What bride-song is this that is blown on the blast of thy breath? A gift but of grief to thy kinsmen, a song but of death, For the bride's folk weeping, and woe for her father, who finds thee against him in fight. Turn back from us, turn thy battle, take heed of our cry; [_Ant._ 5. Let thy dread breath sound, and the waters of war be dry; Let thy strong wrath shatter the strength of our foemen, the sword of their strength and the shield; As vapours in heaven, or as waves or the wrecks of ships, 1330 So break thou the ranks of their spears with the breath of thy lips, Till their corpses have covered and clothed as with raiment the face of the sword-ploughed field. O son of the rose-red morning, O God twin-born with the day, [_Str._ 6. O wind with the young sun waking, and winged for the same wide way, Give up not the house of thy kin to the host thou hast marshalled from northward for prey. From the cold of thy cradle in Thrace, from the mists of the fountains of night, [_Ant._ 6. From the bride-bed of dawn whence day leaps laughing, on fire for his flight, Come down with their doom in thine hand on the ships thou hast brought up against us to fight. For now not in word but in deed is the harvest of spears begun, [_Str._ 7. And its clamour outbellows the thunder, its lightning outlightens the sun. 1340 From the springs of the morning it thunders and lightens across and afar To the wave where the moonset ends and the fall of the last low star. With a trampling of drenched red hoofs and an earthquake of men that meet, Strong war sets hand to the scythe, and the furrows take fire from his feet. Earth groans from her great rent heart, and the hollows of rocks are afraid, And the mountains are moved, and the valleys as waves in a storm-wind swayed. From the roots of the hills to the plain's dim verge and the dark loud shore, Air shudders with shrill spears crossing, and hurtling of wheels that roar. As the grinding of teeth in the jaws of a lion that foam as they gnash Is the shriek of the axles that loosen, the shock of the poles that crash. 1350 The dense manes darken and glitter, the mouths of the mad steeds champ, Their heads flash blind through the battle, and death's foot rings in their tramp. For a fourfold host upon earth and in heaven is arrayed for the fight,