--Gyrth is crush'd, and Leofwine is crush'd; yet the shields hold their
wall:
'Edith alone of my dear ones is left me, and dearest of all!
Edith has said she would seek me to-day when the battle is done;
Her love more precious alone than kingdoms and victory won;
O for the sweetness of home!
O for the kindness to come!'
Then around him again the wild war-dragons roar,
And he drinks the red wine-cup of battle once more.

--'Anyhow from their rampart to lure them, to shatter the bucklers and
wall,
Acting a flight,' in his craft thought William, and sign'd to recall
His left battle:--O countrymen! slow to be roused! roused, always, as
then,
Reckless of life or death, bent only to quit you like men!--
As bolts from the bow-string they go,
Whirl them and hurl them below,
Where the deep foss yawns for the foe in his course,
Piled up and brimming with horseman and horse.

As when October's sun, long caught in a curtain of gray,
With a flood of impatient crimson breaks out, at the dying of day,
And trees and green fields, the hills and the skies, are all steep'd in
the stain;--
So o'er the English one hope flamed forth, one moment,--in vain!
As hail when the corn-fields are deep,
Down the fierce arrow-points sweep:
Now the basnets of France o'er the palisade frown;