"George Bidder - Merlin's Youth" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bidder George)

Had fled to the holy woods, to pray anew
In secret caverns where they held the clew;
Our tower rang with lowings, moans, and cheers;
The strangers were encamped against the wall;
That, and the moody man, became the hope of all.

Three days they sieged about us; till at length
We penned the cattle and women in the tower,
Massed to their weaker wing in all our power,
And rushed to measure with the foe our strength:
Foremost of all Yberha's father there;
An axe made like a cross he brandished in the air.

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Bloodily waged the battle. I was light
Of spear and swift of foot, and through the fight
Passed like a wandering death. With heavy blows
Of axe on target, edgщd stone on hide,
My cousins fought in phalanx, side by side;
And over all the voice of Yberha's father rose:

"Strike for your children! Strike for love and wife!
Strike for the kindly land that gave you life!
-- O Thou that rulest lives and ways of men,
Save this poor ignorant people to new days
That thus a thankful land thy grace repays."
And he struck with the two-edged axe, and cried, "Amen."

But we were few, and I saw Yberha's head at the tower,
And I drew forth, to weave a spell of power
With her for conquest. Waving hand with hand,
She on the tower, I back from out the fight,
We read a twisted spell of potent might
Pointing to where the crossed axe made a stand; --

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When all of a sudden the cross flew back as he smote,
Slipping his grasp, and struck me down in the moat,
I rose with courage strangely faint, a cry
Rang from the foe; my cousins side by side
Took blows of axe and spear on the stout bull-hide:
Yberha's father was down, and our men began to fly.

From out the tower whispered a light footfall,
Where shone my beauty, cold, and white, and tall;
I leapt quick-hearted o'er our fenceless bank,
Crying, "Come, sweetheart! speed we to the wood;
Thy sire is dead: none other ever stood