The Viking crouched once,
a red wish in shadow as the clean light failed,
foot fierce on a farm whelp, dying,
crying a faint crooked howl to Alfred's Hill;
and when the blue Saxon midnight met the sea,
under the high apples and the dancing stars
he crept like a doll of steel from a small owl-tree
to where the fire of a field bride opened its heart
and the stretching firs were a part of her brown flesh
branched bare in the hanging nightwind,
and he bound her sweet hand-blossoms with goblin ivy;
took her summe gold; and his gay sword
held her scream quiet in her waking breath.
Eric Ratcliffe
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-gentle-raider-v2/
