So to the palisade on!  There, Harold and Leofwine and Gyrth
Stand like a triple Thor, true brethren in arms as in birth: 
And above the fierce standards strain at their poles as they flare on the
gale;
One, the old Dragon of Wessex, and one, a Warrior in mail. 
   ‘God Almighty!’ they cry! 
   ‘Haro!’ the Northmen reply:—­
As when eagles are gather’d and loud o’er the prey,
Shout! for ’tis England the prize of the fray!

And as when two lightning-clouds tilt, between them an arrowy sleet
Hisses and darts; till the challenging thunders are heard, and they meet;
Across fly javelins and serpents of flame:  green earth and blue sky
Blurr’d in the blind tornado:—­so now the battle goes high. 
   Shearing through helmet and limb
   Glaive-steel and battle-axe grim: 
As the flash of the reaper in summer’s high wheat,
King Harold mows horseman and horse at his feet.

O vainly the whirlwind of France up the turf to the palisade swept: 
Shoulder to shoulder the Englishmen stand, and the shield-wall is kept:—­
As, in a summer to be, when England and she yet again
Strove for the sovranty, firm stood our squares, through the pitiless
rain
   Death rain’d o’er them all day;
   —­Happier, not braver than they
Who on Senlac e’en yet their still garrison keep,
Sleeping a long Marathonian sleep!

‘Madmen, why turn?’ cried the Duke,—­for the horsemen recoil from the
slope;
’Behold me!  I live!’—­and he lifted the ventayle; ’before you is hope: 
Death, not safety, behind!’—­and he spurs to the centre once more,
Lion-like leaps on the standard and Harold:  but Gyrth is before! 
   ‘Down!  He is down!’ is the shout: 
   ‘On with the axes!  Out, Out!’
—­He rises again; the mace circles its stroke;
Then falls as the thunderbolt falls on the oak.

—­Gyrth is crush’d, and Leofwine is crush’d; yet the shields hold their
wall: 
’Edith alone of my dear ones is left me, and dearest of all! 
Edith has said she would seek me to-day when the battle is done;
Her love more precious alone than kingdoms and victory won;
   O for the sweetness of home! 
   O for the kindness to come!’
Then around him again the wild war-dragons roar,
And he drinks the red wine-cup of battle once more.

—­’Anyhow from their rampart to lure them, to shatter the bucklers and
wall,
Acting a flight,’ in his craft thought William, and sign’d to recall
His left battle:—­O countrymen! slow to be roused! roused, always, as
then,
Reckless of life or death, bent only to quit you like men!—­
   As bolts from the bow-string they go,
   Whirl them and hurl them below,
Where the deep foss yawns for the foe in his course,
Piled up and brimming with horseman and horse.