These few survive--and proudly let me say, Court not the critic's smile, nor dread his frown; They well may serve to while an hour away, Nor does the volume ask for more renown, Than Ennui's yawning smile, what time she drops it down.

Harold the Bauntless.

CANTO FIRST.

I.

LIST to the valorous deeds that were done
By Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son!

Count Witikind came of a regal strain,

And roved with his Norsemen the land and the main.
Woe to the realms which he coasted! for there
Was shedding of blood, and rending of hair,
Rape of maiden, and slaughter of priest,
Gathering of ravens and wolves to the feast:
When he hoisted his standard black,
Before him was battle, behind him wrack,
And he burn'd the churches, that heathen Dane,
To light his band to their barks again.

II.

On Erin's shores was his outrage known,
The winds of France had his banners blown;
Little was there to plunder, yet still
His pirates had foray'd on Scottish hill:
But

upon merry England's coast

More frequent he sail'd, for he won the most.
So wide and so far his ravage they knew,

If a sail but gleam'd white 'gainst the welkin blue,
Trumpet and bugle to arms did call,
Burghers hasten'd to man the wall,
Peasants fled inland his fury to 'scape,
Beacons were lighted on headland and cape,
Bells were toll'd out, and aye as they rung
Fearful and faintly the grey brothers sung,
"Bless us, St. Mary, from flood and from fire,
From famine and pest, and Count Witikind's ire!"

III.

He liked the wealth of fair England so well,
That he sought in her bosom as native to dwell.
He enter'd the Humber in fearful hour,
And disembark'd with his Danish power.
Three Earls came against him with all their train,
Two hath he taken, and one hath he slain.
Count Witikind left the Humber's rich strand,
And he wasted and warr'd in Northumberland.
But the Saxon King was a sire in age,
Weak in battle, in council sage;

Peace of that heathen leader he sought,
Gifts he gave, and quiet he bought;
And the Count took upon him the peaceable style
Of a vassal and liegeman of Britain's broad isle.

IV.

Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord;
That which moulders hemp and steel,
Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

Of the Danish band, whom Count Witikind led,
Many wax'd aged, and many were dead:
Himself found his armour full weighty to bear,
Wrinkled his brows grew, and hoary his hair;
He lean'd on a staff, when his step went abroad,
And patient his palfrey, when steed he bestrode.
As he grew feebler, his wildness ceased,
He made himself peace with prelate and priest,-
Made his peace, and, stooping his head,
Patiently listed the counsel they said:
Saint Cuthbert's Bishop was holy and grave,
Wise and good was the counsel he gave.

V.

"Thou hast murder'd, robb'd, and spoil'd,
Time it is thy poor soul were assoil'd;
Priests didst thou slay, and churches burn,
Time it is now to repentance to turn;
Fiends hast thou worshipp'd, with fiendish rite,
Leave now the darkness, and wend into light:
O! while life and space are given,

Turn thee yet, and think of Heaven!"
That stern old heathen his head he raised,

And on the good prelate he stedfastly gazed;
"Give me broad lands on the Wear and the Tyne,
My faith I will leave, and I'll cleave unto thine."

VI.

Broad lands he gave him on Tyne and Wear,
To be held of the church by bridle and spear;
Part of Monkwearmouth, of Tynedale part,
To better his will, and to soften his heart:
Count Witikind was a joyful man,

Less for the faith than the lands that he wan.
The high church of Durham is dress'd for the day,
The clergy are rank'd in their solemn array:
There came the Count, in a bear-skin warm,
Leaning on Hilda his concubine's arm.
He kneel'd before Saint Cuthbert's shrine,
With patience unwonted at rites divine;
He abjured the gods of heathen race,

And he bent his head at the font of grace.
But such was the grisly old proselyte's look,
That the priest who baptized him grew pale and shook;
And the old monks mutter'd beneath their hood,
"Of a stem so stubborn can never spring good!"

VII.

Up then arose that grim convertite, Homeward he hied him when ended the rite;

The Prelate in honour will with him ride,
And feast in his castle on Tyne's fair side.
Banners and banderols danced in the wind,
Monks rode before them, and spearmen behind;
Onward they pass'd, till fairly did shine
Pennon and cross on the bosom of Tyne;
And full in front did that fortress lower,

In darksome strength with its buttress and tower:
At the castle gate was young Harold there,
Count Witikind's only offspring and heir.

VIII.

Young Harold was fear'd for his hardihood,
His strength of frame, and his fury of mood.
Rude he was and wild to behold,
Wore neither collar nor bracelet of gold,
Cap of vair nor rich array,

Such as should grace that festal day:

His doublet of bull's hide was all unbraced,
Uncover'd his head, and his sandal unlaced:
His shaggy black locks on his brow hung low,
And his eyes glanced through them a swarthy glow;
A Danish club in his hand he bore,

The spikes were clotted with recent gore;

At his back a she-wolf, and her wolf-cubs twain,
In the dangerous chase that morning slain.
Rude was the greeting his father he made,
None to the Bishop,-while thus he said:-

IX.

"What priest-led hypocrite art thou,

With thy humbled look and thy monkish brow,
Like a shaveling who studies to cheat his vow?
Can'st thou be Witikind the Waster known,
Royal Eric's fearless son,

Haughty Gunhilda's haughtier lord,

Who won his bride by the axe and sword;
From the shrine of St. Peter the chalice who tore,
And melted to bracelets for Freya and Thor;
With one blow of his gauntlet who burst the skull,
Before Odin's stone, of the Mountain Bull?
Then ye worshipp'd with rites that to war-gods belong,
With the deed of the brave, and the blow of the strong;
And now, in thine age to dotage sunk,
Wilt thou patter thy crimes to a shaven monk,-
Lay down thy mail-shirt for clothing of hair,—
Fasting and scourge, like a slave, wilt thou bear?
Or, at best, be admitted in slothful bower
To batten with priest and with paramour?
Oh! out upon thine endless shame!

Each Scald's high harp shall blast thy fame,
And thy son will refuse thee a father's name!"

X.

Ireful wax'd old Witikind's look,
His faltering voice with fury shook :-
"Hear me, Harold of harden'd heart!
Stubborn and wilful ever thou wert.

Thine outrage insane I command thee to cease,
Fear my wrath and remain at peace:-

Just is the debt of repentance I've paid,
Richly the church has a recompense made,
And the truth of her doctrines I prove with my blade.
But reckoning to none of my actions I owe,
And least to my son such accounting will show.
Why speak I to thee of repentance or truth,

Who ne'er from thy childhood knew reason or ruth!
Hence to the wolf and the bear in her den;
These are thy mates, and not rational men."

XI.

Grimly smiled Harold, and coldly replied,

"We must honour our sires, if we fear when they chide. For me, I am yet what thy lessons have made,

I was rock'd in a buckler and fed from a blade;
An infant, was taught to clasp hands and to shout
From the roofs of the tower when the flame had broke

out;

In the blood of slain foemen my finger to dip, And tinge with its purple my cheek and my lip."Tis thou know'st not truth, that hast barter'd in eld, For a price, the brave faith that thine ancestors held. When this wolf," and the carcass he flung on the plain,

"Shall awake and give food to her nurslings again, The face of his father will Harold review;

Till then, aged Heathen, young Christian, adieu!"

XII.

Priest, monk, and prelate, stood aghast,
As through the pageant the heathen pass'd.

A cross-bearer out of his saddle he flung,

Laid his hand on the pommel, and into it sprung.

Loud was the shriek, and deep the groan,
When the holy sign on the earth was thrown!
The fierce old Count unsheathed his brand,
But the calmer Prelate stay'd his hand.
"Let him pass free!-Heaven knows its hour,—
But he must own repentance's power,
Pray and weep, and penance bear,
Ere he hold land by the Tyne and the Wear."
Thus in scorn and in wrath from his father is gone
Young Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son.

XIII.

High was the feasting in Witikind's hall,
Revell'd priests, soldiers, and pagans, and all;
And e'en the good Bishop was fain to endure
The scandal, which time and instruction might cure:
It were dangerous, he deem'd, at the first to restrain,
In his wine and his wassail, a half-christen'd Dane.
The mead flow'd around, and the ale was drain'd

dry,

Wild was the laughter, the song, and the cry;
With Kyrie Eleison, came clamorously in
The war-songs of Danesmen, Norweyan, and Finn,
Till man after man the contention gave o'er,
Outstretch'd on the rushes that strew'd the hall floor;
And the tempest within, having ceased its wild rout,
Gave place to the tempest that thunder'd without.

XIV.

Apart from the wassail, in turret alone,
Lay flaxen-hair'd Gunnar, old Ermengarde's son;
In the train of Lord Harold that Page was the first,
For Harold in childhood had Ermengarde nursed;
And grieved was young Gunnar his master should

roam,

Unhoused and unfriended, an exile from home.
He heard the deep thunder, the plashing of rain,
He saw the red lightning through shot-hole and pane;
"And oh!" said the Page, " on the shelterless wold
Lord Harold is wandering in darkness and cold!
What though he was stubborn, and wayward, and wild,
He endured me because I was Ermengarde's child,-
And often from dawn till the set of the sun,
In the chase, by his stirrup, unbidden I run;
I would I were older, and knighthood could bear,
I would soon quit the banks of the Tyne and the Wear:
For my mother's command, with her last parting
breath,

Bade me follow her nursling in life and to death.

XV.

"It pours and it thunders, it lightens amain,
As if Lok, the Destroyer, had burst from his chain!
Accursed by the Church, and expell'd by his sire,
Nor Christian nor Dane give him shelter or fire,
And this tempest what mortal may houseless endure?
Unaided, unmantled, he dies on the moor!
Whate'er comes of Gunnar, he tarries not here."
He leapt from his couch and he grasp'd to his spear;
Sought the hall of the feast. Undisturb'd by his tread,
The wassailers slept fast as the sleep of the dead:
"Ungrateful and bestial!" his anger broke forth,
"To forget 'mid your goblets the pride of the North!
And you, ye cowl'd priests, who have plenty in store,
Must give Gunnar for ransom a palfrey and ore."

XVI.

Then, heeding full little of ban or of curse,
He has seized on the Prior of Jorvaux's purse:
Saint Meneholt's Abbot next morning has miss'd
His mantle, deep furr'd from the cape to the wrist:
The Seneschal's keys from his belt he has ta'en,
(Well drench'd on that eve was old Hildebrand's
brain.)

To the stable-yard he made his way,
And mounted the Bishop's palfrey gay,
Castle and hamlet behind him has cast,

And right on his way to the moorland has pass'd.
Sore snorted the palfrey, unused to face
A weather so wild at so rash a pace;
So long he snorted, so loud he neigh'd,
There answer'd a steed that was bound beside,
And the red flash of lightning show'd there where lay
His master, Lord Harold, outstretch'd on the clay.

XVII.

Up he started, and thunder'd out, "Stand!" And raised the club in his deadly hand.

The flaxen-hair'd Gunnar his purpose told, Show'd the palfrey and proffer'd the gold.

Back, back, and home, thou simple boy! Thou canst not share my grief or joy: Have I not mark'd thee wail and cry When thou hast seen a sparrow die? And canst thou, as my follower should, Wade ankle-deep through foeman's blood, Dare mortal and immortal foe, The gods above, the fiends below, And man on earth, more hateful still, The very fountain-head of ill? Desperate of life, and careless of death, Lover of bloodshed, and slaughter, and scathe, Such must thou be with me to roam, And such thou canst not be-back, and home!

XVIII.

Young Gunnar shook like an aspen bough,
As he heard the harsh voice and beheld the dark
brow,

And half he repented his purpose and vow.
But now to draw back were bootless shame,
And he loved his master, so urged his claim:
"Alas! if my arm and my courage be weak,
Bear with me a while for old Ermengarde's sake;
Nor deem so lightly of Gunnar's faith,

As to fear he would break it for peril of death.
Have I not risk'd it to fetch thee this gold,
This surcoat and mantle to fence thee from cold?
And, did I bear a baser mind,
What lot remains if I stay behind?
The priests' revenge, thy father's wrath,
A dungeon, and a shameful death."

XIX.

With gentler look Lord Harold eyed
The Page, then turn'd his head aside;
And either a tear did his eyelash stain,
Or it caught a drop of the passing rain.
"Art thou an outcast, then?" quoth he;
"The meeter page to follow me."
'Twere bootless to tell what climes they sought,
Ventures achieved, and battles fought;
How oft with few, how oft alone,
Fierce Harold's arm the field hath won.
Men swore his eye, that flash'd so red

When each other glance was quench'd with dread,

Bore oft a light of deadly flame,
That ne'er from mortal courage came.
Those limbs so strong, that mood so stern,
That loved the couch of heath and fern,
Afar from hamlet, tower, and town,
More than to rest on driven down;
That stubborn frame, that sullen mood,
Men deem'd must come of aught but good;

And they whisper'd, the great Master Fiend was at

one

With Harold the Dauntless, Count Witikind's son.