The Tollund Man

I

Some day I will go to Aarhus / To see his peat-brown head, / The mild pods of his eye-lids, / His pointed skin cap. // In the flat country near by / Where they dug him out, / His last gruel of winter seeds / Caked in his stomach, // Naked except for / The cap, noose and girdle, / I will stand a long time. / Bridegroom to the goddess, // She tightened her torc on him / And opened her fen, / Those dark juices working / Him to a saint's kept body, // Trove of the turfcutters' / Honeycombed workings. / Now his stained face / Reposes at Aarhus.

II

I could risk blasphemy, / Consecrate the cauldron bog / Our holy ground and pray / Him to make germinate // The scattered, ambushed / Flesh of labourers, / Stockinged corpses / Laid out in the farmyards, // Tell-tale skin and teeth / Flecking the sleepers / Of four young brothers, trailed / For miles along the lines.

III

Something of his sad freedom / As he rode the tumbril / Should come to me, driving, / Saying the names // Tollund, Grauballe, Nebelgard, // Watching the pointing hands / Of country people, / Not knowing their tongue. // Out here in Jutland / In the old man-killing parishes / I will feel lost, / Unhappy and at home.