VII.

They stood in arms: the wolf-spear and the bow

Had waged their war on things of mountain race;

Might not their swift stroke reach a mail-clad foe?

—Strong hands in harvest, daring feet in chase,

True hearts in fight, were gather’d on that place

Of secret council. Not for fame or spoil

So met those men in Heaven’s majestic face:

To guard free hearths they rose, the sons of toil,

The hunter of the rocks, the tiller of the soil.