Page:Early poems of William Morris.djvu/202



"Swerve to the left, son Roger," he said,

"When you catch his eyes through the helmet-slit,

Swerve to the left, then out at his head,

And the Lord God give you joy of it!"

The blue owls on my father's hood

Were a little dimm'd as I turn'd away;

This giving up of blood for blood

Will finish here somehow to-day.

So—when I walk'd out from the tent,

Their howling almost blinded me;

Yet for all that I was not bent

By any shame. Hard by, the sea

Made a noise like the aspens where

We did that wrong, but now the place

Is very pleasant, and the air

Blows cool on any passer's face.

And all the wrong is gather'd now

Into the circle of these lists—

Yea, howl out, butchers! tell me how

His hands were cut off at the wrists;

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