"Paul, lay thy noisy rattle by!" Thus Margaret said. "Where are we? we ascend!"
"Yes; seest thou not our journey's end?
Hearest not the osprey from the belfry cry?
The hideous bird, that brings ill luck, we know !
Dost thou remember when our father said,
The night we watched beside his bed, 'O daughter, I am weak and low; Take care of Paul; I feel that I am dying!'
And thou, and he, and I, all fell to crying?
Then on the roof the osprey screamed aloud;
And here they brought our father in his shroud.
There is his grave; there stands the cross we set;
Why dost thou clasp me so, dear Margaret?
Come in! The bride will be here soon: Thou tremblest! O my God! thou art going to swoon!"
She could no more, the blind girl, weak and weary!
A voice seemed crying from that grave so dreary,
"What wouldst thou do, my daughter?" -and she started;
And quick recoiled, aghast, fainthearted;
But Paul, impatient, urges ever more Her steps towards the open door; And when, beneath her feet, the unhappy maid
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At length the bell,
With booming sound,
Sends forth, resounding round, Its hymeneal peal o'er rock and down the dell.
It is broad day, with sunshine and
with rain;
And yet the guests delay not long,
For soon arrives the bridal train,
And with it brings the village
throng.
In sooth, deceit maketh no mortal gay,
For lo! Baptiste on this triumphant day,
Mute as an idiot, sad as yester-morning,
Thinks only of the beldame's words of
warning.
And Angela thinks of her cross, I wis; To be a bride is all! The pretty lisper Feels her heart swell to hear all round her whisper,
"How beautiful! how beautiful she is!" But she must calm that giddy head, For already the Mass is said; At the holy table stands the priest; The wedding ring is blessed; Baptiste receives it;
Ere on the finger of the bride he leaves it,
He must pronounce one word at least! 'Tis spoken; and sudden at the groomsman's side
""Tishe!" a well-known voice has cried. And while the wedding-guests all hold their breath,
Opes the confessional, and the blind girl, see!
"Baptiste," she said, "since thou hast wished my death,
As holy water be my blood for thee!" And calmly in the air a knife suspended! Doubtless her guardian angel near attended,
FROM THE SPANISH.
Aн, Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
Enemy
Of all that mankind may not rue!
Most untrue
To him who keeps most faith with thee!
Woe is me!
The falcon has the eyes of the dove!
Ah, Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous love!
Thy deceits
Give us clearly to comprehend
Whither tend
All thy pleasures, all thy sweets!
They are cheats,-
Thorns below, and flowers above!
Ah, Love!
Perjured, false, treacherous Love!
FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON. THUS then, much care-worn, The son of Healfden
Sorrowed evermore,
Nor might the prudent hero
His woes avert.
The war was too hard,
Too loath and longsome,
That on the people came,
Dire wrath and grim,
Of night-woes the worst.
This from home heard
Higelac's Thane,
Good among the Goths,
Grendel's deeds.
He was of mankind
In might the strongest,
At that day
Of this life,
Noble and stalwart.
He bade him a sea-ship,
A goodly one, prepare.
Quoth he, the war-king,
Över the swan's road,
Seek he would
The mighty monarch,
Since he wanted men.
For him that journey
His prudent fellows
Straight made ready,
Those that loved him.
They excited their souls,
The omen they beheld.
Had the good-man
Of the Gothic people
Champions chosen,
Of those that keenest
He might find,
Some fifteen men.
The sea-wood sought he,
The warrior showed,
Sea-crafty man!
The landmarks,
And first went forth.
The ship was on the waves,
Boat under the cliffs.
The barons ready
To the prow mounted.
The streams they whirled
The sea against the sands.
The chieftains bore
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.
The men shoved off,
Men on their willing way,
The bounden wood.
Then went over the sea-waves,
Hurried by the wind,
The ship with foamy neck,
Most like a sea-fowl,
Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward
So that the sailors
The land saw,
The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing
Of the earl at an end.
Then up speedily
The Weather people
On the land went,
The sea-bark moored,
Their mail-sarks shook,
Their war-weeds.
God thanked they,
That to them the sea-journey
Easy had been.
Then from the wall beheld
The warden of the Scyldings,
He who the sea-cliffs
Had in his keeping,
Bear o'er the balks
The bright shields,
The war-weapons speedily.
Him the doubt disturbed
In his mind's thought,
What these men might be.
Went then to the shore,
On his steed riding,
The Thane of Hrothgar.
Before the host he shook
His warden's staff in hand,
In measured words demanded
"What men are ye
War-gear wearing,
Host in harness,
Who thus the brown keel
Over the water-street
Leading come
Hither over the sea?
I these boundaries
As shore-warden hold;
That in the Land of the Danes
Nothing loathsome
With a ship-crew
Scathe us might.
Ne'er saw I mightier
Earl upon earth
Than is your own,
Hero in harness.
The soul shall come
Wailing with loud voice,
After a sennight,
The soul, to find
The body
That it erst dwelt in ;-
Three hundred winters,
Unless ere that worketh
The eternal Lord,
The Almighty God,
The end of the world.
Crieth then, so care-worn,
With cold utterance,
And speaketh grimly,
The ghost to the dust:
"Dry dust! thou dreary one!
How little didst thou labour for me!
In the foulness of earth
Thou all wearest away
Like to the loam!
Little didst thou think
How thy soul's journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body
It should be led forth."
FRITHIOF'S HOMESTEAD.
FROM THE SWEDISH.
THREE miles extended around the fields of the homestead; on three sides
Valleys, and mountains, and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean.
Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the down-sloping hill-sides
Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field.
Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains,
Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-antlered reindeers
Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets.
But in the valleys, full widely around, there fed on the greensward
Herds with sleek, shining sides, and udders that longed for the milk-pail.
'Mid these were scattered, now here and now there, a vast countless number
Of white-woolled sheep, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds,
Flock-wise, spread o'er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in spring-time.
Twice twelve swift-footed coursers, mettlesome, fast-fettered storm-winds,
Stamping stood in the line of stalls, all champing their fodder,
Knotted with red their manes, and their hoofs all whitened with steel shoes.
The banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir.
Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred)
Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking at Yule-tide.
Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holm-oak,
Polished and white, as of steel; the columns twain of the high-seat
Stood at the end thereof, two gods carved out of an elm-tree;
Odin with lordly look, and Frey with the sun on his frontlet.
Lately between the two, on a bear-skin (the skin it was coal-black,
Scarlet-red was the throat, but the paws were shodden with silver),
Thorsten sat with his friends, Hospitality sitting with Gladness.
Oft, when the moon among the night-clouds flew, related the old man
Wonders from far distant lands he had seen, and cruises of Vikings
Far on the Baltic and Sea of the West, and the North Sea.
Hush sat the listening bench, and their glances hung on the graybeard's
Lips, as a bee on the rose; but the Skald was thinking of Bragé,
Where, with silver beard, and runes on his tongue, he is seated
Under the leafy beech, and tells a tradition by Mimer's
Ever-murmuring wave, himself a living tradition.
Mid-way the floor (with thatch was it strewn), burned for ever the fire-flame
Glad on its stone-built hearth; and through the wide-mouthed smoke-flue
Looked the stars, those heavenly friends, down into the great hall.
But round the walls, upon nails of steel, were hanging in order
Breastplate and helm with each other, and here and there in among them
Downward lightened a sword, as in winter evening a star shoots.
More than helmets and swords, the shields in the banquet-hall glistened,
White as the orb of the sun, or white as the moon's disc of silver.
Ever and anon went a maid round the board and filled up the drink-horns;
Ever she cast down her eyes and blushed; in the shield her reflection
Blushed too, even as she ;-this gladdened the hard-drinking champions.
FRITHIOF'S TEMPTATION.
FROM THE SWEDISH.
SPRING is coming, birds are twittering, forests leaf, and smiles the sun,
And the loosened torrents downward singing to the ocean run;
Glowing like the cheek of Freya, peeping rosebuds gin to ope,
And in human hearts awaken love of life, and joy, and hope.
Now will hunt the ancient monarch, and the queen shall join the sport;
Swarming in its gorgeous splendour is assembled all the court;
Bows ring loud, and quivers rattle, stallions paw the ground alway,
And, with hoods upon their eyelids, falcons scream aloud for prey.
See, the queen of the chase advances! Frithiof gaze not on the sight!
Like a star upon a spring-cloud sits she on her palfrey white,
Half of Freya, half of Rota, yet more beauteous than these two,
And from her light hat of purple wave aloft the feathers blue.
Now the huntsman's band is ready. Hurrah! over hill and dale!
Horns ring, and the hawks right upward to the hall of Odin sail.
All the dwellers in the forest seek in fear their cavern homes,
But, with spear outstretched before her, after them Valkyria comes.
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