noon
I was an early Norseman , and I would escape the prosaic bed-death , since , for those dying thus , Held waited in her chill prison-house below , with hunger her dish , starvation her knife , care her bed , and anguish her curtains . To survive for easy death , long deferred , perhaps , I should have my empty dish and bed of care at once . Lacking the battle death , I could at least mimic it , as they did of old , that Odin 's choosers of the slain might lead me to Valhalla . There should I forever fight at dawn and be healed at noon , if wounded , to be ready for the feast and song . The world was not big enough for us two if we must stay apart . Life was not to be lived in a beggarly and ignoble compromise . War was its business , bravery its duty , and cowardice its greatest crime -- above all , that ultimate , puling cowardice of accepting life empty for its own barren sake .