Swift as torrent-streams our warriors,
     Tossing torrent lights, find way;
     Burst the ridges, crowd the barriers,
     Pierce them where the spear-heads play;
     Turn them as the clods in furrow,
     Top them like the leaping foam;
     Sorrow to the mother, sorrow,
     Sorrow to the wife at home!

     VI

     Stags, they butted; bulls, they bellowed;
     Hounds, we baited them; oh, brave! 
     Every second man, unfellowed,
     Took the strokes of two, and gave. 
     Bare as hop-stakes in November’s
     Mists they met our battle-flood: 
     Hoary-red as Winter’s embers
     Lay their dead lines done in blood.

     VII

     Thou, my Bard, didst hang thy lyre in
     Oak-leaves, and with crimson brand
     Rhythmic fury spent, Aneurin;
     Songs the churls could understand: 
     Thrumming on their Saxon sconces
     Straight, the invariable blow,
     Till they snorted true responses. 
     Ever thus the Bard they know!

     VIII

     But ere nightfall, harper lusty! 
     When the sun was like a ball
     Dropping on the battle dusty,
     What was yon discordant call? 
     Cambria’s old metheglin demon
     Breathed against our rushing tide;
     Clove us midst the threshing seamen:-
     Gashed, we saw our ranks divide!

     IX

     Britain then with valedictory
     Shriek veiled off her face and knelt. 
     Full of liquor, full of victory,
     Chief on chief old vengeance dealt. 
     Backward swung their hurly-burly;
     None but dead men kept the fight. 
     They that drink their cup too early,
     Darkness they shall see ere night.

     X

     Loud we heard the yellow rover
     Laugh to sleep, while we raged thick,
     Thick as ants the ant-hill over,
     Asking who has thrust the stick. 
     Lo, as frogs that Winter cumbers
     Meet the Spring with stiffen’d yawn,
     We from our hard night of slumbers
     Marched into the bloody dawn.

     XI

     Day on day we fought, though shattered: 
     Pushed and met repulses sharp,
     Till our Raven’s plumes were scattered: 
     All, save old Aneurin’s harp. 
     Hear it wailing like a mother
     O’er the strings of children slain! 
     He in one tongue, in another,
     Alien, I; one blood, yet twain.

     XII

     Old Aneurin! droop no longer. 
     That squat ocean-scum, we own,
     Had fine stoutness, made us stronger,
     Brought us much-required backbone: 
     Claimed of Power their dues, and granted
     Dues to Power in turn, when rose
     Mightier rovers; they that planted
     Sovereign here the Norman nose.

     XIII