good Lord James away,
And the priceless heart we bore,
And heavily we steered our ship
Towards the Scottish shore.

No welcome greeted our return,
Nor clang of martial tread,
But all were dumb and hushed as death
Before the mighty dead.

We laid our chief in Douglas Kirk,
The heart in fair Melrose;
And woful men were we that day,--
God grant their souls repose!

THE SKELETON IN ARMOR

_By_ HENRY W. LONGFELLOW

"Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!
Who with thy hollow breast
Still in rude armor drest,
Comest to daunt me!
Wrapt not in Eastern balms,
But with thy fleshless palms
Stretched, as if asking alms,
Why dost thou haunt me?"

Then, from those cavernous eyes
Pale flashes seemed to rise,
As when the northern skies
Gleam in December;
And, like the water's flow
Under December's snow,
Came a dull voice of woe
From the heart's chamber.

"I was a Viking[1] old!
My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald[2] in song has told,
No Saga[3] taught thee!

[Footnote 1: _Vikings_ was the name given to the bold Norse seamen who
in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries infested the northern seas.
Tradition maintains that a band of these rovers discovered America
centuries before Columbus.]

[Footnote 2: A skald was a Norse poet who celebrated in song the deeds
of warriors.]

[Footnote 3: A saga is an ancient Scandinavian legend or tradition,
relating mythical or historical events.]

"Take heed, that in thy verse
Thou dost the tale rehearse,
Else dread a dead man's curse;
For this I sought thee.

"Far in the Northern Land,
By the wild Baltic's strand,
I, with my childish hand,
Tamed the gerfalcon;[4]
And, with my skates fast-bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,
That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.

[Footnote 4: A gerfalcon is a large falcon of Northern Europe.]

"Oft to his frozen lair
Tracked I the grisly bear,
While from my path the hare
Fled like a shadow;
Oft through the forest dark
Followed the werewolf's[5] bark,
Until the soaring lark
Sang from the meadow.

[Footnote 5: According to a popular superstition, a werewolf is a man,
who, at times, is transformed into a wolf. Such a wolf is much more
savage than a real wolf, and is especially fond of human flesh. This
superstition has at some time existed among almost a