THE JUDGEMENT OF VALHALLA BY GILBERT FRANKAU NEW YORK FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY 1918 Copyright, 1918 GILBERT FRANKAU _All rights reserved_ The Judgement of Valhalla BY GILBERT FRANKAU _THE DESERTER_ “I’m sorry I done it, Major.” We bandaged the livid face; And led him out, ere the wan sun rose, To die his death of disgrace. The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge; The rifles steadied to rest, As cold stock nestled at colder cheek And foresight lined on the breast. “_Fire!_” called the Sergeant-Major. The muzzles flamed as he spoke: And the shameless soul of a nameless man Went up in the cordite-smoke. _THE EYE AND THE TRUTH_ Up from the fret of the earth-world, through the Seven Circles of Flame, With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of the death-in-shame, To the little gate of Valhalla the coward-spirit came. Cold, It crouched in the man-strong wind that sweeps Valhalla’s floor; Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; and howled, like a dog, at the Door Which is shut to the souls who are sped in shame, for ever and evermore: For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet-boards where the Threefold Killers sit, Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard-rim, and the Endless Smokes are lit.... And It saw the Nakéd Eye come out above the lintel-slit. And now It quailed at Nakéd Eye which judges the naked dead; And now It snarled at Nakéd Truth that broodeth overhead; And now It looked to the earth below where the gun-flames flickered red. It muttered words It had learned on earth, the words of a black-coat priest Who had bade It pray to a pulpit god--but ever Eye’s Wrath increased; And It knew that Its words were empty words, and It whined like a homeless beast: Till, black above the lintel-slit, the Nakéd Eye went out; Till, loud across the Killer-Feasts, It heard the Killer-Shout-- The three-fold song of them that slew, and died ... and had no doubt. _THE SONG OF THE RED-EDGED STEEL_ _Below your black priest’s heaven, Above his tinselled hell, Beyond the Circles Seven, The Red-Steel Killers dwell-- The men who drave, to blade-ring home, behind the marching shell._ We knew not good nor evil, Save only right of blade; Yet neither god nor devil Could hold us from our trade, When once we watched the barrage lift, and splendidly afraid Came scrambling out of cover, And staggered up the hill.... The bullets whistled over; Our sudden dead lay still; And the mad machine-gun chatter drove us fighting-wild to kill.