Songs from Vagabondia/The Marching Morrows

​THE MARCHING MORROWS.

Now gird thee well for courage,My knight of twenty year,Against the marching morrowsThat fill the world with fear!
The flowers fade before them;The summer leaves the hill;Their trumpets range the morning,And those who hear grow still.
Like pillagers of harvest,Their fame is far abroad,As gray remorseless troopersThat plunder and maraud.
The dust is on their corselets;Their marching fills the world;With conquest after conquestTheir banners are unfurled.
They overthrow the battlesOf every lord of war,From world-dominioned citiesWipe out the names they bore.
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Sohrab, Rameses, Roland,Ramoth, Napoleon, Tyre,And the Romeward Huns of Attila—Alas, for their desire!
By April and by autumnThey perish in their pride,And still they close and gatherOut of the mountain-side.
The tanned and tameless childrenOf the wild elder earth,With stature of the northlights,They have the stars for girth.
There’s not a hand to stay them,Of all the hearts that brave;No captain to undo them.No cunning to off-stave.
Yet fear thou not! If haplyThou be the kingly one,They’ll set thee in their vanguard To lead them round the sun.

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