The long-ships drove up the Bure, and the horned men
were
there to rape and to burn,
Seeding their names, Rollesby and Billockby, Fleggburgh,
Clippesby and Thurne,
Ashby and Oby. Our church roofs came from the rot of
each
oak-warped stern.But the Nazarene grip was strong. The surge of
energy in
the whoring blood
Settled for the purpled moan of the organ, the heifer
chewing her cud,
And the cart with its thwarted axle broken and stuck in
December mud.
I drive to the service at Clippesby, a mile along
sugar-beet-sodden-road.
My lights throw up the parishioners, whipped by the
Christian goad
And the hope of Heaven, their faces pinched by a cold,
unearthly woad
Into shapes of bread and wine. Their archangels gloat
and
wither on spruce,
Bald winter's fuel from Norway. The tied surplice is
shaken loose,
And the paean rises, the bitter semen of prayer squeezed
like a juice.
Nothing can alter the sounded heritage from the
throbbing brine,
The keels lifting above the waves. Let humility
be divine.
All arrogance is human, the black ride of the Vikings
is mine. |