| |
| ALL day has the battle raged, | |
| All day have the ships engaged, | |
| But not yet is assuaged | |
| The vengeance of Eric the Earl. | |
| |
| The decks with blood are red, | 5 |
| The arrows of death are sped, | |
| The ships are filled with the dead, | |
| And the spears the champions hurl. | |
| |
| They drift as wrecks on the tide, | |
| The grappling-irons are plied, | 10 |
| The boarders climb up the side, | |
| The shouts are feeble and few. | |
| |
| Ah! never shall Norway again | |
| See her sailors come back o’er the main; | |
| They all lie wounded or slain, | 15 |
| Or asleep in the billows blue! | |
| |
| On the deck stands Olaf the King, | |
| Around him whistle and sing | |
| The spears that the foemen fling, | |
| And the stones they hurl with their hands. | 20 |
| |
| In the midst of the stones and the spears, | |
| Kolbiorn, the marshal, appears, | |
| His shield in the air he uprears, | |
| By the side of King Olaf he stands. | |
| |
| Over the slippery wreck | 25 |
| Of the Long Serpent’s deck | |
| Sweeps Eric with hardly a check, | |
| His lips with anger are pale; | |
| |
| He hews with his axe at the mast, | |
| Till it falls, with the sails overcast, | 30 |
| Like a snow-covered pine in the vast | |
| Dim forests of Orkadale. | |
| |
| Seeking King Olaf then, | |
| He rushes aft with his men, | |
| As a hunter into the den | 35 |
| Of the bear, when he stands at bay. | |
| |
| “Remember Jarl Hakon!” he cries; | |
| When lo! on his wondering eyes, | |
| Two kingly figures arise, | |
| Two Olafs in warlike array! | 40 |
| |
| Then Kolbiorn speaks in the ear | |
| Of King Olaf a word of cheer, | |
| In a whisper that none may hear, | |
| With a smile on his tremulous lip; | |
| |
| Two shields raised high in the air, | 45 |
| Two flashes of golden hair, | |
| Two scarlet meteors’ glare, | |
| And both have leaped from the ship. | |
| |
| Earl Eric’s men in the boats | |
| Seize Kolbiorn’s shield as it floats, | 50 |
| And cry, from their hairy throats, | |
| “See! it is Olaf the King!” | |
| |
| While far on the opposite side | |
| Floats another shield on the tide, | |
| Like a jewel set in the wide | 55 |
| Sea-current’s eddying ring. | |
| |
| There is told a wonderful tale, | |
| How the King stripped off his mail, | |
| Like leaves of the brown sea-kale, | |
| As he swam beneath the main; | 60 |
| |
| But the young grew old and gray, | |
| And never, by night or by day, | |
| In his kingdom of Norroway | |
| Was King Olaf seen again! | |
| |
