Tom posted a poem (a slightly modified version) ...on his blog and since i love it ive stolen it from him and posted it here for posterity. It's wonderful.

"The Last Hero"

The wind blew out from Bergen, from the dawning to the day
A wreck of trees, a fall of towers, a score of miles away
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before the tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, raging like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and rid the sky of stars
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God, none but the lonely love.
Feast in my halls, O foemen! O eat and drink and drain!
-You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.

The tide of battle changes - so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
As I wrenched her from her red-roofed halls, I rode and saw arise
More lovely than the living flowers, the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never wept, never was less divine;
And sunset never knew us, her world was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood, imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life! O you who wear the crown!
-You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.

The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
They ride and rage with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid them welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When upon their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
That hour when death is like a light and blood is as a rose,
-You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.

Know ye what you shall lose this night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it stands, to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow tonight shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw, after no eye shall see.
Tonight I die the death of God: the stars shall die with me!
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
-You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death