HIM, wounded, shackled, pricked with spears,
they dragged and goaded through the
town.
Up the soaked hill ‘neath dripping boughs, across
steep ditches slipping down ;
Him, gagged and gyved, they struck and jarred, and
nudged each other: “Being freed,
How shall he thank us? When we loose these leathern
thongs he shall not bleed!”
Through the wet night they trudged; at length they
halted; far away the surge
Moaned, muffled through the mist. They watched the
night ebb and the dawn emerge;
Then many came : “Is he, then, all the glory of that
great sea-fight?”
“This is their chief,” one said; “the rest sank or were
slain, for none took flight.”
One cried: “With us these pirates strove: their one
ship ‘mid our galleys lay.
Hour after bloody hour, our men they stabbed and
slew through that long fray.
This victim, for our vengeance, God has yielded to us.
See him here –
Praise to the saints I Let him be soothed with horror,
torture, death, and fear!”
Naked, they kicked him from the ground to where,
abrupt, a jagged pit
Sank from the green grass and green trees, and thrust
and flung him into it.
With ready swords and bows alert they stood; one,
reaching downward, cut
With a long lance his gag and bonds. They watched
his stiff mouth gape and shut.
The red, round sun burnt up the mist; day from the
dripping night uprose
At them he blinked; at him they leered, and watched
his fingers stretch and close.
“Where are thy weapons? Lostl” they jeered.
“Where is thy life? Dost call it such?
How fares thy hope? ‘Twill be our joy! Our one
gift wilt thou deign to touch?”
Thereat they scoffed, and over him untrapped a cage
of vipers warmed
With fire to fury, which on him fell writhing – up his
legs they swarmed;
And he at those cruel faces close around above him
upward glared:
“Lean down your craven necks!” he cried, “to ask this
boon I had not dared!
“As on black torrents of sore woe let my life ebb – my
death behold !
Let these fangs pierce me, ye shall hear but my
derision, as of old.
Do ye not dread to breathe this air envenomed? Nay,
these would not heed
Such carrion as yourselves; but me? My good blood
they would suck indeed !
Lean close. My death shall vanquish you I Do I not
triumph even now?
Gaze on the earth, the sky, the sun; now look upon my
steadfast brow !
Ye shall remember this my death – sky, sun, and earth
shall echo it.
And all the years you each shall know, mark how J.
tread them in this pit
“I die as gladly as I lived! This valiant night, in
Odin’s hall,
In proud Valhalla I shall drink and banquet with the
gods, who all
Shall hearken to this triumph when from your noctur-
nal terror, I,
Inebriate from the earth, recount the bliss I feel now
as I die I
‘Last night we sang to your black priests a mass of
running blood. Ashore
Last month with us ye ate the flesh of stallions offered
up to Thor;
Meek vassals then, ye renegades, filched your poor
meed of courage thus –
The haughty gods, in merry pride, resenting this, made
sport of us.
“For, gaily from our northern realms, as ’twere for a
brief cruise, we sailed
To take your tribute, and we spied, tense in the bay,
your far fleet, veiled
Deep in the ocean mist. We knew then how ye
thought that treachery
Could, with your numbers, swamp our strength. We
flashed toward you through the sea !
“My one ship with your many strove. The gods, in
giving men the earth.
Said, ‘Ye shall strive and laugh and die !’ Shall we
lie snug in creek and firth
When there are lands to find and quell? The world
stores up its wealth – ’tis ours !
And we ransack your lands for it when we have burnt
your huts and towers !
“Lean down and mark how I exult now in my proud,
unflinching end.
Your oarsmen lashed with iron and lead bled not as
ye bled, slain and penned
Thick on your red decks, burnt anon to show your
many sails in flight –
Our swords snapped; with their butts we stabbed and
slew your hosts till noon was night.
“Our one ship, too, flamed high. The huge white
billows plunged and reared and sank!
My comrades all were drowned or killed. Half-dead,
I swam, I seized a plank –
I grasped a ship and clambered up, and struck one
down, and snatched his sword.
While limply to the helm I clung and many a skull I
split and gored.
“Lean down – stare at me – keep my scorn! So, at
the last, the steep deck tipped
Up from the slanting seas, and you all tottered down on
me – I slipped.
Victorious then, your stifling bulk held me, who,
crippled, singly fought
Against your onrush. Me you bound, and now, behold !
you are my sport!
“These serpents numb me; yet no less still in my death
I vanquish you.
My kinsmen shall avenge me, yet my curse shall taint
your horror too –
Still must I smile, as if to prove my happy gods out-
glory yours
Here while I lapse from this joy now to that to which
my being soars I
“See how I pluck them from the ground, and how their
sharp fangs pierce my skin!
My limbs swell with their venom. Laugh – laugh with
me ! Pale from brow to chin.
You hang like wintry clouds because, like strife to us –
a daily need –
Fear is to you the piteous grief that shivers in your
mawkish creed!”
At his loud scorn they flinched and stirred, and as the
east ere dawn lies pale,
Then flushes slowly, gradually their grim unrest black
like a gale
Burst red with rage tempestuous; they spat upon him,
and their teeth
Frothed, their eyes flamed, and they hurled down sand,
stones, and bark, and clutched-up heath.
Hard by a crumbling hovel lay; they gathered rafters,
shingles, thatch,
Tore down the long, dry sapling fence. They yelled :
“Perchance our fire shall hatch
Some terror in you; we shall see!” And lighted straw
and embers red
They rained upon him. He stood still. Blood
trickled from his cheeks and head.
They dragged and rolled down logs and trunks till all
the pit was deep in fuel,
Whereon he climbed, and he stood mute. He
gazed up at their faces cruel,
Fixed, fierce, and pale. They clustered round. With
sickening dread on him their eyes
Were dull and strained; and round his feet he felt the
warm smoke wreathe and rise.
He smiled. The stealthy fire drew near, and licked
his feet, and crackled loud.
He cried: “I thank the gods for this – that, being dead,
my body proud
Shall not be humbled, spurned, or hung to poison earth
with, and the sky.
For in this smoke, up through the blue, I mount to
Asgard, even I !
“Now shall I know the pangs of Thor when to Him-
self, Himself, nine days
Hung on the vast Ygdrasil tree ! From shameful sick-
beds ye shall gaze
On fearful death, shut ever off from hope of bright
Valhalla thus –
War is the fruit of life, the joy of valour keen, im-
petuous.
“I choke – lean forward ! – my feet burn ! My fingers
splutter, nipped and charred;
Yet oft through wintry darkness we no less have
sweated, labouring hard
Through ice and blizzard, warmed in sooth by tales
resung of old wars won
In the clash of armour, shaft, and sword. My speech
comes thick – my life is done I
“Yet ye, my slaves, remember this: that this last rite
ye render me
My gods have prompted, and this pyre, to signalise my
victory I”
Anon he shouted: “Odin, yea! Now with my last
words unto Thee
I yield my life! Clear through the smoke I see Thee
– but they cannot see.”
A sudden gust revealed him black there through the
hungry flames erect;
Then he was covered. They fell back. One
shrieked: “His god came to protect
Him, for I saw Him !” and a shout burst from that
furnace, “I am deadl –
I died victorious, and I live!” They saw the clouds
part overhead.
All hushed, they shrank back in the wood, together
huddled, pallid, mute.
The far surge moaned; the sun, behind dense fields of
cloud-rack dissolute,
Failed from their vision, and they fled; and night came
through the smoke and haze.
And drifted through the silence till up the glad dawn
rose, all ablaze.
(E J Rupert Atkinson)
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Based on Topics: Man Poems, God Poems, Life Poems, World Poems, Night Poems, Death & Dying Poems, Nature Poems, War & Peace Poems, Joy & Excitement Poems, Cry Poems, Fire PoemsBased on Keywords: leered, envenomed, crackled, stallions, oarsmen, vipers, inebriate, gored, filched, ransack, trudged