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David Sutton

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Heroic Ideal

 

‘Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað’
             – The Battle of Maldon


I bet those words were never said at all,
At least not that way. In the thick of battle,
Lead-limbed, parched of lung, swinging a sword
On wet ground treacherous with guts and blood,
A sea of nightmare faces howling hatred,
Your mates decamping, all your leaders dead,
You’re likely, right, to spout bravura verse
Polished enough to last a thousand years?
‘Let your spirits now be harder, hearts be keener,
Let courage be the more as we grow weaker’ –
Some Saxon Churchill, then: good leader-work
Dubbed on defeated lips: this was Dunkirk
Without deliverance: we ran and died.
No wonder, then, we looked so hard for pride.

But this I might believe, that in the fight
Some bonehead, unaware of history’s spotlight,
Seeing that he had come to the end of his luck,
Muttered the Anglo-Saxon for ‘Oh fuck’
And then, among the fleeing, stood his ground.
Whatever. True or not, the words resound,
Unironical, accusing, tough:
Saying not everything, and yet enough.

 

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