you writers! The hour is drawing nigh when mind, delivered at last from this dismal tunnel of 6000 years, will suddenly burst forth in all its dazzling brightness. I drink to the press, to its power, to its glory, to its efficiency, to its liberty in Belgium, in Germany, in Switzerland, in Italy, in Spain, in England, in America, and to its emancipation elsewhere." USE the pen! there's magic in it, Write thy thought, the pen can win it From the chaos of the mind; Many a gem is lost for ever By the careless passer by, But the gems of thought should never Use the pen! reck not that others And the gem to light is brought; Use the pen! the day's departed Strong in battle. Where are they? Use the pen! the sun above us As within the pen enshrined, Use the pen! but let it never Slander write, with death-black ink ; But to pen what good men think; As the strains which Homer sung. THE BATTLE-FLAG OF SIGURD. WILLIAM MOTherwell. [William Motherwell, though he died in his 37th year, has left behind him an unfading wreath of sibylline leaves, tinted, it may be, by the effects of early frost, but breathing a pathos that has seldom or ever been surpassed. He was born in Glasgow in 1798. When a youth he obtained a situation in the Sheriff Clerk's Office at Paisley, which he continued to hold until a few years before his death. He was editor of the "Paisley Advertiser," and afterwards of the "Glasgow Courier." An edition of his collected poems was published in 1833, when he was acknowledged on all sides to be a genuine poet. He died 1835.] THE eagle hearts of all the North have left their stormy strand; The warriors of the world are forth to choose another land! Again their long keels shear the wave, their broad sheets court the breeze; Again the reckless and the brave ride lords of weltering seas. Nor swifter from the well-bent bow can feathered shaft be sped, Than o'er the ocean's flood of snow their snoring galleys tread. Then lift the can to bearded lip, and smite each sounding shield; Wassaile! to every dark-ribbed ship, to every battlefield! So proudly the Scalds raise their voices of triumph, As the Northmen ride over the broad-bosomed billow. Aloft, Sigurdir's battle-flag streams onward to the land; Well may the taint of slaughter lag on yonder glorious strand. The waters of the mighty deep, the wild birds of the sky, Hear it, like vengeance, shoreward sweep, where moody men must die. The waves wax wroth beneath our keel-the clouds above us lower; They know the battle-sign, and feel all its resistless power! "Who now uprears Sigurdir's flag, nor shuns an early tomb? Who shoreward, through the swelling surge, shall bear the scroll of doom?" So shout the Scalds as the long ships are nearing Silent the Self-devoted stood beside the massive tree; Upheaving then his giant form upon the brown bark's prow, And tossing back the yellow storm of hair from his broad brow, The lips of song burst open, and the words of fire rushed out, And thundering through that martial crew pealed Harald's battle shout; (It is Harald the dauntless that lifteth his great voice, As the Northmen roll on with their Doom-written banner.) "I bear Sigurdir's battle-flag through sunshine or through gloom; Through swelling surge on bloody strand I plant the scroll of doom! On Scandia's lonest, bleakest waste, beneath a starless sky, The shadowy Three like meteors passed, and bade young Harald die; They sang the war-deeds of his sires, and pointed to their tomb: They told him that this glory-flag was his by right of doom. Since then, where hath young Harald been, but where Jarl's son should be? 'Mid war and waves-the combat keen that raged on land or sea!" So sings the fierce Harald, the thirster for glory, As his hand bears aloft the dark death-laden banner. "Mine own death's in this clenchèd hand! I know the noble trust; These limbs must rot on yonder strand-these lips must lick its dust: But shall this dusky standard quail in the red slaughter day; Or shall this heart its purpose fail-this arm forget to slay? I trample down such idle doubt; Harald's high blood hath sprung From sires whose hands in martial bout have ne'er belied their tongue; Nor keener from their castle rock rush eagles on their prey, Than, panting for the battle-shock, young Harald leads the way." It is thus that tall Harald, in terrible beauty Pours forth his big soul to the joyance of heroes. "The ship-borne warriors of the North, the sons of Woden's race, To battle as to feast go forth, with stern and changeless face; And I, the last of a great line, the Self-devoted, long To lift on high the Runic sign which gives my name to song. In battle-field young Harald falls amid a slaughtered foe, But backward never bears this flag, while streams to ocean flow; On, on above the crowded dead this Runic scroll shall flare, And round it shall the lightnings spread from swords that never spare.' So rush the hero-words from the Death-doomed one, While Scalds harp aloud the renown of his fathers. "Green lie those thickly-timbered shores fair sloping to the sea; They're cumbered with the harvest-stores that wave but for the free: Our sickle is the gleaming sword, our garner the broad shield, Let peasants sow, but still he's lord who's master of the field; Let them come on, the bastard-born, each soil-stain'd churl!-alack! What gain they but a splitten skull, a sod for their base back? |