"Consider it” the courtier said to the king "The Gods would never let the Reaper count among the battle-dead The young and strong whom love has newly bound As blissful newly wed”
And so it seemed! When searching the war-torn land No grave was found to mark the stain Of newly wed, newly slain
Thus must they have triumphed with lovers' might Two hearts in every lover's breast What foe could stand the steel that love drove To cleave helm, rend armour, sunder bone
“What mighty, fell warriors these must be In the springtime of their love” So spread the Courtier's revelation The grim weaponry of devotion unmasked
The King, foes at hand and hard pressed Now quickly formed his shock battalion of lovers Whose brides, close as a skin to the battle, would suffer To see Hell break loose between vows and wedding bed
Wedding parties among armourers and farriers A wedding draught for courage Gold bands not yet blood-warmed On hands raised in “Adieu!”
Only through battle the taste of heaven on earth to be had The love-zealots drove wild through the enemy to find Among baggage train and camp kitchens A familiar, foreign rear-guard, devoted and adoring
Who overjoyed to meet victorious warriors And at such short notice could not countenance the worst And, as angels, would have felled these men With easy smiles and tender greetings
Whence came the counter-revelation Of us-and-them and just-the-same And wheeling, reeling heads and hearts Turned back to battle and were condemned to mortality
The noble and sanctified were thus slain Justice was served to kings, courtiers, lovers and mere others And by brutal blow and fickle chance the victors wrote history And made justice, made their heaven on earth.