As strikes a different hand the strings.
The eagle mounts the polar sky:
The Imber-goose, unskilled to fly,
Must be content to glide along,
Where seal and sea-dog list his song.

CLAUD HALCRO

Be mine the Imber-goose to play,
And haunt lone cave and silent bay;
The archer's aim so shall I shun;
So shall I 'scape the levelled gun;
Content my verses' tuneless jingle
With Thule's sounding tides to mingle,
While, to the ear of wondering wight,
Upon the distant headland's height,
Softened by murmur of the sea,
The rude sounds seem like harmony!

Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
A gallant bark from far abroad,
Saint Magnus bath her in his road,
With guns and firelocks not a few:
A silken and a scarlet crew,
Deep stored with precious merchandise
Of gold, and goods of rare device:
What interest hath our comrade bold
In bark and crew, in goods and gold?

NORNA

Gold is ruddy, fair, and free,
Blood is crimson, and dark to see;
I looked out on Saint Magnus bay,
And I saw a falcon that struck her prey;
A gobbet of flesh in her beak she bore,
And talons and singles are dripping with

gore;

Let him that asks after them look on his hand,

their band.

CLAUD HALCRO

Mother doubtful, Mother dread,
Dweller of the Fitful-head,
Well thou know'st it is thy task
To tell what Beauty will not ask;
Then steep thy words in wine and milk,
And weave a doom of gold and silk;
For we would know, shall Brenda prove
In love, and happy in her love?

NORNA

Untouched by love, the maiden's breast Is like the snow on Rona's crest,

laugh,

For the brave lads of Westra are bound to

Sing on, my brave bird, while we follow, like thee,

By bank, shoal, and quicksand, the swarms of the sea;

And when twenty-score fishes are straining our line,

Sing louder, brave bird, for their spoils shall be thine.

We'll sing while we bait, and we'll sing when we haul,

For the deeps of the Haaf have enough for us all;

There is torsk for the gentle, and skate for the carle,

And there's wealth for bold Magnus, the son of the earl.

Huzza! my brave comrades, give way for the Haaf,

We shall sooner come back to the dance and the laugh;

For life without mirth is a lamp without oil; Then, mirth and long life to the bold Magnus Troil!

VIII

CLEVELAND'S SONGS

LOVE wakes and weeps
While Beauty sleeps:
O, for Music's softest numbers,
To prompt a theme
For Beauty's dream,

Soft as the pillow of her slumbers!

Through groves of palm
Sigh gales of balm,
Fire-flies on the air are wheeling;
While through the gloom
Comes soft perfume,

The distant beds of flowers revealing.

O wake and live!
No dream can give

A shadowed bliss, the real excelling;
No longer sleep,
From lattice peep,
And list the tale that Love is telling.

Its next must join the seaward cheer, And shout among the shouting crew.

The accents which I scarce could form Beneath your frown's controlling check Must give the word, above the storm,

To cut the mast and clear the wreck.

The timid eye I dared not raise, —
The hand, that shook when pressed to
thine,

Must point the guns upon the chase
Must bid the deadly cutlass shine.

To all I love, or hope, or fear,—
Honor or own, a long adieu !
To all that life has soft and dear,
Farewell! save memory of you!

IX

HALCRO'S VERSES

From Chapter xxiii.

AND you shall deal the funeral dole;
Ay, deal it, mother mine,
To weary body and to heavy soul,
The white bread and the wine.

And you shall deal my horses of pride;
Ay, deal them, mother mine;
And you shall deal my lands so wide,
And deal my castles nine;

But deal not vengeance for the deed,
And deal not for the crime;

The body to its place, and the soul to Hea ven's grace,

And the rest in God's own time.

Saint Magnus control thee, that martyr of treason;

Saint Ronan rebuke thee, with rhyme and with reason;

By the mass of Saint Martin, the might of Saint Mary,

Be thou gone, or thy weird shall be worse if thou tarry!

If of good, go hence and hallow thee;
If of ill, let the earth swallow thee;
If thou 'rt of air, let the gray mist fold thee;

If of earth, let the swart mine hold thee; If a Pixie, seek thy ring;

If a Nixie, seek thy spring;

If on middle earth thou 'st been

Slave of sorrow, shame, and sin,
Hast ate the bread of toil and strife,
And dree'd the lot which men call life;
Begone to thy stone! for thy coffin is scant
of thee,

The worm, thy play-fellow, wails for the want of thee:

Hence, houseless ghost! let the earth hide thee,

Till Michael shall blow the blast, see that there thou bide thee!

Phantom, fly hence! take the Cross for a

X

NORNA'S INCANTATIONS

From Chapter xxv.

CHAMPION, famed for warlike toil,
Art thou silent, Ribolt Troil?
Sand, and dust, and pebbly stones,
Are leaving bare thy giant bones.
Who dared touch the wild bear's skin
Ye slumbered on, while life was in?
A woman now, or babe, may come
And cast the covering from thy tomb.

Yet be not wrathful, Chief, nor blight
Mine eyes or ears with sound or sight!

XI

THE SAME, AT THE MEETING WITH MINNA

From Chapter xxviii.

THOU SO needful, yet so dread,
With cloudy crest, and wing of red;
Thon, without whose genial breath

The North would sleep the sleep of death;
Who deign'st to warm the cottage hearth,
Yet hurlst proud palaces to earth;
Brightest, keenest of the Powers,
Which form and rule this world of ours,
With my rhyme of Runic, I
Thank thee for thy agency.