The rapture of a trampled land set free,
Swelled every breast: the wounded in their wounds
Rejoiced, not grieved: the sick forgat their pains:
The mourner dashed away her tear and cried,
'Wessex is free!' Remained a single doubt:
Christians crept forth from cave and hollow tree:
Once more the exiled monk was seen; and one
Who long in minstrel's garb, with harp in hand,
Old, poor, half blind, had sat beside a bridge,
And, charming first the wayfarer with song,
Had won him next with legends of the Cross,
Stood up before his altar. Rumour ran
'Once more Birinus lifts his crosier-staff!'
Then muttered priests of Odin, 'Cynegils
We know was Christian. Kenwalk holds--or held,
Ancestral Faith, yet warred not on the new:
Tolerance means still connivance.'
Peace restored,
Within King Kenwalk's echoing palace hall,
The hall alike of council and of feast,
The Great Ones of the Wessex realm were met:
Birinus sat among them, eyed from far
With anger and with hatred. Council o'er,
Banquet succeeded, and to banquet song,
The Saxon's after-banquet. Many a harp
That day by flying hand entreated well
Divulged its secret, amorous, or of war;
And many a warrior sang his own great deeds
Or dirge of ancient friend Valhalla's guest;
Nor stinted foeman's praise. Silent meanwhile
Far down the board a son of Norway sat,
Ungenial guest with clouded brows and stern,
And eyes that flashed beneath them: bard was he,
Warrior and bard. Not his the song for gold!
He sang but of the war-fields and the gods;
He lays of love despised. 'Thy turn is come,
Son of the ice-bound North,' thus spake a thane:
'Sing thou! The man who sees that face, already
Half hears the tempest singing through the pines
That shade thy gulfs hill-girt.' The stranger guest
Answered, not rising: 'Yea, from lands of storm
And seas cut through by fiery lava floods
I come, a wanderer. Ye, meantime, in climes
Balm-breathing, gorge the fat, and smell the sweet:
Ye wed the maid whose sire ye never slew,
And bask in unearned triumph. Feeble spirits!
Endless ye deem the splendours of this hour,
And call defeat opprobrious! Sirs, our life
Is trial. Victory and Defeat are Gods
That toss man's heart, their plaything, each to each:
Great Mercia know