From nightsky-hooded face in cloud
Peered eyes unmoved to rainy tears
As echoed lands leafed and wooded loud
With a thunder that even lightning fears.

As stirrupped shoe spurred horseshoed hoof
To race winds out of whistling breath
And fumbling hand scaling sloping roof
Hung one foot further from certain death.

As shirking guard caught longer wink
With every quieter moonlit hour
And grew with every waking blink
The enemy troops in man-horse-power.

As gate-latch from the inside turned
To let the hordes of horsemen in
And smokelessly the outposts burned
With dreams cut short and trapped within.

As roused and into armours slipped
The king and all his thousand men
And swords were crossed and visors tipped
To the hope their eyes would meet again.

As feigned the lefts and struck the rights
To kill and maim; unshield and unsaddle
And clashed the minds and banged the mights
While rose to sky the cries of battle.

As fell with each a heroic thud
A hundred martyred defenders dead
And stained the earth the enemy blood
From every trophy enemy head.

As gate-latch from the inside turned
To let the riderless horses out
And heaps of vanquished bodies burned
Till headless ghosts were all about.

As washed and out of armours slipped
The king and his nine hundred men
And swords replaced; wineglasses tipped
For their eyes indeed had met again.

Then turned to rest the yawning night
And rang again the morning bell
A hundred times - for each lost to the fight
The day the fortress almost fell.