But here what aid in a hero's heart, what help in his hand may be?

For ever the dark wind whitens and blackens the hollows and heights of the sea,

And galley by galley, divided and desolate, founders; and none takes heed,

Nor foe nor friend, if they perish; forlorn, cast off in their uttermost need,

[Pg 203]

They sink in the whelm of the waters, as pebbles by children from shoreward hurled,

In the North Sea's waters that end not, nor know they a bourn but the bourn of the world.

Past many a secure unavailable harbour, and many a loud stream's mouth,

Past Humber and Tees and Tyne and Tweed, they fly, scourged on from the south,

And torn by the scourge of the storm-wind that smites as a harper smites on a lyre,

And consumed of the storm as the sacrifice loved of their God is consumed with fire,

And devoured of the darkness as men that are slain in the fires of his love are devoured,

And deflowered of their lives by the storms, as by priests is the spirit of life deflowered.

For the wind, of its godlike mercy, relents not, and hounds them ahead to the north,

With English hunters at heel, till now is the herd of them past the Forth,

All huddled and hurtled seaward; and now need none wage war upon these,

Nor huntsmen follow the quarry whose fall is the pastime sought of the seas.

Day upon day upon day confounds them, with measureless mists that swell,

With drift of rains everlasting and dense as the fumes of ascending hell.

The visions of priest and of prophet beholding his enemies bruised of his rod

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