Read House of the Wolfings: The William Morris Book that Inspired J. R. R. Tolkiena *s The Lord of the Rings for Free Online Page B

kisseth, and beareth
the chambering light
    When the kings of men wend happy to the
bride-bed from the board.
    It is little to say that she wendeth the
edge of the grinded sword,
    When about the house half builded she
hangeth many a day;
    The ship from the strand she shoveth, and on
his wonted way
    By the mountain-hunter fareth where his foot
ne’er failed before:
    She is where the high bank crumbles at last
on the river’s shore:
    The mower’s scythe she whetteth; and lulleth
the shepherd to sleep
    Where the deadly ling-worm wakeneth in the
desert of the sheep.
    Now we that come of the God-kin of her redes
for ourselves we wot,
    But her will with the lives of men-folk and
their ending know we not.
    So therefore I bid thee not fear for thyself
of Doom and her deed,
    But for me: and I bid thee hearken to the
helping of my need.
    Or else—Art thou happy in life, or lusteth
thou to die
    In the flower of thy days, when thy glory
and thy longing bloom on high?

    But Thiodolf answered her:

    I have deemed, and long have I deemed that
this is my second life,
    That my first one waned with my wounding
when thou cam’st to the ring of strife.
    For when in thine arms I wakened on the
hazelled field of yore,
    Meseemed I had newly arisen to a world I
knew no more,
    So much had all things brightened on that
dewy dawn of day.
    It was dark dull death that I looked for
when my thought had died away.
    It was lovely life that I woke to; and from
that day henceforth
    My joy of the life of man-folk was
manifolded of worth.
    Far fairer the fields of the morning than I
had known them erst,
    And the acres where I wended, and the corn
with its half-slaked thirst;
    And the noble Roof of the Wolfings, and the
hawks that sat thereon;
    And the bodies of my kindred whose
deliverance I had won;
    And the glimmering of the Hall-Sun in the
dusky house of old;
    And my name in the mouth of the maidens, and
the praises of the bold,
    As I sat in my battle-raiment, and the ruddy
spear well steeled
    Leaned ’gainst my side war-battered, and the
wounds thine hand had healed.
    Yea, from that morn thenceforward has my
life been good indeed,
    The gain of to-day was goodly, and good
to-morrow’s need,
    And good the whirl of the battle, and the
broil I wielded there,
    Till I fashioned the ordered onset, and the
unhoped victory fair.
    And good were the days thereafter of utter
deedless rest
    And the prattle of thy daughter, and her
hands on my unmailed breast.
    Ah good is the life thou hast given, the
life that mine hands have won.
    And where shall be the ending till the world
is all undone?
    Here sit we twain together, and both we in
Godhead clad,
    We twain of the Wolfing kindred, and each of
the other glad.

    But she answered, and her face grew darker
withal:

    O mighty man and joyous, art thou of the
Wolfing kin?
    ’Twas no evil deed when we mingled, nor
lieth doom therein.
    Thou lovely man, thou black-haired, thou
shalt die and have done no ill.
    Fame-crowned are the deeds of thy doing, and
the mouths of men they fill.
    Thou betterer of the Godfolk, enduring is
thy fame:
    Yet as a painted image of a dream is thy
dreaded name.
    Of an alien folk thou comest, that we twain
might be one indeed.
    Thou shalt die one day. So hearken, to help
me at my need.

    His face grew troubled and he said: “What is
this word that I am no chief of the Wolfings?”
    “Nay,” she said, “but better than they. Look
thou on the face of our daughter the Hall-Sun, thy daughter and
mine: favoureth she at all of me?”
    He laughed: “Yea, whereas she is fair, but
not otherwise. This is a hard saying, that I dwell among an alien
kindred, and it wotteth not thereof. Why hast thou not told me
hereof before?”
    She said: “It needed not to tell thee
because thy day was waxing, as now it waneth. Once more I bid thee
hearken and do my bidding though it be hard to thee.”
    He answered: “Even so will I as much as I
may; and thus wise must thou look upon it, that I love life, and
fear not