Howard Hanson — Lament for Beowulf

For him, then, they geared the folk of the Geats A pile on the earth all unweak like that was With war helms behung, and with boards of the battle And bright byrnies, e'en after the boon that he bade Laid down then amid most their king mighty, famous The warriors lamenting the lief lord of them Began on the burg of bale-fires the biggest The warriors to waken: Haee! Yo! Haee! Yo! Ha! The wood reek went up swart over the smoky glow Sound of the flame, bewound with the weeping The wind blending stilled, until it at last the bone house had broken Hot at the heart, all unglad of mind with mood Care they mourned their liege-lord's quelling Likewise a sad lay the wife of aforetime For Beowulf the king, with her hair all up bounden Sang sorrow careful; said oft and over That harm days for herself she dreaded, shaming and bondage The slaughter falls many, much fear of the warrior Ah! Heav'n swallowed the reek Wrought there and fashioned the folk of the Weders A howe on the lithe, that high was and broad Unto the wave farers wide to be seen: Then if they betimber'd in time of ten days The battle's strong beacons, the brands' very leavings They bewrought with a wall in the worthiest of ways That men of all wisdom might find how to work Into burg then did they the rings and bright sun-gems And all such adornments as in the hoard there The war minded men had taken e'en now The earl's treasures they let the earth to be beholding Gold in the grit, wherein yet it liveth As useless to men as e'er it erst was Then round the howe rode the deer of the battle The bairns of the athelings; twelve were they in all Their care would they mourn, and bemoan them their king The word-lay they would utter and over the man speak They accounted his earlship and mighty deeds done And doughtily deemed them; as due it is That each one his friend-lord with words should belaud And love in his heart, when as forth shall he Away from the body be fleeting at last Ah! In such wise they grieved, the folk of the Geats For the fall of their lord, e'en they his hearth fellows Quoth they that he was a world king forsooth The mildest of all men, unto men kindest To his folk the most gentlest, most yearning of fame Ah!