II

     Thereof hunger, as for meats the knife,
     Pricked his ribs, in one sharp spur to reach
     Home and his young wife,
     Nigh the sea-ford beach.

     III

     After battle keen to feed was he: 
     Smoking flesh the thresher washed down fast,
     Like an angry sea
     Ships from keel to mast.

     IV

     Name us glory, singer, name us pride
     Matching Harald’s in his deeds of strength;
     Chiefs, wife, sword by side,
     Foemen stretched their length!

     V

     Half a winter night the toasts hurrahed,
     Crowned him, clothed him, trumpeted him high,
     Till awink he bade
     Wife to chamber fly.

     VI

     Twice the sun had mounted, twice had sunk,
     Ere his ears took sound; he lay for dead;
     Mountain on his trunk,
     Ocean on his head.

     VII

     Clamped to couch, his fiery hearing sucked
     Whispers that at heart made iron-clang: 
     Here fool-women clucked,
     There men held harangue.

     VIII

     Burial to fit their lord of war
     They decreed him:  hailed the kingling:  ha! 
     Hateful! but this Thor
     Failed a weak lamb’s baa.

     IX

     King they hailed a branchlet, shaped to fare,
     Weighted so, like quaking shingle spume,
     When his blood’s own heir
     Ripened in the womb!

     X

     Still he heard, and doglike, hoglike, ran
     Nose of hearing till his blind sight saw: 
     Woman stood with man
     Mouthing low, at paw.

     XI

     Woman, man, they mouthed; they spake a thing
     Armed to split a mountain, sunder seas: 
     Still the frozen king
     Lay and felt him freeze.

     XII

     Doglike, hoglike, horselike now he raced,
     Riderless, in ghost across a ground
     Flint of breast, blank-faced,
     Past the fleshly bound.

     XIII

     Smell of brine his nostrils filled with might: 
     Nostrils quickened eyelids, eyelids hand: 
     Hand for sword at right
     Groped, the great haft spanned.

     XIV

     Wonder struck to ice his people’s eyes: 
     Him they saw, the prone upon the bier,
     Sheer from backbone rise,
     Sword uplifting peer.

     XV

     Sitting did he breathe against the blade,
     Standing kiss it for that proof of life: 
     Strode, as netters wade,
     Straightway to his wife.

     XVI

     Her he eyed:  his judgement was one word,
     Foulbed! and she fell:  the blow clove two. 
     Fearful for the third,
     All their breath indrew.

     XVII

     Morning danced along the waves to beach;
     Dumb his chiefs fetched breath for what might hap: 
     Glassily on each
     Stared the iron cap.