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Page 18
As for my Comrades in camp and highway,
That lift their eyebrows scornfully;
Tell them their way is not my way--
Tell them England hath taken me!
Kings and Princes and Barons famed,
Knights and Captains in your degree;
Hear me a little before I am blamed--
Seeing England hath taken me!
Howso great man's strength be reckoned,
There are two things he cannot flee;
Love is the first, and Death is the second--
And Love, in England, hath taken me!
THE KNIGHTS OF THE JOYOUS VENTURE
HARP SONG OF THE DANE WOMEN
What is a woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
She has no house to lay a guest in--
But one chill bed for all to rest in,
That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in.
She has no strong white arms to fold you,
But the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you
Bound on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.
Yet, when the signs of summer thicken,
And the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
Yearly you turn from our side, and sicken--
Sicken again for the shouts and the slaughters,--
You steal away to the lapping waters,
And look at your ship in her winter quarters.
You forget our mirth, and talk at the tables,
The kine in the shed and the horse in the stables--
To pitch her sides and go over her cables!
Then you drive out where the storm-clouds swallow:
And the sound of your oar-blades falling hollow
Is all we have left through the months to follow.
Ah, what is a Woman that you forsake her,
And the hearth-fire and the home-acre,
To go with the old grey Widow-maker?
It was too hot to run about in the open, so Dan asked their friend, old
Hobden, to take their own dinghy from the pond and put her on the brook
at the bottom of the garden. Her painted name was the _Daisy_, but for
exploring expeditions she was the _Golden Hind_ or the _Long Serpent_,
or some such suitable name. Dan hiked and howked with a boat-hook (the
brook was too narrow for sculls), and Una punted with a piece of
hop-pole. When they came to a very shallow place (the _Golden Hind_ drew
quite three inches of water) they disembarked and scuffled her over the
gravel by her tow-rope, and when they reached the overgrown banks beyond
the garden they pulled themselves up stream by the low branches.
That day they intended to discover the North Cape like 'Othere, the old
sea-captain', in the book of verses which Una had brought with her; but
on account of the heat they changed it to a voyage up the Amazon and the
sources of the Nile. Even on the shaded water the air was hot and heavy
with drowsy scents, while outside, through breaks in the trees, the
sunshine burned the pasture like fire. The kingfisher was asleep on his
watching-branch, and the blackbirds scarcely took the trouble to dive
into the next bush. Dragonflies wheeling and clashing were the only
things at work, except the moorhens and a big Red Admiral, who flapped
down out of the sunshine for a drink.
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