Lamenting Shield-Maid

She was not raised in garden of peace, where
sunbeams play in blooming trees. She was told
to be born in battle and brought up among
dismal and death. Skilled in the craft of killing
and fight, the girl learned to bear weapons and
a sword did she yield. No worse than her peers
she held up her shield and grew into a maiden,
a fair one and strong. And there among warriors
all grim-faced and tall she eventually found her
life and her love. And in an ancient old forest of
green they used to meet in their ardour and lust.
They embraced each other and only the trees
heard their sighs full of pleasure shared under
the veil of the moon...

Yet they had to part soon as the battlefield
called and brought them apart for many a
league and for months she was sundered from
his godly voice and this is the song that she sang :

Ho! To the battle I went
And killed many a mightier men
(and even a troll!)
And my sorrow withdrew
As I drowned my woes
In the deaths of my enemies
And the blood of my foes

Victories healed her and gave her the strength to rival the severance and the grief of long nights...
Once roaming along an old brook in the wood, she heard voices and sound of a battle not far -
so unsheathing her sword the maid hastened for help and could not believe her emerald eyes when
she percieved Him lying in the rushes alone with crimson red cloud of blood spreading around,
all pierced with sharp arrows and hewn into parts. To the ancient green forest had he evidently
returned to seek shades of their happiness long left behind, but ambushed by enemies and
grievously wounded he was as she leant over him and wept...The shield-maid mourned long
beside his deep grave, dug by her own hands in a shadowy meadow in the ancient forest of
menacing old. And this is her last lamenting chant :

Now to my final battle I must go
All I ever had is now buried and lost
And he whom I cherished has taken my strength
Away to the halls where life never ends
There now I shall follow and meet him again
And among the undying flowers and trees
We'll walk hand in hand in the gardens of death