HAROLD HARFAGER

Thick or scattered, stiff or lithe,
It shall down before the scythe.
Forward with your sickles bright,
Reap the harvest of the fight;
Onward footmen, onward horsemen,
To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen !

'Fatal Choosers of the Slaughter,
O'er you hovers Odin's daughter;
Hear the choice she spreads before ye,--
Victory, and wealth, and glory;
Or old Valhalla's roaring hail,
Her ever-circling mead and ale,
Where for eternity unite

The joys of wassail and of fight.

Headlong forward, foot and horsemen,

Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!'

SIR WALTER SCOTT

H

THE DEAD WARRIOR

OME they brought her warrior dead:

She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:

All her maidens, watching, said,

'She must weep or she will die.'

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;

Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stept,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee-
Like summer tempest came her tears-
Sweet my child, I live for thee.'

LORD TENNYSON

·

THE TWO HORSES

FROM THE BATTLE OF THE LAKE REGILLUS '

AST, fast, with heels wild spurning,

FAS

The dark-grey charger fled:

He burst through ranks of fighting men;

He sprang o'er heaps of dead.

His bridle far out-streaming,

His flanks all blood and foam, He sought the southern mountains, The mountains of his home.

The pass was steep and rugged,

The wolves they howled and whined;
But he ran like a whirlwind up the pass,
And he left the wolves behind.
Through many a startled hamlet
Thundered his flying feet;

He rushed through the gate of Tusculum,
He rushed up the long white street;
He rushed by tower and temple,

And paused not from his race

Till he stood before his master's door
In the stately market-place.
And straightway round him gathered
A pale and trembling crowd,

And when they knew him, cries of rage
Brake forth, and wailing loud:

THE TWO HORSES

And women rent their tresses

For their great prince's fall;

And old men girt on their old swords,
And went to man the wall.

But, like a graven image,
Black Auster kept his place,
And ever wistfully he looked
Into his master's face.
The raven-mane that daily,
With pats and fond caresses,

The young Herminia washed and combed,
And twined in even tresses,
And decked with coloured ribands
From her own gay attire,

Hung sadly o'er her father's corpse

In carnage and in mire.

LORD MACAULAY

THE SHAN VAN VOCHT

THE French are on the sea,
Tays the Shan van vocht,

The French are on the sea,
Says the Shan van vocht;
O! the French are in the bay,
They'll be here without delay,
And the Orange will decay,
Says the Shan van vocht.

O the French are in the bay,
They'll be here by break of day,
And the Orange will decay,
Says the Shan van vocht.

And their camp it shall be where?
Says the Shan van vocht;
Their camp it shall be where?

Says the Shan van vocht;
On the Currach of Kildare
The boys they will be there,
With their pikes in good repair,
Says the Shan van vocht.

To the Currach of Kildare
The boys they will repair,
And Lord Edward will be there,
Says the Shan van vocht.