To bid not you to battle; let them strike

Whose swords are sharper than your keen-tongued wail,

And ye, sit fast and sorrow; but what man

Of all this land-folk and earth-labouring herd

For heart or hand seems foremost, him I call

650

If heart be his to hearken, him bid forth

To try if one be in the sun's sight born

Of all that grope and grovel on dry ground

That may join hands in battle-grip for death

With them whose seed and strength is of the sea.

CHORUS.

Know thou this much for all thy loud blast blown,

We lack not hands to speak with, swords to plead,

[Pg 37]

For proof of peril, not of boisterous breath,

Sea-wind and storm of barren mouths that foam

And rough rock's edge of menace; and short space

660

May lesson thy large ignorance and inform

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