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king who've bound ye?For roof and raiment found ye;?Reflect there's prize and booty?For all who do their duty;?Away with fear inglorious,?If ye would be victorious!
Great Rolf, the land who shielded,?And who its sceptre wielded,?Who freely fed and paid us,?With mail and swords array'd us,?Now lies on bier extended,?His life by treachery ended--?To us be like disaster,?Save we avenge our master.
THE HAIL-STORM.
From the Ancient Norse.
(This piece describes the disaster of Sigvald, Earl of Jomsborg, a celebrated viking or pirate, who, according to tradition, was repulsed from the coast of Norway by Hakon Jarl, with the assistance of Thorgerd, a female demon, to whom Hakon sacrificed his youngest son, Erling.)
For victory as we bounded,?I heard, with fear astounded,?The storm, of Thorgerd's waking,?From Northern vapours breaking.?Sent by the fiend in anger,?With din and stunning clangour,?To crush our might intended,?Gigantic hail descended.
A pound the smallest pebble?Did weigh, and others treble;?Full dreadful was the slaughter;?And blood ran out like water,?Ran, reeking, red and horrid?From batter'd cheek and forehead.?But though so rudely greeted,?No Jomsborg man retreated.
The fiend, so fierce and savage,?To work us further ravage,?Shot lightning from each finger,?Which sped, and did not linger;?Then sank our brave in numbers?To cold, eternal slumbers;?There lay the good and gallant,?Unmatch'd for warlike talent.
Our captain this perceiving,?The signal made for leaving,?And with his ship departed,?Down-cast and broken-hearted;?We spread our sails to follow,--?And soon the breezes hollow,?From shores we came to harry,?Our luckless remnant carry.
THE KING AND CROWN.
From the Suabian.
The King who well crown'd does govern the land,?And whose fair crown well fill'd does stand--
That King adorns his crown, I trow;?And he who is thus by his crown adorn'd,?And for whose sake never that crown is scorn'd,
Does bear a well-fill'd crown on his brow.
ODE.
To a Mountain Torrent.?From the German of Stolberg.
O stripling immortal thou forth dost career?From thy deep rocky chasm; beheld has no eye?The mighty one's cradle, and heard has no ear?At his under-ground spring-head his infant-like cry.
How lovely art thou in the foam of thy brow,?And yet the warm blood in my bosom grows chill;?For awful art thou and terrific, I vow,?In the roar of the echoing forest and hill.
The pine-trees are shaken--they yield to thy shocks,?And crashing they tumble in wild disarray;?The rocks fly before thee--thou seizest the rocks,?And contemptuously whirlst them like pebbles away.
But why dost thou haste to the ocean's dark flood??Say, art thou not blest in thine own native ground,?When in the lone mountain and black shady wood?Thou dost bellow, and all gives response to thy sound?
Then haste not, I pray thee, to yonder blue sea,?For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny's rod,?Whilst here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free--?Free as a cloud-bird, and strong as a God.
Forsooth it is pleasant, at eve or at noon,?To gaze on the sea and its far-winding bays,?When ting'd by the light of the wandering moon,?Or when red with the gold of the midsummer rays.
What of that? what of that? thou shouldst ever behold?That lustre as nought but a bait and a snare:?Ah, what is the summer sun's purple and gold?Unto him, who can breathe not in freedom the air?
O pause for a while in thy downward career!?But still art thou streaming, my words are in vain:?Bethink thee that oft-changing winds domineer?On the billowy breast of the time-serving main.
Then haste not, I pray thee, to yonder blue sea,?For there thou must crouch beneath tyranny's rod,?Whilst here thou art lonely, and lovely, and free--?Free as a cloud-bird, and strong as a God.
CHLOE.
From the Dutch of Johannes Bellamy.
O we have a sister on earthly dominions!?Cried two of the holy Angelical train,?And flew up to heaven with fluttering pinions,?But quickly to earth they descended again;?Their brothers, with voices triumphantly lifted,?Behind them came flocking this wonder to view,?More fast than the gleam from the cloud that is rifted,?Down, down to a forest of beeches they flew,
And there beheld Chloe, all rapt in devotion,?Upon the ground kneeling, unable to speak;?A tear-drop, the offspring of pious emotion,?Was streaming like dew down her beautiful cheek.?Confounded, astonish'd, in ecstacy gazing,?Around her the spirits aerial stood,?Then sudden their voices tumultuously raising?Cried: Father, we'll stay with her here in the wood!
Then frown'd the dread Father; his thunders appalling?To rattle began, and his whirlwinds to roar,?Then trembled the host, but they heeded his calling,?And Chloe up-snatching, to heaven they soar.?O we had a sister on earthly dominions!?They sang as through heaven triumphant they stray'd,?And bore with flush'd faces and fluttering pinions?To God's throne of brightness the yet praying maid.
NATIONAL SONG.
From the Danish of Evald.
Written to commemorate three great naval victories achieved by the three great Danish heroes, Christian, Juul, and Tordenskiold.
King Christian stood beside the mast?In smoke and mist.?His weapons, hammering hard and fast,?Through helms and brains of Gothmen pass'd,?Then sank each hostile sail and mast?In smoke and mist.?"Fly," said the foe, "fly all that can,?For who can Denmark's