Or when down by our feet the grey sickles are lying,
And behind us is curling the supper-tide smoke,
No whit shall they grudge us the joyance undying,
Remembrance of men that put from us the yoke.

When the huddle of ewes from the fells we have driven,
And we see down the Dale the grey reach of the roof,
We shall tell of the gift in the battle-joy given,
All the fierceness of friends that drave sorrow aloof.

Once then we lamented, and mourned them departed;
Once only, no oftener. Henceforth shall we fling
Their names up aloft, when the merriest hearted
To the Fathers unseen of our life-days we sing.

Then was there silence in the ranks of men; and many murmured the names of the fallen as they fared on their way from out the Market-place of Silver-stead. Then once more Redesman and his mates took up the song:

Come tell me, O friends, for whom bideth the maiden
Wet-foot from the river-ford down in the Dale?
For whom hath the goodwife the ox-waggon laden
With the babble of children, brown-handed and hale?

Come tell me for what are the women abiding,
Till each on the other aweary they lean?
Is it loitering of evil that thus they are chiding,
The slow-footed bearers of sorrow unseen?

Nay, yet were they toiling if sorrow had worn them,
Or hushed had they bided with lips parched and wan.
The birds of the air other tidings have borne them—
How glad through the wood goeth man beside man.

Then fare forth, O valiant, and loiter no longer
Than the cry of the cuckoo when May is at hand;
Late waxeth the spring-tide, and daylight grows longer,
And nightly the star-street hangs high o’er the land.

Many lives, many days for the Dale do ye carry;
When the Host breaketh out from the thicket unshorn,
It shall be as the sun that refuseth to tarry
On the crown of all mornings, the Midsummer morn.

Again the song fell down till they were well on the western way down Silver-dale; and then Redesman handled his fiddle once more, and again the song rose up, and such-like were the words which were borne back into the Market-place of Silver-stead: