When the Norn Mother saw the Whirlwind Hour

ried on,

She left the Heaven of Heroes and

And laid on him a sense of the Mystic Powers,

Moving all husht-behind the mortal veil.

Here was a man to hold against the world,

A man to match the mountains and the sea.

15

The color of the ground was in him, the red earth;

The smack and tang of elemental things;

The rectitude and patience of the cliff; The good-will of the rain that loves all leaves;

The friendly welcome of the wayside well;

20

The courage of the bird that dares the

sea;

The gladness of the wind that shakes

the corn;

The pity of the snow that hides all

scars;

The secrecy of streams that make their

Under the mountain to the rifted rock; The tolerance and equity of light

Three of us with shocking hats,
Tattered and unbarbered,
Happy with the splash of mud,
With the highways in our blood,
Bearing down on Deacon Platt's,
Where last year we harbored.

We've come down from Kennebec,
Tramping since last Sunday,
Loping down the coast of Maine,
With the sea for a refrain,
And the maples neck and neck
All the way to Fundy.

Sometimes lodging in an inn,
Cosey as a doormouse-
Sometimes sleeping on a knoll,
With no rooftree but the pole-
Sometimes halely welcomed in
At an old-time farmhouse.

10

Sitting on the pasture bars,

Hail-fellow with storm or starsThree of us alive and free,

From the rocky headlands; Overhead the wild geese fly,

Honking in the autumn sky; Black sinister flocks of crow Settle in the dead lands.

Three of us in love with life,
Roaming like wild cattle,

With the stinging air a-reel
As a warrior might feel

5

The swift orgasm of the knife Slay him in mid-battle.