicate toying, A slim and shimmering mesh; It is two souls wrenched into one, Two bodies made one flesh.

"Lust is a sprightly servant, Gallant where wines are poured; Love is a bitter master, Love is an iron lord.

"Satin ease of the body, Fattened sloth of the hands, These and their like he will not send, Only immortal fires to rend -- And the world's end is your journey's end, And your stream chokes in the sands.

"Pleached calms shall not await you, Peace you shall never find; Nought but the living moorland Scourged naked by the wind.

"Nought but the living moorland, And your love's hand in yours; The strength more sure than surety, The mercy that endures.

"Then, though they give you to be burned, And slay you like a stoat, You have found the world's heart in the turn of a cheek, Heaven in the lift of a throat.

"Although they break you on the wheel, That stood so straight in the sun, Behind you the trumpets split the sky, Where the lost and furious fight goes by -- And God, our God, will have victory When the red day is done!"

Their mirth rolled to the rafters, They bellowed lechery; Light as a drifting feather My love slipped from my knee.

Within, the lights were yellow In drowsy rooms and warm; Without, the stabbing lightning Shattered across the storm.

Within, the great logs crackled, The drink-horns emptied soon; Without, the black cloaks of the clouds Strangled the waning moon.

My love crossed o'er the threshold -- God! but the night was murk! I set myself against the cold, And left them to their work.

Their shouts rolled to the rafters; A bitterer way was mine, And I left them in the tavern, Drinking the yellow wine!