Of steeds in the spear-play skilled, with lips for the fight drawn back,
their bodies with wounds all scarred, some bleeding and some half-healed.
And down leap the riders where the battle is strait and stern,
and spring in the face of Death like stallions amid the herd;
Between them they give and take deep draughts of the wine of doom
as their hands ply the white swords, thin and keen in the smiting-edge.
In shards fall the morions burst by the fury of blow on blow,
and down to the eyebrows, cleft, fly shattered the skulls beneath.
In them no defect is found, save only that in their swords
are notches, a many, gained from smiting of host on host: