Song Of The German Lanzknecht

("Sonnex, clarions!")

[Bk. VI. vii.]

Flourish the trumpet! and rattle the drum! The Reiters are mounted! the Reiters will come!

When our bullets cease singing And long swords cease ringing On backplates of fearsomest foes in full flight, We'll dig up their dollars To string for girls' collars-- They'll jingle around them before it is night! When flourish the trumpets, etc.

We're the Emperor's winners Of right royal dinners, Where cities are served up and flanked by estates, While we wallow in claret, Knowing not how to spare it, Though beer is less likely to muddle our pates-- While flourish the trumpets, etc.

Gods of battle! red-handed! Wise it was to have banded Such arms as are these for embracing of gain! Hearken to each war-vulture Crying, "Down with all culture Of land or religion!" Hoch! to our refrain Of flourish the trumpets, etc.

Give us "bones of the devil" To exchange in our revel The ingot, the gem, and yellow doubloon; Coronets are but playthings-- We reck not who say things When the Reiters have ridden to death! none too soon!-- To flourish of trumpet and rattle of drum, The Reiters will finish as firm as they come!

H.L.W.

KING CANUTE.

("Un jour, Kanut mourut.")

[Bk. X. i.]

King Canute died. Encoffined he was laid. Of Aarhuus came the Bishop prayers to say, And sang a hymn upon his tomb, and held That Canute was a saint--Canute the Great, That from his memory breathed celestial perfume, And that they saw him, they the priests, in glory, Seated at God's right hand, a prophet crowned.

I.

Evening came, And hushed the organ in the holy place, And the priests, issuing from the temple doors, Left the dead king in peace. Then he arose, Opened his gloomy eyes, and grasped his sword, And went forth loftily. The massy walls Yielded before the phantom, like a mist.

There is a sea where Aarhuus, Altona, And Elsinore's vast domes and shadowy towers Glass in deep waters. Over this he went Dark, and still Darkness listened for his foot Inaudible, itself being but a dream. Straight to Mount Savo went he, gnawed by time, And thus, "O mountain buffeted of storms, Give me of thy huge mantle of deep snow To frame a winding-sheet." The mountain knew him, Nor dared refuse, and with his sword Canute Cut from his flank white snow, enough to make The garment he desired, and then he cried, "Old mountain! death is dumb, but tell me thou The way to God." More deep each dread ravine And hideous hollow yawned, and sadly thus Answered that hoar associate of the clouds: "Spectre, I know not, I am always here." Canute departed, and with head erect, All white and ghastly in his robe of snow, Went forth into great silence and great night By Iceland and Norway. After him Gloom swallowed up the universe. He stood A sovran kingdomless, a lonely ghost Confronted with Immensity. He saw The awful Infinite, at whose portal pale Lightning sinks dying; Darkness, skeleton Whose joints are nights, and utter Formlessness Moving confusedly in the horrible dark Inscrutable and blind. No star was there, Yet something like a haggard gleam; no sound But the dull tide of Darkness, and her dumb And fearful shudder. "'Tis the tomb," he said, "God is beyond!" Three steps he took, then cried: 'Twas deathly as the grave, and not a voice Responded, nor came any breath to sway The snowy mantle, with unsullied white Emboldening the spectral wanderer. Sudden he marked how, like a gloomy star, A spot grew broad upon his livid robe; Slowly it widened, raying darkness forth; And Canute proved it with his spectral hands It was a drop of blood.