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  THE JUDGEMENT
  OF VALHALLA


  BY
  GILBERT FRANKAU


  NEW YORK
  FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY
  1918




  Copyright, 1918
  GILBERT FRANKAU

  _All rights reserved_




The Judgement of Valhalla

BY GILBERT FRANKAU




_THE DESERTER_


    “I’m sorry I done it, Major.”
    We bandaged the livid face;
    And led him out, ere the wan sun rose,
    To die his death of disgrace.

    The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge;
    The rifles steadied to rest,
    As cold stock nestled at colder cheek
    And foresight lined on the breast.

    “_Fire!_” called the Sergeant-Major.
    The muzzles flamed as he spoke:
    And the shameless soul of a nameless man
    Went up in the cordite-smoke.




_THE EYE AND THE TRUTH_


    Up from the fret of the earth-world, through the Seven Circles of
       Flame,
    With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of the death-in-shame,
    To the little gate of Valhalla the coward-spirit came.

    Cold, It crouched in the man-strong wind that sweeps Valhalla’s
       floor;
    Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; and howled, like a dog,
       at the Door
    Which is shut to the souls who are sped in shame, for ever and
       evermore:

    For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet-boards where the Threefold
       Killers sit,
    Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard-rim, and the Endless Smokes
       are lit....
    And It saw the Nakéd Eye come out above the lintel-slit.

    And now It quailed at Nakéd Eye which judges the naked dead;
    And now It snarled at Nakéd Truth that broodeth overhead;
    And now It looked to the earth below where the gun-flames flickered
       red.

    It muttered words It had learned on earth, the words of a black-coat
       priest
    Who had bade It pray to a pulpit god--but ever Eye’s Wrath
       increased;
    And It knew that Its words were empty words, and It whined like a
       homeless beast:

    Till, black above the lintel-slit, the Nakéd Eye went out;
    Till, loud across the Killer-Feasts, It heard the Killer-Shout--
    The three-fold song of them that slew, and died... and had no
       doubt.




_THE SONG OF THE RED-EDGED STEEL_


      _Below your black priest’s heaven,
        Above his tinselled hell,
      Beyond the Circles Seven,
        The Red-Steel Killers dwell--
    The men who drave, to blade-ring home, behind the marching shell._

      We knew not good nor evil,
        Save only right of blade;
      Yet neither god nor devil
        Could hold us from our trade,
    When once we watched the barrage lift, and splendidly afraid

      Came scrambling out of cover,
        And staggered up the hill....
      The bullets whistled over;
        Our sudden dead lay still;
    And the mad machine-gun chatter drove us fighting-wild to kill.

      Then the death-light lit our faces,
        And the death-mist floated red
      O’er the crimson cratered places
        Where his outposts crouched in dread....
    And we stabbed or clubbed them as they crouched; and shot them as
           they fled;

      And floundered, torn and bleeding,
        Over trenches, through the wire,
      With the shrapnel-barrage leading
        To the prey of our desire--
    To the men who rose to meet us from the blood-soaked battle-mire;

      Met them; gave and asked no quarter;
        But, where we saw the Gray,
      Plunged the edged steel of slaughter,
        Stabbed home, and wrenched away....
    Till red wrists tired of killing-work, and none were left to slay.

      Now--while his fresh battalions
        Moved up to the attack--
      Screaming like angry stallions,
        His shells came charging back,
    And stamped the ground with thunder-ho