1. You towered above, with the staunchest seven beneath you,
The pillar of every glorious deed,

2. Your foes submitted, humbled before you,
Rebellious but for the fear that filled them.

3. Emboldened when you were gone, now blackened,
Humbled at your return, now tamed and checked.

4. When their eyes secretly stole a glimpse of you,
The distance between was spanned by yearning.

5. As if, awake with the fire of battle in their eyes,
Slumber now walked in their sight.

6. Sparing no obedience, yet life itself they spared not,
So free in your cause with their souls and their swords.

7. That smooth-tongued miser beguiled them with lies,
False hopes that wrenched hearts asunder.

8. How could he dream of attaining your noble heights,
With excellence borne upon your shoulders?

9. Indignant, the masters spit in his smug face,
Pillows poisoned with guile and rumours.

10. Lost in his treachery, the path ahead cleared:
In their ruin, wisdom was born.

11. He poisoned their minds with false hopes,
And like fools they believed him, and so were destroyed.

12. His plans he spun, but his judgement was flawed,
Wide of the mark, no truth in his thoughts.

13. Their zeal faded; and fear took them,
Its dampening flames with ashes smothered.

14. When the chance came, he wished only
That utter decay should consume them.

15. As if misfortune had clothed them in black
Before their ruin had come upon them.

16. As if the bare hilts now clove into them,
Thrusting through the dead heaped about them.

17. Some scarce escaped by the skin of their teeth,
The shackles burdening, fettered, enchained,

18. While in another the guts still trembled―
His blood paid for you, and the battle was gained.

19. To the hero the black night was a neighbour,
But black is the night for the valiant in vain.

20. He blinked and slumber hung from his lashes,
His lids too heavy to rise from their veil.

21. Rouse them with your sharp-honed swords now,
When roused, advantages plenty avail.

22. In them no loyal heart will you find,
True affection there, or loving detail.

23. Hate wraps round their ribs like consuming flames,
Fired by the spark of thoughts in their minds.

24. When the sword rasps its edges together,
The brother of storms, to him leadership falls.

25. Through your many great days, graves of anxiety
Were dug, redeeming those times from their pall.

26. Heroes like lions - the wolves flocked round them -
Fine steeds outfitted with armour and all.

27. Forms like a mirage in studded mail,
From its cover the locusts crawl.

28. When they stormed the fray their war song rose
To deter the foe, the death-rattle, the call.

29. A day once curved like a bow against them,
The sparks from its notch flying thick in the squall.

30. I walked with them til they shook the spine of the world, Leaving but rags of its ridges behind.
Meeting the stabs from those sharp blade masters, Blood sprayed out from their edges, intertwined.

31. You are rainfall whose nature is bounty,
You are the lion whose way is to rip, flay and tear.

32. From those who lessened the high design
Came on that morn, meeting their needs, and they gave

33. Them support till success was secured -
A pact witnessed by hands strengthened and arrayed.

34. With a band whose banners stand planted,
Goals which, when storms descend on the land

35. Take shelter there, as hopes white-antlered.
The like of you brought honour to those first ones:

36. Adorned by its moons, rich the chaplet it made.
Thus you grew what first was planted,

37. As a garden is tended by loving hands.
Still your stores poured down Boundless bounty you laid at your landʼs demand.