Unaltered! Alas for the sameness Thou only aspirest the more,

That makes the change but more ! Unregretful the old leaves shedding 'Tis a dead man I see in the mirrors, That fringed thee with music before, 'Tis his tread that chills the tioor ! And deeper thy roots embedding

In the grace and the beauty of yore ; To learn such a simple lesson,

Thou sigh'st not, “ Alas, I am older, Need I go to Paris and Rome, The green of last summer is sear!” That the many make the household, But loftier, hopefuller, bolder, But only one the home ?

Winnest broader horizons each year. 'T was just a womanly presence, To me 't is not cheer thou art singing: An influence unexprest,

There's a sound of the sea, But a rose she had worn, on my grave. O mournful tree, sod

In thy boughs forever clinging, Were more than long life with the rest! And the far-off roar

Of waves on the shore ’T was a smile, 't was a garment's rustle, A shattered vessel flinging.

'T was nothing that I can phrase, But the whole dumb dwelling grew As thou musest still of the ocean conscious,

On which thou must float at last, And put on her looks and ways. And seem'st to foreknow

The shipwreck's woe Were it mine I would close the shutters, And the sailor wrenched from the broken Like lids when the life is tied,

mast, And the funeral fire should wind it,

Do I, in this vague emotion, This corpse of a home that is dead.

This sadness that will not pass,

Though the air throbs with wings, For it died that autumn morning And the field laughs and sings, When she, its soul, was borne

Do I forebode, alas ! To lie all dark on the hillside

The ship-building longer and wearier, That looks over woodland and corn.

The voyage's struggle and strife,
And then the darker and drearier

Wreck of a broken life?
A MOOD.

а

I go to the ridge in the forest
I haunted in days gone by,
But thou, O Memory, pourest
No magical drop in mine eye,
Nor the gleam of the secret restorest
That hath faded from earth and sky :
A Presence autumnal and sober
Invests every rock and tree,
And the aureole of October
Lights the maples, but darkens me.
Pine in the distance,
Patient through sun or rain,
Meeting with graceful persistence,
With yielding but rooted resistance,
The northwind's wrench and strain),
No memory of past existence
Brings thee pain;
Right for the zenith heading,
Friendly with heat or cold,
Thine arms to the influence spreading
Of the heavens, just from of old,

Now Biörn, the sun of Heriulf, had ill

days
Because the heart within him seethed

with blood
That would not be allayed with any toil,
Whether of war or hunting or the oar,
But was anhungered for some joy un-

tried :
For the brain grew not weary with the

limbs, But, while they slept, still hammered

like a Troll, Building all night a bridge of solid

dream Between him and some purpose of his

soul,

serious song,

Or will to find a purpose. With the

II. dawn

THORWALD'S LAY. The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist,

So Biörn went comfortless but for his Denied all foothold. But the dream thought, remained,

And by his thought the more discomAnd every night with yellow-bearded forted, kings

Till Eric Thurlson kept his Yule-tide His sleep was haunted, – mighty men feast : of old,

And thither came he, called among the Once young as he, now ancient like the rest, gods,

Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to And safe as stars in all men's memo. mirth : ries.

But, ere deep draughts forbade such Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyes

As the grave Skald might chant nor Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless ; after blush, Like life, they made him eager and then Then Eric looked at Thorwald where lie mocked.

sat Nay, broad awake, they would not let Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall, him be ;

And said: “O Skald, sing now an olden They shaped themselves gigantic in the

song, mist,

Such as our fathers heard who led great They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of

lives; heaven,

And, as the bravest on a shield is borne They whispered invitation in the winds, along the waving host that shouts him And breath came from them, mightier king, than the wind,

So rode their thrones upon the throng. To strain the lagging sails of his resolve, ing seas !" Till that grew passion which before was Then the old man arose ; white-haired wish,

he stood, And youth seemed all too costly to be White-bearded, and with eyes that staked

looked afar On the soiled cards wherewith men from their still region of perpetual snow, played their game,

Beyond the little smokes and stirs of Letting Time pocket up the larger life, Lost with base gain of raiment, food, His head was bowed with gathered and roof.

flakes of years, “What helpeth lightness of the feet?” As winter bends the sea-forehoding pine, they said,

But something triumphed in his brow "Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they;

Which wloso saw it could not see and Or strength of sinew? New men come

crouch: as strong,

Loud rang the emptied beakers as he And those sleep nameless; or renown in mused, war?

Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as Sworils grave no name on the long- an eagle memoried rock

Circles smooth-winged above the wind. But moss shall hide it; they alone who vexed woods, wring

So wheeled his soul into the air of song Some secret purpose from the unwilling High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he gods

Sáng : Survive in song for yet a little while "The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks To vex, like us, the dreams of later out men,

Wood closest - grained, long-seasoned, Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we straight as light; did.”

And from a quiver full of such as these

men :

and eye,

ܪ

least ;

luck";

а

The wary bowman, matched against his That chatter loudest as they mean the

peers, Long doubting, singles yet once more Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means the best.

nevermore ; Who is it needs such flawless shafts as Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." Fate ?

He ceased ; upon his bosom sank his What archer of his arrows is so choice, beard Or hits the white so surely? They are Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass men,

Nor stayed her: and forth with the The chosen of her qniver; nor for her frothy tide Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained of interrupted wassail roared along; stick

But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart At random from life's vulgar fagot Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, plucked :

Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as sern. Such answer household ends; but she “A ship,” he muttered, “is a winged will have

bridge Souls straight and clear, of toughest That leadeth every way to man's desire, fibre, sound

And ocean the wide gate to mantul Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips

And then with that resolve his heart All needless stuff, all sapwood ; seasons was bent, them ;

Which, like a humming shaft, through From circumstance untoward feathers

many a stripe plucks

Of day and night, across the unpath. Crumpled and cheap; and barbs with wayed seas iron will:

Shot the brave prow that cut on VinThe hour that passes is her quiver-boy: land sands When she draws bow, 't is not across the first rune in the Saga of the West.

the wind, Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched

III. arrow sings, For sun and wind have plighted faith

GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY. to her: Ere men have heard the sinew twang, Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky.

behold In the butt's heart her trembling mes- Life, where was never life that knew senger!

itself,

But tumbled lubber-like in blowing “The song is old and simple that I whales ; sing;

Thought, where the like had never been But old and simple are despised as before cheap,

Since Thought primeval brooded the Thogh hardest to achieve of human abyss; things:

Alone as men were never in the rorli. Good were the days of yore, when men They saw the icy foundlings of the sea, were tried

White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day, By ring of shields, as now by ring of Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night words;

In monstrous hush; or sometimes in the But while the gods are left, and hearts dark

The waves broke ominous with paly And wide-vloored ocean, still the days gleams are good.

Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold Still o'er the earth hastes Opportunity, fire. Seeking the hardy soul that seeks for Then came green stripes of sea that her.

promised land Be not abroad, nor deaf with household But brought it not, and on the thirtieth

day

shut seas,

of men,