Punch/Volume 147/Issue 3821/Valhalla
(A vision and a protest.)
I saw in the night unbroken,
In the land the daylight shuns,
At their long tables oaken
The Sea-kings and the Huns.
Strong arms had they for smiting,
To them death only gave
More feasting and more fighting,
More plunder for the brave.
Scant use had they for pleaders,
They boasted of their war,
The pitiless bright-eyed leaders,
And their battle-god was Thor.
And When this right hand falters,"
Quoth one, "the soul is fled;"
"And I made so many altars
Ruinous," this one said.
And lo! as they sat and vaunted
Across the mist of the years,
There came to them one that flaunted
The helm of the war-god's peers.
A little shape and a mightless,
And the strong men laughed and roared:
"Is our father Odin sightless
That bade him share the board?
"From what realms spoilt and plundered,
From what shrines burnt art come?
Has thine hand hewed and thundered
On the crosses of Christendom?"
And he said, "I too had legions,
I fouled where ye defiled,
I trod in the selfsame regions
And warred on woman and child.
"Tricked out in my shining armour
And riding behind my Huns,
I harried the priest and farmer,
I followed the smoking guns."
But the kings cried out and shouted
As they drained the sweetened mead:
"Was it thus that the Franks were routed,
When we made Europe bleed?
"This king with a leaden rattle
And death that comes from afar,
What pride hath he of the battle?
What lust to maim or mar?
"The loot and the red blood running
Were the only signs we saw;
But the gods that gave thee cunning
Have also given thee law."
And a Northman spake: "With seven
Fair churches when I died
I had paved my path to heaven;
Their pillage was my pride.
"I tore the saints from their niches
With the red hands of my rage;
But what hast thou in thy ditches
To do with a craftless age?
"Thou hast felt no Viking's starkness;
Thou hast lost a Christian's throne."
And they drove him forth in the darkness
To find a place of his own.