Posted on by William G Carpenter

The Trial of Charles Steward

WILLIAM G. CARPENTER is the author of Eþandun (Beavers Pond Press, 2020), which depicts King Alfred’s struggle with the pagan Danes in 878 AD.  Available from Amazon, Itasca Books Distribution and www.williamgcarpenter.com

This is an excerpt from a poem-in-progress on the English Civil War. Previous sections have been published in Expansive Poetry On Line and The Brazen Head. [1] 

The Trial of Charles Steward

A-riding through the rain on miry roads,
Harrison fetched the king to Windsor Castle,
where Hamilton met him, kneeling in the mud. 
That very day, the Commons formed a committee
to stipulate how to proceed against him. 
When Charles shunned Feilding-Denbigh’s last-ditch offer –
his crown for bishops’ lands and the royal veto –
the army council stripped him of his state
and let him dine alone and read his Shakespeare. 
The Commons passed, and sent the Lords, a bill
for a High Court of Justice for to try him. 
The Lords denounced the Commons’ treason charge
as lawless and absurd.  Said Feilding-Denbigh,
named a judge, “I’d rather be torn in pieces
than take part in so infamous a business.” 
Whence the Commons espoused the army’s notion,
originating, plainly, with the Levellers, 
that the people being the source of all just power,
its acts alone were law, sans king or Lords. 
 
Late-coming Oliver eschewed the Council,
meeting instead with Widdrington and Whitelocke,
with Lenthall and Rich-Warwick, to explore
ways other than the officers’ Agreement. 
He asked the Duke of Hamilton at Windsor
to say who had invited him to invade –
Charles, LG Browne, remains of the Eleven? 
No answer was forthcoming from the Scot. 
O.C. disliked fixing a term for Parlament
and thought Charles might be spared, his trial deferred
till after those of other malefactors,
Hamilton, Rich-Holland, Goring-Norwich,
Owen, Lingen, Dyve, and Hastings-Loughborough. 
As ever, Cromwell waited on the Lord. 
 
But when Charles rebuffed Feilding-Denbigh’s mission
as envoy of a clutch of glorious peers –
and the Commons and the army rose together
in calling for the trial of the tyrant –
then Oliver discerned the hand of God
in His clear witnessings and dispensations,
albeit the Holy Ghost had not yet singed him. 
He mused, when added late to the committee
charged to draft the ordinance for the trial,
“Only the greatest traitor in the world –
the greatest rebel – would dare carry on
a plan to try the king for capital crimes. 
But God’s providence has cast us upon it –
myself can but submit.  God bless your counsels,
though I am not provided to give mine.” 
 
The act to frame the High Court of Justice
(which Rushworth called an ordinance of attainder)
alleged a wicked design by Charles Steward
to raze our ancient laws and liberties
and in their place to plant an arbitrary
and tyrannical state – the which design
Charles Steward had maintained with fire and sword,
levying war against the Parlament,
wasting the public wealth, and murdering thousands. 
Some seven score MPs and officers,
citizens, City magistrates, and lawyers
were named to be commissioners and judges. 
 
Fifty or so attended the first meeting
(the Lord General’s last) in the Painted Chamber. 
Fewer met next session, and the next,
and fewer still the next, when Serjeant Bradshaw
declined, at first, the unwanted dignity,
unwanted but rewardful, of Lord President. 
Cooke, Aske, and Dorislaus would draft the charges –
Steele had fallen suddenly, sadly ill. 
Despite the fervor for a large indictment
reaching back to James’ suspicious death,
the court kept out the bulk of Charles’ misdoings,
save those of substituting will for law
and levying war against the Parlament.
 
Harrison and Peter led the train
that ferried Charles in bitter cold from Windsor. 
The trial commenced in vast Westminster Hall
sub Second Richard’s oaken hammer beams,
where Strafford had been tried, and years before,
Frances Howard, Essex’ sometime countess,
for murdering Sir Thomas Overbury. 
Led in by Hacker’s thirty halberdiers,
Charles eyed the Lord President where he sat
in crimson chair, behind a crimson cushion,
and eyed the great sanhedrin of commissioners
to either side, on rows of scarlet benches. 
A mace and sword lay on the Turkey carpet
that decked the table where the clerks awaited. 
Charles turned to view the gentry in the galleries,
Axtell’s musketeers, the thousand groundlings,
then settled on the velvet chair provided,
and rose, and sat again.  Silence commanded,
Bradshaw declared the Commons had empowered
that court to make inquisition for blood. 
 
When Cooke commenced to speak, Charles sought to stay him,
rapping him on the shoulder with his stick –
a harmless battery – whose silver head
fell to the floor, beyond poor Herbert’s reach. 
Charles stooped to fetch it.  Cooke preferred the charge,
which a clerk then read, from Charles’s fell design
to substitute his private will for law,
to the dire raising of his wind-blown standard
at Nottingham, to the great fights at Edgehill,
Brentford, Caversham, Gloucester, Newbury, Cropredy,
Bodmin, Newbury, Leicester, and Naseby Field,
where many thousand free people were slain,
to the mad outbursts of the present year. 
Charles listened sternly, till he scoffed aloud
at “tyrant, traitor, murderer, and public
enemy to the Commonwealth of England.” 
Bradshaw then demanding Charles’s answer,
Charles held the ground he’d seized from the beginning –
that court had no authority to try him. 
 
Repeatedly, the court asked Charles to plead
guilty or not guilty to the charge –
this, repeatedly, he refused to do. 
Repeatedly, he asked whence came their power –
repeatedly was told, the people of England. 
This Charles Steward sturdily denied.
First, no earthly court could try a king,
his crown having come to him from God. 
He reigned not by consent but by descent,
lawful descent, above a thousand years. 
Second, no law provided for such trial
by Parlament – the Commons being none,
lacking king and peers and judicial powers. 
To answer, to submit to usurpation,
was counter to his duty as their king. 
The court, said Bradshaw, overruled his demurrer,
and barred him from persisting in such reasons. 
“Show me the court where reason is not heard,”
said Charles.  Bradshaw said, “The Commons of England.” 
That second day, he ordered Charles’ default. 
 
Despite default, the court chose a committee
of colonels and MPs to hear the witnesses. 
Some thirty testified that day and Thursday,
including gentlemen and husbandmen,
a yeoman, and men standing for the trades
of ironmonger, painter, maltster, weaver,
cordwainer, barber-surgeon, vintner, scrivener,
and soldier.  They had seen the king himself
in helmet, armor back and front, sword drawn
at or near the several battlefields
where thousands on both sides had spilt their blood. 
He’d countenanced the cruelty of his men
in plundering and cutting on their prisoners. 
Later, whilst he treated on the Isle of Wight,
he’d schemed to bring an Irish host to England. 
The witnesses avowed their depositions
in open court held in the Painted Chamber. 
Thus Charles was not judged solely pro confesso,
as men had been in the old Star Chamber days. 
 
The court reconvening to sentence Charles,
he asked for leave to address both his Houses
in the Painted Chamber, as much concerning peace. 
Bradshaw was scarlet-gowned for the day’s business
and wore as before his high-crowned, steel-lined hat. 
Charles too was covered, as all times before. 
Bradshaw said twas but a more delay
and denial of the forum’s jurisdiction,
but Charles denied denying jurisdiction,
though owning he could not acknowledge it. 
 
“Have we hearts of stone?” asked Colonel Downes,
seated back of Bradshaw, “are we men?” 
Downes’ neighbors on the bancs, Cawley and Walton,
and O.C. just below, essayed to calm him,
but Downes stood up and asked for an adjournment,
which Bradshaw ordered, leading the commissioners
to the Court of Wards.  There O.C. and others
angrily chided Downes for “a peevish man”
who “knew not that the court now had to do
with the hardest-hearted man that lived on Earth.” 
Said Cromwell, “He would fain save his old master.” 
Downes went apart and wept.  The court returning,
Bradshaw said twould brook no more delays,
and answered Charles’ objections to its powers. 
 
Briefly, the king’s deeds spoke not of peace. 
Nor were our kings superior to the laws
that often-summoned Parlaments enacted,
the king’s task being to administer justice. 
The people kept the right to bridle kings,
as peers had nobly done in the Barons’ Wars,
every nation furnishing suchlike precedents,
including Charles’s native land of Scotland. 
His grandmother Mary was set aside,
as in England, Edward Two and Richard Two. 
The people set them up and took them down –
the people, not descent, made English kings. 
Truly, Charles was a tyrant and a traitor
who’d fouled the land by shedding guiltless blood. 
Bradshaw prayed the Lord might mend his heart
and make him sensible of his miscarriages,
then, refusing further to hear from Charles,
who all along had disavowed the court,
ordered the clerk (Broughton) to read the sentence:
 
which was that Charles Steward be put to death
by the severing of his head from his body. 
The whole court rose to acknowledge the sentence. 
Charles was led out.  No rioting erupted,
save calls for “Justice!” and “God save the king!” 
Two ladies had cried out against the trial,
one of whom was said to be Lady Fairfax. 
Charles rode in a sedan chair back to Whitehall,
hid from view by soldiers lining King Street. 
No force of reformadoes rose for him,
no turbulent apprentices from London,
nor those who’d marched to disband Fairfax’ army,
nor those who’d risen up against the excise,
nor those who loved the Book of Common Prayer. 
 
On Sunday he was carried to St. James’s,
where Juxon preached and prayed with him all day,
the king excluding others from his presence. 
Cromwell would not have judged him so hard-hearted
had he seen with what feeling he gave his daughter,
when the children visited him on Monday,
his Hooker, Andrewes, and Laud contra Fisher. 
 
“Remember” was the king’s last word to Juxon
up on the freezing platform outside Whitehall. 
He’d likewise urged Elizabeth to remember
his last words to his sons and to his lady. 
Glancing at the sword, he’d said in court
he did not fear “the bill” – he now made good
that piece of bravery.  Charles had always dared
to plant one footstep, then the next – to face
the thunder of the guns, the gusting lead,
and the blind, smoking countenance of Mars
transpierced by stabbing red and yellow fires. 
Before he stepped from James’s Banqueting House,
he took a bite of manchet and some claret. 
 
High above the Parlamentarian troopers
who held back the crowd from the black-draped scaffold,
Charles made his last defense to those nearby,
the colonels, clerks, and executioners,
styling himself anew the people’s martyr,
defender of their wealth and liberties,
who had defied the tyrannous usurpers –
he who’d raised forced loans and so-called ship money,
who’d jailed his Parlamentary opponents,
dissolved the Houses for eleven years,
who’d mutilated Bastwick, Prynne, and Burton,
persecuted godly folk in their churches,
and lastly levied war against the Houses,
scheming to bring in foreign arms to best them. 
 
When the bright axe from the Tower struck its blow –
unlike the flurry needed to quell Mary –
one cried aloud, “Behold the head of a traitor!”
A huge groan, twas said, broke from the crowd,
as if Dagon had crushed them in the temple –
so sunk were they, were we, in fond idolatry,
illumining one small, obstinate prince
with borrowed glimmers from our Lord and King. 
Hacker’s troopers swiftly cleared the streets. 

[1] “Parlament” was Milton’s preferred spelling, as being more faithful to the word’s Late Latin origin. Steward is not a spelling error.

Posted on by Elizabeth Hurst

Utopias

ELIZABETH HURST was born in Los Angeles and has lived in San Francisco for many years. She likes poetry, alchemy, horror and politics

UTOPIAS

Is there any way that they can work well

Or are they merely maps to hell,

Satanic annexes come to settle

Among us. Tossed into the kettle

Of fish, a barracuda always slips

Among them and then it madly rips

Apart this school of innocent trust

And so hatred hardens to a crust

As they arm themselves with fanatic

Dogma that sadly won’t stay static

But fatally moves into the very worst

That we can imagine. We’ve been cursed

By our conception of vengeful God,

With ferocious judgment in the sod

That will inescapably receive us.

But hungry bacteria raise no fuss

As they return flesh to embracing earth

To unite us with this green sphere’s girth

As we soften and rot, rolled round and round

With the vast utopia underground.

Posted on by Lee Evans

Two poems by Lee Evans

LEE EVANS lives in Bath, Maine after having retired from the Maryland State Archives and the Bath YMCA. He has self-published thirteen books of poetry which are available on Amazon and Lulu.com

SIGNATURE REQUIRED

My van is parked idling in your driveway,

To keep the heater running and protect

Its fragile cargo from the winter wind.

I step up to your door and sharply rap

With one hand, holding gently in the other

The Valentine’s bouquet your lover bought

By phoning up his local florist shop.

You hesitate and wonder who it is.

While waiting patiently as you peek through

The curtains (it’s a dangerous neighborhood),

I count the fragile flowers I have brought:

(Sometimes they’re broken in the close-packed truck)

One dozen long stemmed roses in a vase.

Red petals, fresh, naively innocent,

Nestled in fern dotted with Baby’s Breath

And framed with purple status. So lovely,

Yet soon to lose their bloom in a few days –

To be bagged up and set out on the curb,

Manhandled by the trashman, hauled away.

“Capture the moment.” Customers consent

To our Sales Contract with no guarantee

That moment lasts forever. Never mind,

Let’s take our contracts with a grain of salt,

Our flowers with the atmosphere they breathe.

Look at these snowflakes as they freeze and cling

To the crimson petals and the Baker’s fern!

I wonder if you know what you sign for

When you scribble your name on my clipboard?

Well, I’m not employed to ask such questions.

Anyway, it’s time for me to hit the road;

There’s not too many hours of daylight left

To gather signatures for these bouquets.

Have a good evening, or what’s left of it.

TIDAL POOL

We gazed into a pool left by the tide;

Crouching together, close enough to see,

Apart enough to share its mystery.

Our dim reflections trembled with the sky,

Where periwinkles crept before our eyes

Beneath the liquid weight of their clear world,

And phytoplankton scurried in the whirl

Of their routines against the flow of time.

It was as though we crouched above ourselves,

And stared straight through our bodies into space

Upwards, towards an element that held

All creatures in the field of its embrace—

All while the waves devoured the shifting shoals

And stony shore alike, as on they rolled.

Posted on by Clarence Caddell

Two poems by Clarence Caddell

CLARENCE CADDELL is a poet currently dwelling in the Riverina district. His second collection, Broken Words, will be published with Bonfire Books later this year. 

AKRASIA

Yes, I will break my cigarette butts open

To roll another, dirty trembling fingers

Acting before my subject soul assents;

And I will contact one I put my hope in

Before and yet once more because she lingers

A likelihood, although I have more sense.

MY CONSCIENCE

My conscience only lightly seared, I bite

And forth comes blood of no salvific power;

And forth it oozes through each day and night,

So that I feel the constant need to shower.

Posted on by P R Pinson

Margaret: A Vision – A response to ‘The Pearl’

P R PINSON studied Philosophy at New York University. He now lives in Tbilisi, Georgia

This poem came about when I went to translate ‘The Pearl,’ a Middle English poem of the 14th century. I did not, in fact, complete that translation – instead, I produced what I here present, which borrows a great deal from ‘The Pearl’ – indeed, owes everything to it – yet is not, in the end, recognizably ‘The Pearl.’ This poem tells quite another story and envisions quite another ‘lady,’ and I have used the Spenserian stanza where the Pearl Poet employed his own spectacular 12-line invention. I wish to acknowledge the influence of The Pearl, so as to encourage anyone who would read this poem to go read its father-superior.

Margaret: A Vision

Two gates the silent house of Sleep adorn;

Of polish’d ivory this, that of transparent horn:

True visions thro’ transparent horn arise;

Thro’ polish’d ivory pass deluding lies.

                  Dryden’s Aeneid

I

Come the ides of August, where Margaret lay,

     A wild hand soweth gromwell ‘mid the thorn;

     Each wind beareth spice – in gallant array –

     Or Afric balms which might her crown adorn:

     This wonderment did ease my heart forlorn,

     Whene’er I’d lay me on that summer grave

     And drowse on summers past – through eve,

                                                          through morn –

     And on what graces her three summers gave,

‘Till Sorrow would come calling, as master to slave.

II

Dreams oft found me there I shall never tell –

     (Portents, whispers, visitations of light – )

     For such might be the conjury of Hell;

     For devils may come clothed in beauties bright

     To dim with vain visions our inborn sight.

     Heed ye then what the holy fathers say,

     In reticence thy soul is kept upright.

     And yet – one dream I shan’t so cast away

For I would more fear the judgement on Judgement Day.

 III

That dream came dropping from the noontide sun,

     Anon my senses enfolded in flame;

     Methought at last those harrowed days were done,

     And with them the sorrow and body lame,

     Yet what it was by fire I then became

     I know not—but for wit, all was abyss.

     To none that Adam hath imparted name –

     (Nor that his angel) – can I liken this:

 The terror was beyond all terror – the bliss, bliss.

 IV

And so[1] arrested I endured what seemed

     An age—yea, of an end I did despair—

    ‘Till sudden light across that chasm teemed

     And made of Nullity a middle air:

     I found me standing in a garden fair,

     Quickened as though a lazar from the pit;

     And as such a one, thus freed of all care,

     Would thence like Solomon in temples sit,

So gazed I on blossoms, as if the Holy Writ:

V

The paeony, the daffodil, the rose,

     The lily trembling in her lily bed;

     And the branches above like Cupid bows

     Poised in a gamble for Selene’s head[2],

     Ever to drop petals of crimson red,

     Which fell to earth yet nowhere fell to rot –

     Aye, deathless is a garden of the dead,

     Ne held mortmain, nor a burial plot:

As the first garden, made good – by a ghost begot.

VI

I wandered then the way those blossoms led:

     Eastward they tilted towards morning light;

     And eastward the brooks through the bow’rs fed

     Riverways arambling in threefold flight

     To a silvern city beyond the night,

     Wherein sat the Dawn as upon a throne –

     Rising but to bless, as the bishop might,

     Then back retiring to a court unknown,

Yet even so hidden, did pierce the very stone.

 VII

Thither I went—to seek the morningtide –

     But the way was lost in a wildered place

     Where thistle and thorn ruled the riverside

     And made me to stumble to my disgrace;

     Unreadied then to meet the maiden face –  

     Phantom across the water – tending me:

     A damozel she seemed, in vestal lace,

     Processioning as in an obsequy . . .

And in her eyes I saw my love’s – O Lord, ’twas she:

VIII

Margaret, the child, in full blossom of years,

     Ladied as none but a dreamer may see,

     With eyes like holy wells, freshened by tears,

     And comeliness a moonwhite fleur-de-lis.

   “Margaret,” quoth I, “how may I reach thee?

     A river doth divide us where I would.”

     To which the River – as upon decree –

     Began to rage before the place I stood,

And gone was the damozel to the darksome wood.

IX

A dreamer who then knew himself to dream,

     I, so emboldened, sought a wilful way –

     (To leap for my lady – and cross the stream,

     From thence to seek her – or, finding her, stay – )

     But found me waking to the August day

     Wherethrough I’d slept – and lo, despite a rain,

     Which did the shepherds and their flocks dismay

     And desolate the seedling summer grain . . .

 ‘Twas a goodly penance

 for a wandering swain.

P.R. PINSON studied Philosophy at New York University. He now lives in Tbilisi, Georgia

[1] I.e. thus; in the manner just described

[2]Endymion’s lover – the Moon

Posted on by A J Dalton

The Curse

A J DALTON is a London-based poet. This is his first appearance in The Brazen Head

The Curse

I’d always been nice

to Sheila, at least

I hadn’t ignored her

like the others or whispered

about how she was warty

under her raggedy dress

I liked her smile, mostly

not the queasy one she wore in church

or her over-grin when the weather turned

–just the one she let me see

when the wind blew our hair up

or a bird incredibly came at my call

Yet the seasons turned too quickly

and I was paired with the trader’s girl

to help her father’s business

yes, for that alone I betrayed my love

and I shunned her like the rest

till she left forlornly for the surrounding woods

Then the animals started to sicken

and the crops withered with a blight

till the people began to starve

–save me, I seemed alright

as death darkened every home

I was all alone

Our village was still and silent

abandoned and undone

I didn’t have the air to breathe

yet the end was still denied me

I mouthed and moaned to the louring sky

in dumb appeal that I might die

Only then the figure came

to hear me beg forgiveness

so I saw that smile of hers again

just the one she let me see:

and Sheila leaned in close, murmuring so sadly

of the things that might have been.

Posted on by Derek Turner · 3 Comments

The Bishop in winter

Derek Turner is the editor of the Brazen Head, and the author of the cultural history/memoir Edge of England: Landfall in Lincolnshire (2022). He has written for journals including the Spectator, Country Life and the Guardian, and his poetry has appeared in Quadrant.

Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln between 1235 and 1253, was one of the great intellectuals of thirteenth century Europe, and is seen as one of the founders of modern science. He was a poet, preacher, translator of Aristotle, writer of instructional and theological works, and the first English intellectual to think seriously about the nature and physical properties of light. His writings on light were a major influence on Isaac Newton, and are still read today by physicists as well as scientific historians

The Bishop in winter

Back to the city with last of the light

With blackbirds in blackthorns heralding night –

Death under branches, dun season of dearth,

As cold beyond cold beads the East Country earth.     

The Bishop’s steed stumbles, his secret’ry starts,

As their party picks home from farthest-flung parts,

Hoping for hearth as sky’s black flag unfurls,

To swallow all sinners in unfeeling world.

Dark thickens, air thins, numbs fingers and feet,

As steely shoes clink along once-Roman street –

Miles yet to go under stars sharp as swords –

Moon chills still waters at bitter-bleak fords.

But the Bishop sees brilliants – bright spangling gems –

As Greeks once glowed great through his wide-angled lens.

(Ancients who asked of the nature of things

Set fire in the mind of the man with the ring.)

Stars prick the plain and shoot among planets,

Strewn shining diamonds on blanket of jet;

Broderies worked in black covering cloths,

Showing the road for benighted and lost.

Chains of bright Being, strung tapers of Truth,

Worked by great Hand in Universe youth;

Divine by design, O celestial flame,

O Artisan fine, all praise to Your name!

All rays can illumine if seen the right way –

Rushlights for reading, brave bright of broad day,

Flames on friends’ faces, oriflamme of bird’s bill,

Glass that spills sun in his church on the hill.

Tomorrow will stride across seas, swamps and fields,

Gilding all lands as the beaten black yields –

Sun of The Son, most golden of forms,

The world by the Word made suddenly warm.

But now the old Bishop, out here in the dark

Must ride through the small hours bearing his spark –

He shivers, considers new treatises great

And longs for Cathedral, his lamp in the waste.                                                           

Posted on by A Z Foreman · 1 Comment

For Two Old English Poets

A. Z. FOREMAN is a poet and translator pursuing a doctorate in Near Eastern Languages at the Ohio State University. His work (both original compositions as well as translations from Arabic, French, Persian, Chinese, Latin, Occitan, Ukrainian, Russian, Hebrew, Welsh, Irish and Yiddish) has been featured in the Los Angeles Review, ANMLY, Asymptote, La Piccioletta Barca, Ilanot Review, Lunch Ticket, Metamorphoses, the Penguin Book of Russian Poetry and elsewhere. But really he’s most proud of having had his work featured in two people’s tattoos, and if you have a dog he’d love to pet it

For Two Old English Poets

              Beowulf Poet

              Oh have I heard of You before and yet

little about You other than Your tongue

of Marchen steel and a monk’s two-edged song

for God the Weird. Your heart let heathens fret

limbs off Cain’s kin. Your blood is red sunset

on Woden hanging Christlike. Tell again

of Yeatland’s thane and freaks who prowled the fen.

Let Beowulf burn and burn till I forget

              to ponder You, drop from dried floods of lore

rephrased molecularly into fame

who knew why Heorot fell to barbarous flame,

and what the Wolving chief was murdered for.

Dear last survivor of Deor’s shattered scene,

what would You have these monstrous treasures mean?

              Deor

              All of it passed. Your Wayland in the snows

eaten with frost and anger, your love-quick

Mathild, mad Thedrick, wolf-mad Armenrick…

Their English stories were a spring-starved rose,

which leaves us here to thresh their cameos

in you like lighting candles with no wick

or parsing ravings of a lunatic

in a half-cognate language no one knows.

              You are a name now and refrain, a true

bard in eternal exile, wandering

papers of scholars as they scratch for rue

to bleed beneath the wistful scab you sing.

              Your hurt song may have made whole legends ring

but they have passed. So too has most of you.

Deor    

Translated from Old English

              a translation for Christina von Nolcken

Wayland in Wormland　went through harrows,

The strongminded smith　suffered in exile.

Worry and longing 　walked beside him,

winter-raw anguish.　He ached for escape

after King Nithad　cramped his sinews　

and bound a slave　of the better man.

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

To Beadild’s mind　her brothers’ deaths

weren’t as wounding　as what she faced

herself when she came　to clearly see

that she was pregnant.　That princess unwed

could not handle　what would become of her.

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

We know the tale  　of tragic Mathild.

the Geat bore her　a bottomless passion,

all sleep banished 　by a baneful love

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

Tyrant Thedrick　for thirty winters

ruled the Mearings,　as many know.

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

We have all heard tell　of Armenrick

and his wolfsick mind.　He was one cruel king,

That overlord　of the outland Goths

whose state was set　in strung-up hearts　

as strong men sat　in sorrow-chains

awaiting the worst,　and wishing so much

for a foe to liberate　the land of their king.

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

A man sits mournful,　mind ripped from joy.

His spirit in dark,　he deems himself

foredoomed to endure　ordeals forever.

Then he may think　how throughout the world

the Wise God goes　and works around:

meting out grace,　mercy and certain

success to some,　suffering to many.

              Of myself I want　to say just this:

I was high poet　　to the Hedenings once,

Dear to my master.　”Deer” was my name.

For many winters　 I was a man in that hall

And the heart of my lord.　But Herrend came

And reaped the riches　and rights of land

That guardian of men 　once granted me,

And stole my place 　with a poet’s skill.

              That passed in time.　So too can this.

This poem refers to stock characters — real and fictional — from Germanic lore. Some of the figures are now obscure, and those that aren’t are not known directly from Old English versions of the story. I have modernized many of the names in my translation, giving them forms that would be plausible as Modern English versions of the name. The biggest exception is Wayland, whose Old English name would actually have been Weeland or more likely Weland had it survived into the modern period. Wayland (Old English Wéland, Old Norse Vǫlundr, Old High German Wiolant) is barely attested in English written sources, though there are visual representations of him. He was a legendary smith renowned for his metal working ability. From Norse sources it emerges that he was forced to work for Nithad (OE Niþhad, ON Níðuðr) who hamstrung him to stop his escape, and that he avenged himself by killing the king’s sons and impregnating his daughter Beadild (OE Beadohilde, ON Bǫðvildr). Mathild and Geat are totally opaque. They appear to be famous lovers that met a tragic end, like Romeo and Juliet, or Layla and Majnun. The ablest guess is that they correspond to Magnhild and Gaute of a Scandinavian ballad tale recorded in the 19th century, but even if so the story as it was known to the poet’s English audience may well have differed greatly from the version known from Scandinavia a thousand years later. Thedric is Theodoric, the Ostrogothic emperor who ruled in Italy from 493 to 526. Armenric is Ermanaric the Goth, another famous tyrant.

Lament of the Last Survivor (Beowulf 2231-2270)

Translated from Old English

              a translation for Nelson Goering

There was such ancient wealth　in that earthen vault.

In an age long past,　with an end in his mind,

someone now nameless　had known to hide

his dear treasure　in the darkness here,

the heaped legacy　of a highborn race

at dynasty’s end. 　Death already

had taken them all　in times gone by,

and left just this one:　the last warrior

of a fallen line　whose fate he mourned,

expecting the same.　This sad watchman

knew that ageless hoard　would be only his

to enjoy briefly.　The barrow stood

built and waiting 　by the breaking waves

crafted for safety,　set on the headland.

That keeper of rings　 then carried in

all the gold-plated 　goods he had there

worth protecting. 　His words were these few:

    “Hold now, O earth,　what heroes cannot:

Wealth of warriors.　It was worthy men

who delved it from you.　Death in battle

has mowed them down.　Mortal horror

has made away　with the mortal souls

of each of my clan　who have quit this life,

the hall-mirth of knights.　Nobody’s here

to bear me a blade　or bring my cup’s

burnished meadgold.　My band moved on.

The hard helmet　hasped in goldwork

must lose its hoop.　Helm-shiners sleep

that once burnished　my battle-mask.

War-coats that braved　the biting steel

when shields burst wide　will be worn to bits

with their brave wearers.　The whorled hauberk

will wander no more　on the warchief’s back

in a battle band. 　No more brilliant harp

with timbered tune,　no trained falcon

swooping the songhall,　no swift-hoof horse

prancing the courtgrounds.　Plundering carnage

ousts whole peoples　out of existence.”

   So he mourned who survived,　remembering hurts,

alone after them all,　aching and maundering

for days and nights 　till death’s tide reached

his beaten heart.　

This passage is traditionally known as the Lament of the Last Survivor, and it is one of my favourites from the poem. The hero finds treasure in the hoard left by a man of a vanished nation, the last of a people who lived even before the Migration Era in which the poem is set. The Beowulf poet elsewhere alludes to a number of legendary episodes (often from stories that are now unknown apart from their oblique mention in this poem), and normally names the participants. Sometimes that’s all he does. The audience would be expected to know, for example, who Hrothmund, Heorogar and Heoroweard were (the former two names are completely unknown outside of Beowulf, and the latter only from Scandinavian material). This larger narrative context gives point to the fact that the man here is completely anonymized. With no one left to carry on the tribe’s history, the whole heroic ideal of immortality through imperishable fame (or, if you like *ḱléwos *ń̥dʰgʷʰitom) is meaningless. His name is dead, and so too should his story be. And yet, the story lives in this poem. We are hearing a story we ought not to be able to hear. Invited to consider how many tribes and nations have simply disappeared and left not so much as a name, we imagine a memory we cannot really have. The man himself has no use for the treasures of his nation now, and so decides to bury in a hoard. With no one left to talk to, he addresses himself to the earth as it receives his tribe’s now-meaningless treasure.

Posted on by Paul Deane · 1 Comment

The Song of David and Abishag

PAUL DEANE is a computational linguist by profession and a poet by avocation. Since 1999, he has edited Forgotten Ground Regained, a website and (since 2023) a quarterly journal devoted to modern English alliterative verse. Three of his poems appear in Dennis W. Wise’s 2023 anthology, Speculative Poetry and the Modern Alliterative Revival: A Critical Anthology

Author’s Note: The Song of David and Abishag is a metrical experiment, following principles I discussed in the Fall, 2024 issue of Forgotten Ground Regained (in this article). The rule I’m following is that alliteration is mandatory on the final root stress of each half line, on the grounds that modern English has rising rather than falling rhythm. That enables rhythms that are much more natural to contemporary ears without having to resort to the kinds of archaisms and marked word orders that often tempt poets if they try to replicate the Old English alliterative pattern without fully understanding its inner logic.

The Bible extract comes from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

The Song of David and Abishag

When King David was very old, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him. So his attendants said to him, “Let us look for a young virgin to serve the king and take care of him. She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.” Then they searched throughout Israel for a beautiful young woman and found Abishag, a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. The woman was very beautiful; she took care of the king and waited on him, but the king had no sexual relations with her.
                                                                                                                                   1 Kings 1:1-3

Imagine a picture, pastel, impressionistic,

where light half-veiled by curtains reveals

walls of cedar: and, standing in the center,

a girl’s form, nude; her pose, natural

in the light of the lamp she holds uplifted.

Generations of artists have labored to earn

skill to animate such grace in oils

layered cunningly over blank canvas.

Before her lies a bed. Tightly tucked blankets

hide a man’s figure, though one arm, frail,

is caught by the light. His face is lost

where the shadows gather. Her eyes glitter,

giving the sense of liquid welling, unreleased.

David:

My sister, my bride, fold back the blankets

and lie down beside me –

                      Relax; you are safe.

                      I lust only for warmth –

Abishag:

My lord, I’m your wife! If you will it, I am willing

to lie with a legend, though I had hoped for love.

David:

Love conquers all! Or so say the innocent,

but I have loved too much and lost even more.

Come closer! Yes, sit. Can you sing a song

that makes time drift by? I can no longer bear

to lie alert, restless, while the moon rises.

Abishag (first humming, then chanting)

There was a high crag where the Philistines camped,

and the Lord’s warriors gathered, waiting

for battle to be joined. And there he stood: A giant

nine feet tall and terrible. They called him a Titan,

a son of the gods, bearing a spear greater

than any lesser man could carry. He was a true killer,

Israel’s terror, Goliath the Tall.

A horn rang in challenge! Their herald charged

Israel to find a man to fight him

but no one came forth. They all quaked with fear.

“Lord,” we cried, “deliver us!” But only one lad

offered to fight him, and we thought he would fail.

David:

I thought I would fail, but the strange thing about faith

is that it rises most readily when your heart races

and your limbs tremble and only your trust

in God’s faithfulness keeps you from falling.

As the Lord lives, girl! That look you just gave me

was as sharp as a sword. Was it something I said?

Abishag:

I understand terror. My own heart clenched tight

when I opened your door and took off my dress.

But surely God had a plan, some secret purpose,

when he carried me here from my father’s house.

David:

Who am I to deny what God only knows?

I was a boy, a shepherd shearing sheep

when the prophet came to make me king

long before I was crowned. That secret nearly killed me.

Take comfort, girl. You will find grace

to live past loss; you will know love –

strange as it seems, your heart will sing.

Abishag:

I cannot sleep, but I can sing a lullabye or a psalm.

Close your eyes, my king! Let rest be your crown

while stars wheel over us, until the whole world wakes.

The room is dark.  The light is dim.

Her eyes glow in the moon’s glimmering.

Her voice sounds clear; the notes rise clean

into the night air and tremble, echoing.

After a while, a rasping snore interrupts her song.

The old man sleeps.

Who can say what design will emerge from our desires?

Who can make patterns form when our dearest fantasies

clash with what is real, and our mind’s horizon

blinds us to the powers that mock our pride?

So many girls have sat like her, uncertain and unsafe.

So many men, grown old, having lost all innocence,

Stare into the void, where night reveals

the outline of their souls. Can anyone say

what is in their heart, or what the future holds?

That we must leave to faith.

Posted on by Robbie Coburn

Eros, Fragile and Precious Animals

ROBBIE COBURN is a poet based in Melbourne, Australia. His verse novel The Foal in the Wire will be published by Hachette Australia in 2025 and his most recent poetry collection is Ghost Poetry (Upswell, 2024). His website is robbiecoburn.com

Eros, Fragile and Precious Animals

Drear heavensong, trumpeting endlessly
and everything masked by eventide, 

black membrane, shadowed skin filmed

across my eyes before the mind’s gloaming.

your suffering will always be a flood.

when I am writing to you, Hare, I think 

of the way your feet cross in your sleep
resembling those of a suspended rabbit. 

hours eaten away, parted lips
of your unfastened and breathing mouth

like the beak of a dead sparrow on its back

moved by the wind.

when I unknowingly woke

to Craw’s bleating call, I answered,

spurning the deluge and not considering 

the passerine chamber’s weight.

I left you there sleeping,

your framework turning suddenly onto

its breast in the darkness, as if commanded,

concealing your heart from mine.