Excalibur
Old these hills and old the stone,
Ploughed the grave and broke the bone;
Long the grass on paths forgot
To camps and kingdoms which are not;
Lost the songs of feast and raid,
Dead the king and rust his blade.
Earth
The underworld has swallowed men before.
Thieved from the earth, the ore attracts
bad luck like wasps to sweetness,
and if the blood of animals
is not sacrifice enough,
the debt is paid by offering
a newborn, the head of a captive.
Fire
The sorcerer keeps his creature hid,
late into the night there is panting,
a cough of sparks, the spoor of slag,
fire sweating bright droplets from ore.
Hard metal beaten to his will,
hobbled and wrathful, he alone
draws from dull rock the sharp sword.
Air
Raised in the battled air, sun-struck,
the blade reaps a harvest of foes.
Swordless, men are merely
robbers, cattle-thieves, bullies.
After its first taste of blood,
a warrior names his sword;
its hilt more eager for his hand.
Water
Who would risk the wrathful blades
of slain men? Sunken in water,
left to grow old with the earth's wife,
their spite is blunted. Tales are told
of lonely places, curlew-haunted,
where the sky’s mirror shivers
and a sword once offered itself.
By David Barber
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