"Did Fade Their Gold Rapport, O the Wild Hearts They Swore?"

by GFJr

Summary:

Amongst the many written works ascribed to the late Reconstruction Era poet Benjamin Sawney, this particular ballad is even today his most enigmatic and controversial. What emotions may have spurred the man into composing a tribute of such depth toward the (albeit-storied) history of a ruinous ethnostate remains evermore ambiguous — though some scholars maintain the belief that Ben Sawney was, in fact, a pseudonym for a former member of the defunct Paradisian Alliance. Others propose that the wheelchaired stranger under the care of his household from C.E. 857 onwards was indeed the "one-man army" depicted in the poem herein.

The truth of the matter, whatever it may be, has long since passed into shadow. Only this poem remains, baring unabashedly the soul of a trampled age.

(Prose adapted from Alfred Lord Tennyson's "The Charge of the Light Brigade")

Notes:

• Inspired by The Charge of the Light Brigade by Alfred Lord Tennyson

---

𝐈.
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
   Rode the three hundred.
“Forward, the Survey Corps!
Charge for the Beast!” he said:
Into the valley of Death
   Rode the three hundred.

𝐈𝐈.
“Forward, rebellious souls!”
Though all bore half-light's cold.
E'er so, with no recourse,
   Lifelines were sundered:
   Theirs not to make reply,
   Theirs not towards freedom fly,
   Theirs but to do and die:
   Into the valley of Death
   Rode the three hundred.

𝐈𝐈𝐈.
Boulders to right of them,
Boulders to left of them,
Boulders in front of them 
   Volleyed; they thundered.
Stormed at with rock propelled,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of hell
   Rode the three hundred.

𝐈𝐕.
Flashing his sabres bare,
Flashed as he turned in air,
Sabring the Titans there,
Charged a one-man army,
   While the Walls wondered:
Plunged through the pistol-smoke
Right 'long the line he'd broke;
The Beast vainglorious,
Razed by his sabre strokes,
   Bled for its blunder.
Then he whisked back, but not
   Not the three hundred.

𝐕.
Boulders to right of them,
Boulders to left of them,
Boulders behind them
   Volleyed; they thundered.
Stormed at with rock propelled,
While horse and hero fell.
They that had fought so well
Came through the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of hell,
Two that was left of them,
   Left of three hundred.

𝐕𝐈.
Did fade their gold rapport,
O the wild hearts they swore,
   When the Walls wandered?
Honor the hearts they poured!
Honor the Survey Corps,
   Dreaming three hundred!

 

Notes:

An analysis of the author's intent divulges a crystalline purpose: to isolate and exonerate the valiance and self-sacrifice exhibited by the Eldian Survey Corps far afield from the horrific consequences which their heroism would portend for the rest of mankind. Of particular note is the motif of the dedication of one's heart found in the sixth stanza. Stripped of any modern-day fascist connotations, the original intent is a call-to-arms for the "dreaming three hundred" to lay down their lives for the sake of what they believed to be the sole vestiges of humanity — an untainted, utopian ideal. Something to be truly admired.

Sadly, academic consensus denies the events dutifully described, especially relating to the ludicrous feats of the one to fell the Beast Titan, as being anything but blatant fabrication. Sawney could not have been privy to the nuances of the Reclamation of Wall Maria at that age, and what little unbiased historical evidence is left from the period paints a far more harrowing depiction of military incompetence, massacre, and exploitative despotism under Commander Erwin Smith.

If Benjamin Sawney was indeed born under the name Falco Grice as is disconnectedly theorized, then all is reconciled with what little is known about the aerial lynchpin for the Paradisian Alliance. Similarly, if the maimed, handicapped beneficiary who lived with the Sawney household 'til the end of his days really held a first-hand account of Smith's Charge, then Ben Sawney may very well have been inspired by what was by all accounts a deep familial camaraderie with whoever sat in that wheelchair.

Historians may never know for certain.