dots-menu
×

Home  »  An American Anthology, 1787–1900  »  1562 The Last Bowstrings

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Edward LucasWhite

1562 The Last Bowstrings

THEY had brought in such sheafs of hair,

And flung them all about us there

In the loud noonday’s heat and glare:

Gold tresses, far too fine to wind,

And brown, with copper curls entwined,

And black coils, black as all my mind.

In the low, stifling armory,

Whence we could hear, but might not flee,

The roar of that engirdling sea,

Whose waves were helmet-crests of foes,

Winding the cords we sat, in rows,

Beside a mound of stringless bows.

Since the first hill-scouts panted in,

Before siege-fires and battle din

Filled night and day, and filled within

Our hearts and brains with flame and sound,

We had sat, huddled on the ground,

Our tears hot on the cords we wound.

We knew, when the first tidings came,

That not the gods from death or shame

Could save us, fighting clothed in flame.

The mid-sea’s marshalled waves are few

Beside the warriors, girt with blue,

The gorged hill-passes then let through.

Their spears shook like ripe, standing corn,

Gold lakes that on the plains are born,

And nod to greet the golden morn;

After these years the earth yet reels,

And after snows and showers feels

The deluge of their chariot wheels.

Against our walls their flood was dammed,

Within which, till each porch was jammed,

Farm-folk and fisher-folk were crammed;

Heaped stones inside the gates were piled,

While all above us, calm and mild,

In bitter scorn the heavens smiled.

Our men dwelt on the walls and towers,

From over which, for endless hours,

The hissing arrows flew in showers;

The sing-stones, too, came crashing down,

As though the gods of far renown

Hurled thunderbolts into the town.

Where the hung temples showed their lights,

Some women prayed upon the heights;

Some stole about throughout the nights,—

Who bore the warriors food by day,—

Gleaning the arrows as they lay

That they might hurtle back to slay.

And where the rooms were heaped with stores,

Because the stringless bows were scores,

We were shut in with guarded doors;

All day at hurried toil we kept,

And when the darkness on us crept

We lay, each in her place, and slept.

Quick as we worked, we could not make

Strings fast as bowmen came to take

Fresh bows; and oh, the grinding ache

Of hearts and fingers: maid and slave

And princess, we toiled on to save

Home that already was our grave.

Six days we wound the cords with speed;

Naught else from us had any heed,

For bitter was our rage and need.

At last, upon the seventh day,

Into the fury of the fray

They called our very guard away.

No food was brough us. Faint with thirst,

What wonder was it if, at first,

Some wailed that the town gates were burst?

If, later, to the last embraces

Of child or mother, from their places

Some slunk away with ashen faces?

I cursed them through the door unbarred;

I vowed I would not move a yard,

Lest some one man of ours, pressed hard,

Might be left weaponless alone.

Until I died or turned to stone,

I would wind, were the hair mine own.

A sudden shiver shook my frame,

I looked up with my face aflame;

But oh, no tongue has any name

For the despair I saw enthroned

In my love’s eyes, all purple-zoned!

I smiled to greet him, and I groaned.

He buckled on a fresh cuirass,—

His own was but a tattered mass

Of gory thongs. I saw him pass

Out of the portal; with good-byes

And blessings filled, and yearning sighs,

For the last time I saw his eyes.

Each moment, all my blood areel,

I felt the thrust of deadly steel

I knew his body soon must feel.

My heart was choked with prayerful speech;

The high, deaf gods were out of reach,

My eyes dry as a noonday beach.

More cowards left. Few now remained.

Still at our task we strove and strained

With bleeding hands, and iron-brained;

And still my fingers all were fleet,

Though in my temples burned and beat

The murmur of the stunning heat.

There rushed in for fresh arms just then

Some of our allied,—small, dark men;

It slowly dawned upon my ken

That one, who by a spear-heap kneeled,

Fierce-browed and grimy from the field,

Carried my brother’s painted shield.

My heart beat in long, tearing throbs;

Sharp torch-lights stormed my eyes in mobs,

And my breath came in rasping sobs;

The tears from both my cheeks I wrung;

So wet my hands were that they clung

Slipping along the cord I strung.

Mutely we toiled until my maid,

Her lips tense as the strands she laid,

Grew wan; her deft, quick fingers strayed:

Then she pitched forward with a groan,

And lay, white, motionless, and prone.

I wound on hastily, alone.

Harsh and unevenly outside

Shields clanged. Men called, and cursed, and cried;

And when again the latch was tried

My knife lay somewhere on the floor.

Alas! I found it not before

Three armored foemen burst the door.