But it shall please my lady wife less: for of love, and fair women,
and their lovers she hath seen enough; but of war nothing save
its shows and pomps; wherefore she desireth to hear thereof.
Now sing of battle!"
Ralph thought awhile and began to smite the harp while he conned over a song
which he had learned one yule-tide from a chieftain who had come to Upmeads
from the far-away Northland, and had abided there till spring was waning
into summer, and meanwhile he taught Ralph this song and many things else,
and his name was Sir Karr Wood-neb. This song now Ralph sang loud and sweet,
though he were now a thrall in an alien land:
Leave we the cup!
For the moon is up,
And bright is the gleam
Of the rippling stream,
That runneth his road
To the old abode,
Where the walls are white
In the moon and the night;
The house of the neighbour that drave us away
When strife ended labour amidst of the hay,
And no road for our riding was left us but one
Where the hill's brow is hiding that earth's ways are done,
And the sound of the billows comes up at the last
Like the wind in the willows ere autumn is past.
But oft and again
Comes the ship from the main,
And we came once more
And no lading we bore
But the point and the edge,
And the ironed ledge,
And the bolt and the bow,
And the bane of the foe.
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