334

And there in the mist overhead The sun hung red

As a drop of blood.

Drifting down on the Danish fleet
Three together the ships were lashed,
So that neither should turn and retreat;
In the midst, but in front of the rest,
The burnished crest
Of the Serpent flashed.

King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck,
With bow of ash and arrows of oak,
His gilded shield was without a fleck,
His helmet inlaid with gold,

And in many a fold
Hung his crimson cloak.

On the forecastle Ulf the Red
Watched the lashing of the ships;
"If the Serpent lie so far ahead,
We shall have hard work of it here,"
Said he with a sneer

On his bearded lips.

King Olaf laid an arrow on string, "Have I a coward on board?" said he. "Shoot it another way, O King!" Sullenly answered Ulf,

The old sea-wolf; "You have need of me!"

In front came Svend, the King of the Danes,

Sweeping down with his fifty rowers; To the right, the Swedish king with his thanes;

And on board of the Iron-Beard
Earl Eric steered

On the left with his oars.

"These soft Danes and Swedes," said the King,

"At home with their wives had better stay,

Than come within reach of my Serpent's sting:

But where Eric the Norseman leads
Heroic deeds

Will be done to-day!"

Then as together the vessels crashed,
Eric severed the cables of hide,
With which King Olaf's ships were
lashed,

And left them to drive and drift

With the currents swift

Of the outward tide.

Louder the war-horns growl and snarl,
Sharper the dragons bite and sting!
Eric the son of Hakon Jarl
A death-drink salt as the sea
Pledges to thee,
Olaf the King!

XX.

EINAR TAMBERSKELVER.
IT was Einar Tamberskelver
Stood beside the mast;

From his yew bow, tipped with silver,
Flew the arrows fast!

Aimed at Eric unavailing,
As he sat concealed,

Half behind the quarter-railing,
Half behind his shield.

First an arrow struck the tiller
Just above his head;

'Šing, O Eyvind Skaldaspiller,"
Then Earl Eric said,

Sing the song of Hakon dying,
Sing his funeral wail!"
And another arrow flying

Grazed his coat of mail.

Turning to a Lapland yeoman,
As the arrow passed,

Said Earl Eric, "Shoot that bowman
Standing by the mast."
Sooner than the word was spoken
Flew the yeoman's shaft;
Einar's bow in twain was broken,
Einar only laughed.

"What was that?" said Olaf, standing On the quarter-deck.

"Something heard I like the stranding Of a shattered wreck." Einar then, the arrow taking

From the loosened string, Answered, "That was Norway breaking

From thy hand, O King!"

"Thou art but a poor diviner," Straightway Olaf said;

"Take my bow, and swifter, Einar,
Let thy shafts be sped."

Of his bows the fairest choosing,
Reached he from above;
Einar saw the blood-drops oozing
Through his iron glove.

But the bow was thin and narrow;

At the first assay,

O'er its head he drew the arrow,
Flung the bow away;

Said, with hot and angry temper
Flushing in his cheek,
"Olaf! for so great a Kämper
Are thy bows too weak!"

Then, with smile of joy defiant
On his beardless lip
Scaled he, light and self-reliant,
Eric's dragon-ship.

Loose his golden locks were flowing,
Bright his armour gleamed:
Like Saint Michael overthrowing
Lucifer he seemed.

XXI.-KING OLAF'S DEATH-DRINK.
ALL day has the battle raged,
All day have the ships engaged,
But not yet is assuaged

The vengeance of Eric the Earl.
The decks with blood are red,
The arrows of death are sped,
The ships are filled with the dead,
And the spears the champions hurl.
They drift as wrecks on the tide,
The grappling-irons are plied,
The boarders climb up the side,

The shouts are feeble and few.

Ah! never shall Norway again See her sailors come back o'er the main;

They all lie wounded or slain,

Or asleep in the billows blue!
On the deck stands Olaf the King,
Around him whistle and sing
The spears that the foemen fling,

And the stones they hurl with their
hands.

In the midst of the stones and the spears,.

Kolbiorn, the marshal, appears,
His shield in the air he uprears,
By the side of King Olaf he stands.
Over the slippery wreck
Of the Long Serpent's deck
Sweeps Eric with hardly a check,

His lips with anger are pale;
He hews with his axe at the mast,
Till it falls, with the sails overcast,
Like a snow-covered pine in the vast
Dim forests of Orkadale.
Seeking King Olaf then,
He rushes aft with his men,

As a hunter into the den

Of the bear, when he stands at bay. "Remember Jarl Hakon!" he cries; When lo! on his wondering eyes, Two kingly figures arise,

Two Olafs in warlike array! Then Kolbiorn speaks in the ear Of King Olaf a word of cheer, In a whisper that none may hear, With a smile on his tremulous lip; Two shields raised high in the air, Two flashes of golden hair, Two scarlet meteors' glare,

And both have leaped from the ship.
Earl Eric's men in the boats
Seize Kolbiorn's shield as it floats,
And cry, from their hairy throats,
"See! it is Olaf the King!"
While far on the opposite side,
Floats another shield on the tide,
Like a jewel set in the wide
Sea-current's eddying ring.
There is told a wonderful tale,
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,

As he swam beneath the main ;
But the young grew old and gray,
And never, by night or by day,
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again!

XXII. THE NUN OF NIDAROS.

In the convent of Drontheim,
Alone in her chamber
Knelt Astrid the Abbess,
At midnight, adoring,
Beseeching, entreating
The Virgin and Mother.

She heard in the silence
The voice of one speaking,
Without in the darkness,
In gusts of the night-wind,
Now louder, now nearer,
Now lost in the distance.
The voice of a stranger
It seemed as she listened,
Of some one who answered,
Beseeching, imploring,
A cry from afar off

She could not distinguish.

The voice of Saint John,
The beloved disciple,
Who wandered and waited
The Master's appearance,
Alone in the darkness,
Unsheltered and friendless.
"It is accepted,

The angry defiance,
The challenge of battle!
It is accepted,

But not with the weapons
Of war that thou wieldest!

!

"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred,
Peace-cry for war-cry
Patience is powerful;
He that o'ercometh
Hath power o'er the nations!

As torrents in summer,
Half dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;

"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining!
"Stronger than steel

Is the sword of the Spirit ;
Swifter than arrows
The life of the truth is;
Greater than anger
Is love, and subdueth!
"Thou art a phantom,
A shape of the sea-mist,
A shape of the brumal
Rain, and the darkness
Fearful and formless;

Day dawns and thou art not!

"The dawn is not distant, Nor is the night starless; Love is eternal !

God is still God, and

His faith shall not fail us;
Christ is eternal!"

INTERLUDE.

A STRAIN of music closed the tale,
A low, monotonous funeral wail,
That with its cadence, wild and sweet,
Made the long Saga more complete.
"Thank God," the Theologian said,
"The reign of violence is dead,
Or dying surely from the world;
While Love triumphant reigns instead,
And in a brighter sky o'erhead
His blessed banners are unfurled.
And most of all thank God for this:
The war and waste of clashing creeds
Now end in words, and not in deeds,
And no one suffers loss, or bleeds,
For thoughts that men call heresies.
"I stand without here in the porch,
I hear the bell's melodious din,
I hear the organ peal within,

I hear the prayer, with words that scorch

Like sparks from an inverted torch,
I hear the sermon upon sin,
With threatenings of the last account.
And all, translated in the air,

Reach me but as our dear Lord's

Prayer,

And as the Sermon on the Mount.
"Must it be Calvin, and not Christ?
Must it be Athanasian creeds,
Or holy water, books, and beads?
Must struggling souls remain content
With councils and decrees of Trent?
And can it be enough for these

The Christian Church the year embalms

With evergreens and boughs of palms, And fills the air with litanies?

"I know that yonder Pharisee

Thanks God that he is not like me;
In my humiliation dressed,

I only stand and beat my breast,

And pray for human charity.

"Not to one church alone, but seven, The voice prophetic spake from heaven; And unto each the promise came, Diversified, but still the same;

For him that overcometh are

The new name written on the stone, The raiment white, the crown, the

throne,

And I will give him the Morning Star!

"Ah! to how many Faith has been
No evidence of things unseen,
But a dim shadow, that recasts
The creed of the Phantasiasts,
For whom no Man of Sorrows died,
For whom the Tragedy Divine
Was but a symbol and a sign,
And Christ a phantom crucified !
"For others a diviner creed
Is living in the life they lead.
The passing of their beautiful feet
Blesses the pavement of the street,
And all their looks and words repeat
Old Fuller's saying, wise and sweet,
Not as a vulture, but a dove,

The Holy Ghost came from above.

THE THEOLOGIAN'S TALE.
TORQUEMADA.

IN the heroic days when Ferdinand
And Isabella ruled the Spanish land,
And Torquemada, with his subtle brain,
Ruled them, as Grand Inquisitor of
Spain,

In a great castle near Valladolid, Moated and high and by fair woodlands hid,

There dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn,

An old Hidalgo proud and taciturn, Whose name has perished, with his towers of stone,

And all his actions save this one alone; This one, so terrible, perhaps 'twere best

If it, too, were forgotten with the rest : Unless, perchance, our eyes can see therein

The martyrdom triumphant o'er the sin: A double picture, with its gloom and glow,

The splendour overhead, the death below.

This sombre man counted each day as lost

On which his feet no sacred threshold crossed;

And when he chanced the passing Host to meet,

He knelt and prayed devoutly in the

street;

Oft he confessed; and with each mutinous thought,

As with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought.

In deep contrition scourged himself in Lent,

Walked in processions, with his head down bent,

At plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, And on Palm Sunday bore his bough of green.

His only pastime was to hunt the boar Through tangled thickets of the forest hoar,

Or with his jingling mules to hurry down To some grand bull-fight in the neighbouring town,

Or in the crowd with lighted taper stand, When Jews were burned, or banished from the land.

Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy;

The demon whose delight is to destroy Shook him, and shouted with a trumpet

Were all the dream had left him as it fled.

A joy at first, and then a growing care, As if a voice within him cried, "Beware!"

A vague presentiment of impending doom,

Like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room, Haunted him day and night; a formless fear

That death to some one of his house was near,

With dark surmises of a hidden crime, Made life itself a death before its time. Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame,

A spy upon his daughters he became ; With velvet slippers, noiseless on the floors,

He glided softly through half-opened doors;

Now in the room, and now upon the stair,

He stood beside them ere they were

And the ancestral glories of the past; All fell together, crumbling in disgrace, A turret rent from battlement to base. His daughters talking in the dead of night

In their own chamber, and without a light,

Listening, as he was wont, he overheard, And learned the dreadful secret, word by word;

And hurrying from his castle, with a cry He raised his hands to the unpitying sky, Repeating one dread word, till bush and

tree

Caught it, and shuddering answered, 'Heresy!"

Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn o'er his face,

Now hurrying forward, now with lingering pace,

He walked all night the alleys of his park,

With one unseen companion in the dark, The Demon who within him lay in wait, And by his presence turned his love to

hate,

Forever muttering in an undertone, "Kill! kill! and let the Lord find out his own!"

Upon the morrow, after early Mass, While yet the dew was glistening on the grass,

And all the woods were musical with birds,

The old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words, Walked homeward with the Priest, and in his room

Summoned his trembling daughters to their doom.

When questioned, with brief answers they replied,

Nor when accused evaded or denied;
Expostulations, passionate appeals,
All that the human heart most fears or
feels,

In vain the Priest with earnest voice essayed,

In vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed;

Until at last he said, with haughty mien, "The Holy Office, then, must inter

vene!