"To sweat a slave to a race of slaves, To drink up infamy?No, brothers, by your leave, I thinkDeath is a better ale to drink;And by all the stars of Christ that sink, The Danes shall drink with me.
"To grow old cowed in a conquered land, With the sun itself discrowned,To see trees crouch and cattle slink —Death is a better ale to drink,And by high Death on the fell brink, That flagon shall go round.
"Though dead are all the paladins, Whom Glory had in ken,Though all your thunder-sworded thanesWith proud hearts died among the Danes,While a man remains, great war remains; Now is a war of men.
"The men that tear the furrows, The men that fell the trees;When all their lords be lost and dead,The bondsmen of the earth shall tread The tyrants of the seas.
"The wheel of the roaring stillnessOf all labours under the sun,
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