Ballads and Other Poems/Translations/The Battle of Brunanburh

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4605994Ballads and Other Poems, Translations — The Battle of BrunanburhAlfred Tennyson

The Battle of Brunanburh

Constantinus, King of the Scots, after having sworn allegiance to Athelstan, allied himself with the Danes of Ireland under Anlaf, and invading England, was defeated by Athelstan and his brother Edmund with great slaughter at Brunanburh in the year 937.

I.
  [1]Athelstan King,
  Lord among Earls,
  Bracelet-bestower and
  Baron of Barons,
  He with his brother,
  Edmund Atheling,
  Gaining a lifelong
  Glory in battle,
  Slew with the sword-edge
  There by Brunanburh,
  Brake the shield-wall,
  Hew’d the linden-wood,[2]
  Hack’d the battle-shield,
Sons of Edward with hammer’d brands.

II.
  Theirs was a greatness
  Got from their Grandsires —
  Theirs that so often in
  Strife with their enemies
Struck for their hoards and their hearths and their homes.

III.
  Bow’d the spoiler,
  Bent the Scotsman,
  Fell the ship-crews
  Doom’d to the death.
All the field with blood of the fighters
  Flow'd, from when first the great
  Sun-star of morning-tide,
  Lamp of the Lord God
  Lord everlasting,
Glode over earth till the glorious creature
Sunk to his setting.

IV.
  There lay many a man
  Marr'd by the javelin,
  Men of the Northland
  Shot over shield.
  There was the Scotsman
  Weary of war.

V.
  We the West-Saxons,
  Long as the daylight
  Lasted, in companies
Troubled the track of the host that we hated;
Grimly with swords that were sharp from the grindstone
Fiercely we hack'd at the flyers before us.

VI.
  Mighty the Mercian,
  Hard was his hand-play,
  Sparing not any of
  Those that with Anlaf,
  Warriors over the
  Weltering waters
  Borne in the bark's-bosom,
  Drew to this island:
  Doom'd to the death.

VII.
Five young kings put asleep by the sword-stroke,
Seven strong earls of the army of Anlaf
Fell on the war-field, numberless numbers,
Shipmen and Scotsmen.

VIII.
  Then the Norse leader,
  Dire was his need of it,
  Few were his following,
  Fled to his warship;
Fleeted his vessel to sea with the king in it,
Saving his life on the fallow flood.

IX.
  Also the crafty one,
  Constantinus,
  Crept to his north again,
  Hoar-headed hero!

X.
  Slender warrant had
  He to be proud of
  The welcome of war-knives—
  He that was reft of his
  Folk and his friends that had
  Fallen in conflict,
  Leaving his son too
  Lost in the carnage,
  Mangled to morsels,
  A youngster in war!

XI.
  Slender reason had
  He to be glad of
  The clash of the war-glaive—
  Traitor and trickster
  And spurner of treaties—
  He nor had Anlaf
  With armies so broken
  A reason for bragging
  That they had the better
  In perils of battle
  On places of slaughter—
  The struggle of standards,
  The rush of the javelins,
  The crash of the charges,[3]
  The wielding of weapons—
  The play that they play'd with
  The children of Edward.

XII.
  Then with their nail'd prows
  Parted the Norsemen, a
  Blood-redden'd relic of
  Javelins over
  The jarring breaker, the deep-sea billow,
  Shaping their way toward Dyefln[4] again,
  Shamed in their souls.

XIII.
  Also the brethren,
  King and Atheling,
  Each in his glory,
Went to his own in his own West-Saxonland,
  Glad of the war.

XIV.
Many a carcass they left to be carrion,
Many a livid one, many a sallow-skin—
Left for the white-tail'd eagle to tear it, and
Left for the horny-nibb'd raven to rend it, and
Gave to the garbaging war-hawk to gorge it, and
That gray beast, the wolf of the weald.

XV.
  Never had huger
  Slaughter of heroes
  Slain by the sword-edge—
  Such as old writers
  Have writ of in histories—
  Hapt in this isle, since
  Up from the East hither
  Saxon and Angle from
  Over the broad billow
  Broke into Britain with
  Haughty war-workers who
  Harried the Welshman, when
  Earls that were lured by the
  Hunger of glory gat
  Hold of the land.

  1. I have more or less availed myself of my son’s prose translation of this poem in the Contemporary Review (November 1876).
  2. Shields of linden-wood.
  3. Lit. ‘the gathering of men.’
  4. Dublin.