XII
The tall son of the Seven Winds
Galloped hot-foot from the Hither Hithe.
So strongly went he down the press,
Almost he did that day redress
With his holping and his hardiness,
For his sword was like a scythe
In Arques when the grass is high,
And all the swaithes in order lie,
And there’s the bailiff standing by—
A gathering of the tithe.
XIII
And now, go forward, Normandy,
Go forward all in one.
The press was caught and trampled and it broke
From the sword and its swinger and the axe’s stroke,
Pouring through the gap in a whirl of smoke
As a blinded herd will run.
And so fled many and a very few
With mounts all spent would staggering pursue,
But the race fell scattered as the evening grew:
The battle was over and done.
. . . . . .
Like birds against the reddening day
They dwindled one by one,
And I heard a trumpet far away
At the setting of the sun.
. . . . . .
XIV
The stars were in the Eternal Sky,
It was calm in Massared;
Richard, Abbot of Leclair, and I
And a Picard Priest that held on high
A Torch above his head;
We stumbled through the darkening land
Assoiling with anointed hand
The dying and the dead.
XV
How many in the tufted grass,
How many dead there lay.
For there was found the Fortenbras
And young Garain of Hault, alas!
And the Wardens of the Breton pass
Who were lords of his array,
And Hugh that trusted in his glass
But came not home the day.
XVI
I saw the miller of Martindall,
I saw that archer die.
The blunt quarrel caught him at the low white wall,
And he tossed up his arrow to the Lord God of all,
But long before the first could fall
His soul was in the sky.