“Lo, is it naught?” said the voice in the sobbing strings that sighed—
With the wind it wailed and rose, with the wind it sank and died.
Spell-bound he, Herluin, lay, and watched like one in a dream,
The moonbeams quiver and dance, and the long reeds sway in the stream,
Till again, an icy breath, the wind came whispering,
And stirred his stiffened hair, and sighed from string to string,
And sobbed into speech; “Is it naught,” the low voice singing said,
“Is it naught to thee at all that dust of uncounted dead
“Is mixed in this lean grey soil? that on this moorland lone
The hosts of mighty men lie scattered bone from bone?
“Go search the monkish records, and scarce shall be descried
Thro’ the dust on an ancient page, the tale of us who died!
“Ho, morn of shrieks and slaughter, when my Danes and I came down,
Driving our foes like flocks, and sacked the trembling town!—
“When I struck to my battle-song, and the swords rang round my head
That I heard not mine own voice, and knew not that I bled!
“Woe worth the brand that broke! Woe worth the blinding blow!
Woe worth, woe worth the day when I felt my life-blood flow!
“I felt my life-blood flow; I felt my strength and my wit,
My heart and my hope and my valour flow drop by drop with it.