HYMN TO WODEN. William Lisle Bowles Alexander Huber Editor Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford
Broad Street Oxford OX1 3BG UK
Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive
Taylor Institution Library St Giles' Oxford OX1 3NA UK info@eighteenthcenturypoetry.org https://www.eighteenthcenturypoetry.org/
Oxford This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Bowles, William Lisle, 1762-1850. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. I. With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan. Edinburgh James Nichol, 9 North Bank Street... 1855 pp. 113-114.

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HYMN TO WODEN . God of the battle , hear our prayer ! By the lifted falchion's glare ; By the uncouth fane sublime , Marked with many a Runic rhyme ; By the " weird sisters " Valkyriæ , or choosers of the slain . See Gray's " Fatal Sisters , " et cet . dread , That , posting through the battle red , Choose the slain , and with them go To Valhalla's halls below , Where the phantom-chiefs prolong Their echoing feast , a giant throng , And their dreadful beverage drain From the skulls of warriors slain : God of the battle , hear our prayer ; And may we thy banquet share ! Save us , god , from slow disease ; From pains that the brave spirit freeze ; From the burning fever's rage ; From wailings of unhonoured age , Drawing painful his last breath ; Give us in the battle death ! Let us lift our glittering shield , And perish , perish in the field ! Now o'er Cumri's hills of snow To death , or victory , we go ; Hark ! the chiefs their cars prepare ; See ! they bind their yellow hair ; Frenzy flashes from their eye , They fly — our foes before them fly ! Woden , in thy empire drear , Thou the groans of death dost hear , And welcome to thy dusky hall Those that for their country fall ! Hail , all hail the godlike train , That with thee the goblet drain ; Or with many a huge compeer , Lift , as erst , the shadowy spear ! Whilst Hela's inmost caverns dread Echo to their giant tread , And ten thousand thousand shields Flash lightning o'er the glimmering fields ! Hark ! the battle-shouts begin — Louder sounds the glorious din : Louder than the ice's roar , Bursting on the thawing shore ; Or crashing pines that strew the plain , When the whirlwinds hurl the main ! Riding through the death-field red , And singling fast the destined dead , See the fatal sisters fly ! Now my throbbing breast beats high — Now I urge my panting steed , Where the foemen thickest bleed . Soon exulting I shall go , Woden , to thy halls below ; Or o'er the victims , as they die , Chaunt the song of Victory !