POETRY
THE VIKING
(HEXAMETERS.) ,
OvER the ocean we sail, when it lies as if peaeefully sleeping. Over it too in the storm, 'when the loud-voiced billows are leaping ;
Over the sca when it smiles, thick-studded' with verdurous islands, Over it too when the shore sinks doWn with 'its pinnacled highlands !
There is our path o'er the field which men's feet never have trodden,
Soft with the thin sea-spray, with the salt brine's bitterness
soddeh; . • There is the place where we dwell, there rule we a lonely dominion, ' • ' Empty except for our sail and the gull's unwearying pinion. Barren the sea's broad plain, unmeet are its furrows for sowing; Yet is its harvest for us worth more than our heaviest mowing ; Sandy the soil that we dig ! but we gather from lOamier tillage, Cornland that others afar ploughed deep for Our reaping and pillage ; Bare are our pastures at home ! yet barer the meadows we harry.
Barer the barn that we sack and the store whence cargo we carry.
Others may mow green fields, when the sun shines over the 'meadow, Nommen the acre of death ; and they toil close under its shadow ; Heavy the swathes that they cut ! for they mow where the . -enemy presses, Mow till the night brings rest ortill evening's victory blesses. Life shall be life while it lasts,;, then pass we by pathways of valour,
Up to the portal of gold, to the threshold of golden Valhalla; yreya will greet us and Thor, skalds' harps with our praises resounding,
Kai& will acclaim us with shouts from the carved oak-panels rebounding, " Odin .will order the feast, glad sagas and singing and laughter Rise as a cloud, till the sound smites glittering roof-tree and rafter.
J. A. FCnT•
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