"SPEAK! speak! thou fearful guest!

Who, with thy hollow breast

Still in rude armour 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 seem 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 old!

My deeds, though manifold,
No Skald in song has told,

No Saga taught thee!
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 ger-falcon ;
And, with my skates fast bound,
Skimmed the half-frozen Sound,

That the poor whimpering hound
Trembled to walk on.

"Oft to his frozen lair

Tracked I the grisly bear,

While from my path the hare

Fled like a shadow;

THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR.

When of old Hildebrand

I asked his daughter's hand,

Mute did the minstrels stand

To hear my story.

“While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft

The sea-foam brightly,

So the loud laugh of scorn,
Out of those lips unshorn,
From the deep drinking-horn
Blew the foam lightly.

"She was a Prince's child,

I but a Viking wild,

109

And though she blushed and smiled,

I was discarded!

Should not the dove so white

Follow the sea-mew's flight,

Why did they leave that night
Her nest unguarded?

"Scarce had I put to sea,

Bearing the maid with me,

Fairest of all was she

Among the Norsemen !-

When on the white sea-strand,

Waving his armèd hand,
Saw we old Hildebrand,

With twenty horsemen.