What Does the Raven Eat Today?

 

by Brett Rutherford

    After a ballad by Kreuznach

Over the parched field one raven flew.
Keen was his eye, but nothing he found.
One comrade comes from the flock to join him.
“My coal-black friend, a word I pray.
What man shall give us our food this day?”

Quoth he: “Beyond the wood in Elfindale,
a lordly feast awaits us all.
Come follow me, to the gallow-tree
where the smell  of blood I keen,
the blood of a hero, once brave and kind.”

“Ah!” cried his friend. “I will alert the host.
Who was the wretched man, and how his fall?” —
“Ask the knight’s falcon, who knew him well,
or ask the grieving charger on which he rode,
or better yet, ask of the wife at home alone

what name shall the tombstone call him.
The hawk speaks now, for he has flown
beyond the hunt and its dainty reward.
The horse now serves the murderer,
who rides and rides to the humble abode

where he will play with his enemy’s child,
and take the woman and lift her up
from weeping widow to his armor’d kiss.
Come, ravens wild! The feast is ours,
another banquet from human-kind!”