Two chestnuts stood beside it snowy-coned:
The banquet lay beneath them.
The song succeeded. Boastful was the strain,
Each Thane his deeds extolling, or his sire's ;
But one, an aged man, among them scoffed:
'When I was young; when Sigbert on my right
To battle rode, and Sefred on my left;
That time men stood not worsted by a stag!
Not then our horses swerved from azure strait
Scared by the ridged sea-wave!' Next spake a chief,
Pirate from Denmark late returned: 'Our skies,
Good friends, are all too soft to build the man !
We fight for fame: the Northman fights for sport;
Their annals boast they fled but once :-'
-'twas thus:
In days of old, when Rome was in her pride,
Huge hosts of hers had fallen on theirs, surprised,
And way-worn: long they fought: a remnant spent,
Fled to their camp. Upon its walls their wives
Stood up, black-garbed, with axes heaved aloft,
And fell upon the fugitives, and slew them;
Slew next their little ones; slew last themselves,
Cheating the Roman Triumph. Never since then.
Hath Northman fled the foemen.'
'Who saith our kinsfolk of the frozen North
One stock with us, one faith, one ancient tongue,
Pass us in valour? Three days since I saw
Crossing the East Saxon's border and our own
Two boys that strove. The Kentish wounded fell;
The East Saxon on him knelt; then made demand :
"My victim art thou by the laws of war!
Yonder my dagger lies ;-till I return
Wilt thou abide?" The vanquished answered, "Yea!"
A minute more, and o'er that dagger's edge
His life-blood rushed.' The pirate chief demurred;
'A gallant boy! Not less I wager this,
The glitter of that dagger ere it smote
Made his eye blink. Attend! Three years gone by,
Sailing with Hakon on Norwegian fiords
We fought the Jomsburg Rovers, at their head
Sidroc, oath-pledged to marry Hakon's child
Despite her father's best. In mist we met :
Instant each navy at the other dashed
Like wild beast, instinct-taught, that knows its foe;
Chained ship to ship, and clashed their clubs all day,
Till sank the sun : then laughed the white peaks forth,
And reeled, methought, above the reeling waves!
The victory was with us. Hakon, next morn,
Bade slay his prisoners. Thirty on one bench
Waited their doom: their leader died the first;
He winked not as the sword upon him closed!
No, nor the second! Hakon asked the third,
"What think'st thou, friend, of Death?" He tossed his
"My Father perished; I fulfil my turn."
The fourth, "Strike quickly, Chief! An hour this morn
We held contention if, when heads are off,
The hand can hold its dagger : I would learn."
The dagger and the head together fell.
The fifth, "One fear is mine—lest yonder slave
Finger a Prince's hair! Command some chief,
Thy best beloved, to lift it in his hands;
Then strike and spare not!" Hakon struck. That youth,
Sigurd by name, his forehead forward twitched,
Laughing, so deftly that the downward sword
Shore off those luckless hands that raised his hair.
All laughed; and Hakon's son besought his sire
To loosen Sigurd's bonds: but Sigurd cried,
"Unless the rest be loosed I will not live!"
Thus all escaped save four.'
That chief resumed: 'A Norland King dies well!
His bier is raised upon his stateliest ship;
Piled with his arms; his lovers and his friends
Rush to their monarch's pyre, resolved with him
To share in death, and with becoming pomp
Attend his footsteps to Valhalla's Hall.
The torch is lit: forth sails the ship, black-winged,
Facing the midnight seas. From beach and cliff
Men watch all night that slowly lessening flame :
Yet no man sheds a tear.'
An aged chief, made answer, 'Tears there be
Of divers sorts: a wise and valiant king
Deserves that tear which praises, not bewails,
Greatness gone by.' The pirate shouted loud,
'A land it is of laughter, not of tears!'
Know ye the tale of Harald?
Round southern coasts and eastern-sacked or burned
A hundred Christian cities. One he found
So girt with giant walls and brazen gates
His sea-kings vainly dashed themselves thereon,
And died beneath them, frustrate. Harald sent
A herald to that city proffering terms:
"Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth :
He sends you spoils from many a city burnt,
And craves interment in your chiefest church."
Next day the masked procession wound in black
Through streets defenceless. When the church was
reached
They laid their chief before the altar-lights:
Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge,
And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloud
Sudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand,
Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smote
The hoary pontiff down, and brake his neck;
And all those maskers doffed their weeds of woe
And showed the mail beneath, and raised their swords,
And drowned that pavement in a sea of blood,
While raging rushed their mates through portals wide,
And, since that city seemed but scant of spoil,
Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughed
That tale recounting.'
Re-echoed Harald's laugh ;—not Ethelbert :
The war-scar reddening on his brow he rose
And spake My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst!
An old King I, and make my prophecy
One day that northern race which smites and laughs,
Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts :
That day ye will not laugh!' Earconwald,
Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved:
'Six sons had I: all these are slain in war;
Yet I, an unrejoicing man forlorn,
Find solace ofttimes thinking of their deeds :
They laughed not when they smote. No God, be sure,
Smiles on the jest red-handed.' Egfrid rose,
And three times cried with lifted sword unsheathed,
'Behold my God! No God save him I serve!'
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