sts. Before them, staff in hand,
Peaceful, with hoary brows and measured tread,
Twelve heralds paced. Twelve caskets bare they heaped
With gems and gold, and thus addressed the King:
'Lord of the Mercian realm, renowned in arms!
Our lord, Northumbria's monarch, bids thee hail:
He never yet in little thing or great
Hath wronged thy kingdom; yet thy peace he woos:
Accept the gifts he sends thee, and, thus crowned,
Depart content.' Penda with backward hand
Waved them far from him, and vouchsafed no word.
In sadness they returned: but Oswy smiled
Hearing their tale, and said: 'My part is done:
Let God decide the event,' He spake, and took
The caskets twelve, and placed them, side by side,
Before the altar of his chiefest church,
And vowed to raise to God twelve monasteries,
In honour of our Lord's Apostles Twelve,
On greenest upland, or in sylvan glade
Where purest stream kisses the richest mead.
His vow recorded, sudden through the church
Ran with fleet foot a lady mazed with joy,
Crying, 'A maiden babe! and lo, the queen
Late dying lives and thrives!' That eve the king
Bestowed on God the new-born maiden babe,
Laying her cradled 'mid those caskets twelve,
Six at each side; and said: 'For her nor throne
Nor marriage bower! She in some holy house
Shall dwell the Bride of Christ. But thou, just God,
This day avenge my people!'
Windwaed field
Heard, distant still, that multitudinous foe
Trampling the darksome ways. With pallid face
Morning beheld their standards, raven-black--
Penda had thus decreed, before him sending
Northumbria's sentence. On a hill, thick-set
Stood Oswy's army, small, yet strong in faith,
A wedge-like phalanx, fenced by rocks and woods;
A river in its front. His standards white
Sustained the Mother-Maid and Babe Divine:
From many a crag his altars rose, choir-girt,
And crowned by incense wreath.
An hour ere noon,
That river passed, in thunder met the hosts;
But Penda, straitened by that hilly tract,
Could wield not half his force. Sequent as waves
On rushed they: Oswy's phalanx like a cliff
Successively down dashed them. Day went by:
At last the clouds dispersed: the westering sun
Glared on the spent eyes of those Mercian ranks
Whi