“And when you have found his body, with speed
“To Waltham Abbey transfer him,
“That we for his soul due masses may sing,
“And like a Christian inter him.”
At midnight’s hour the messengers reach’d
The hut in the forest, saying:
“Awake, O Edith the Swanneck, awake,
“And follow without delaying.
“The Duke of the Normans as victor hath come,
“And the routed Saxons are flying,
“And on the field of Hastings the corpse
“Of Harold the King is lying.
“Come with us to Hastings, we’re seeking there
“The body beneath the dead hidden,
“To bring it to Waltham Abbey with care,
“As we by the Abbot are bidden.”
Then Edith the Swanneck girded herself,
And not one word she utter’d,
But follow’d the monks, while her grizzly hair
In the wind all wildly flutter’d.
The poor woman follow’d with naked feet,
And through marsh, wood, and briar on hied they,
Till the chalky cliffs on the Hastings coast
At the dawning of day descried they.
The mist, which like a snowy veil,
The battle-field was cloaking,
Dispersed by degrees; the noisy daws
Were flapping their wings and croaking.
Many thousand corpses were lying there
On the earth with blood bespatter’d,
Stripp’d naked, and mangled, with many a steed
Among the carcases scatter’d.
Poor Edith the Swanneck in the blood
With naked feet now waded;
No single spot the searching glance
Of her piercing eye evaded.
Both here and there she sought, and she oft
Had to scare away the devouring
Black troop of ravens that prey’d on the dead;
The monks behind her were cowering.