f the North
Thus in quivering accents spake he:
"O, ye warriors, name me the ransom ye claim,
Or in gold, or in robes, or in fee."

"Oh, what reck I thy gold?" quoth Earl Sigurd, the bold;
"Has not Thor laid it all in my hand?
Give me Swanwhite, the fair, and by Balder I swear
I shall never revisit thy land.

"For my vengeance speeds fast, and I come like the blast
Of the night o'er the billowy brine;
I forget not thy scorn and thy laugh on that morn
When I wooed me the maid that was mine."

Then the chief, sore afraid, brought the lily-white maid
To the edge of the blood-sprinkled field,
And they bore her aloft o'er the sward of the croft
On the vault of the glittering shield.

But amain in their path, in a whirlwind of wrath
Came young Harold, Sir Burislav's son;
With a great voice he cried, while the echoes replied:
"Lo, my vengeance, it cometh anon!"

Hark ye, Norsemen, hear great tidings:
Odin, Thor, and Frey are dead,
And white Christ, the strong and gentle,
standeth peace-crowned in their stead.

Lo, the blood-stained day of vengeance to the
ancient night is hurled,
And the dawn of Christ is beaming blessings
o'er the new-born world.

"See the Cross in splendor gleaming far and
wide o'er pine-clad heath,
While the flaming blade of battle slumbers in
its golden sheath.
And before the lowly Savior, e'en the rider of
the sea,
Sigurd, tamer of the billow, he hath bent the
stubborn knee."

Now at Yule-tide sat he feasting on the shore
of Drontheim fiord,
And his stalwart swains about him watched
the bidding of their lord.
Huge his strength was, but his visage, it was
mild and fair to see;
Ne'er old Norway, heroes' mother, bore a
mightier son than he.

With her maids sat gentle Swanwhite 'neath a
roof of gleaming shields,
As the rarer lily blossoms 'mid the green herbs
of the fields;

To and fro their merry words flew lightly
through the torch-lit room,
Like a shuttle deftly skipping through the
mazes of the loom.

And the scalds with nimble fingers o'er the
sounding harp-strings swept;
Now the strain in laughter rippled, now with
hidden woe it wept,
For they sang of Time's beginning, ere the sun
the day brought forth--
Sang as sing the ocean breezes through the
pine-woods of the North.

Bolder beat the breasts of Norsemen--when
amid the tuneful din
Open sprang the heavy hall-doors, and a
stranger entered in.
Tall his