 XIII. King Olaf and Earl Sigveld. On the grey sea sands King Olaf stands. Northward and seaward he points with his hands. With eddy and whirl the sea tides curl, washing the sandals of Sigveld, the Earl. The mariners shout, the ships swing about, the yards are all hoisted, the sails flutter out, the warhorns are played, the anchors are weighed, like moths in the distance, the sails flit and fade. The sea is like lead, the harbour lies dead, as a course on the seashore whose spirit has fled. On that fatal day the histories say, seventy vessels sailed out of the bay, but soon scattered wide o'er the billows they ride, while Sigveld and Olaf sail side by side. Cried the Earl, I, your pilot, will be, for I know all the channels where flows the deep sea. So into the strait where his foes lie in wait, gallant King Olaf sails to his fate, then the sea-fog fails, the ships and their sails. Queen Sigrid, the haughty, thy vengeance prevails. Section 19 King Olaf's War-Horns Strike the sails, King Olaf said, Never shall men of mine take flight, never away from battle I fled, never away from my foes, let God's dispose of my life in the fight. Sound the horns, said Olaf the King, and suddenly through the drifting broom the Blair of the horns began to ring, like the terrible trumpet-shock of Ragnarok on the day of doom. Louder and louder the war-horns sang over the level floor of the flood, all the sails came down with a clang, and there in the mist overhead the sun hung red as a drop of blood. Drifting down on the Danish fleet, three together the ships were lashed, so that neither should turn and retreat. In the midst but in front of the rest the burnished crest of the serpent flashed. King Olaf stood on the quarter-deck with bow of ash and arrows of oak. His gilded shield was without a fleck, his helmet inlaid with gold, and in many a fold hung his crimson cloak. On the forecastle, Ulf the Red, watched the lashing of the ships. If the serpent lie so far ahead, we shall have hard work of it here," said he with a sneer on his bearded lips. King Olaf laid an arrow on string. Have I a coward on board? said he. Shoot it another way, oh King! sullenly answered, Ulf, the old sea-wolf, you have need of me. In front came Sven the King of the Danes, sweeping down with his fifty rowers, to the right the Swedish King with his thanes, and on board of the iron beard Earl Eric steered on the left with his oars. These soft Danes and Swedes, said the King, at home with their wives had better stay than come within reach of my serpent's sting. But where Eric the Norseman leads, heroic deeds will be done today. Then as together the vessels crashed, Eric severed the cables of hide, with which King Olaf's ships were lashed, and left them to drive and drift with the currents swift of the outward tide. Louder the war-horns growl and snarl, sharper the dragons bite and sting. Eric the son of Hakon Jal, a death-drink, salt as the sea pledges to the Olaf the King. Section 20. Einar Tambaskelver It was Einar Tambaskelver stood beside the mast. From his yubo tipped with silver flew the arrows fast, aimed at Eric unavailing as he sat concealed, half behind the quarter railing, half behind his shield. First an arrow struck the tiller, just above his head. Sing, O Avyn's galda-spiller, then Earl Eric said. Sing the song of Hakon dying, sing his funeral wail, and another arrow flying grazed his coat of mail. Turning to a lapland yeoman, as the arrow passed, said Earl Eric, shoot that bowman standing by the mast. Sooner than the word was spoken flew the yeoman's shaft. Einar's bow in twain was broken. Einar only laughed. What was that? said Olaf, standing on the quarter-deck. Something heard I like the stranding of a shattered wreck. Einar then, the arrow taking from the loosened string, answered, That was Norway, breaking from thy hand, O King. Thou art but a poor diviner, straight away, Olaf said. Take my bow, and swifter, Einar, let thy shafts be sped. Of his bows the fairest choosing, reached he from above. Einar saw the blood drops oozing through his iron glove. But the bow was thin and narrow. At the first assay, ear its head, he drew the arrow, flung the bow away. Said, with hot and angry temper, flushing in his cheek, Olaf, for so great a camper, are thy bows too weak. Then, with smile of joy defiant on his beardless lip, scaled he, light and self-reliant, Eric's dragon-ship. Loose his golden locks were flowing, bright his armour gleamed. Like Saint Michael overthrowing Lucifer, he seemed. Section 21. King Olaf's death-drink. 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. The arrows of death are sped. The ships are filled with the dead, and the spears, the champion's hurl. They drift as wrecks on the tide. The grappling-iron's applied. The borders climb up the side. The shouts are feeble and few. Ah, never shall Norway again see her sailors come back or the main. They all lie wounded or slain, or asleep in the billows blue. On the deck stands Olaf the king. Around him whistle and sing the spears that the foam in fling, and the stones they hurl with their hands. In the midst of the stones and the spears, cold beyond the marshall appears, his shield in the air he up rears. By the side of King Olaf he stands. O'er the slippery wreck of the long serpent's deck, sweeps Eric with hardly a check, his lips with anger are pale. He hues with his axe at the mast till it falls with the sail's overcast, like a snow-covered pine in the vast, dim forests of Orcadale. Seeking King Olaf then, he rushes aft with his men, as a hunter into the den of the bear when he stands at bay. Remember Carl Hackon, he cries, when low on his wandering eyes two kingly figures arise, two Olaf's in warlike array. Then Colbjorn speaks in the ear of King Olaf a word of cheer, in a whisper that none may hear, with a smile on his tremulous lips. Two shields raised high in the air, two flashes of golden hair, two scarlet meteors glare, and both have leapt from the ship. Earl Eric's men in the boats seize Colbjorn's shield as it floats, 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 sea-current's eddying ring. There is told a wonderful tale how the king stripped off his mail, like leaves of the brown sea-cale, as he swam beneath the main. But the young grew old and grey, and never by night or by day, in his kingdom of Norway, was King Olaf seen again. In the Convent of Drontheim alone in her chamber, Nelt Astrid the Abess at midnight, adoring, beseeching, entreating the Virgin and Mother. She heard in the silence the voice of one speaking, without, in the darkness, in gusts of the night wind, now louder, now nearer, now lost in the distance. The voice of a stranger it seemed as she listened, of someone who answered, beseeching, imploring, a cry from afar off she could not distinguish. The voice of Saint John, the beloved disciple, who wandered and waited the master's appearance, alone in the darkness, unsheltered and friendless. It is accepted, the angry defiance, the challenge of battle. It is accepted, but not with the weapons of war that thou wieldest. Cross against coarselit, love against hatred. Peace cry for war cry. Patience is powerful. He that o'er cometh hath power o'er the nations. As torrents in summer half dried in their channels, suddenly rise though the sky is still cloudless, for rain has been falling far off at their fountains. So hearts that are fainting grow full to o'er flowing, and they that behold it marvel and know not that God at their fountains far off has been reigning. Stronger than steel is the sword of the spirit, swifter than arrows the light of the truth is, greater than anger is love and subdueth. Thou art a phantom, a shape of the sea mist, a shape of the brumel rain and the darkness, fearful and formless, daydawns and thou art not. The dawn is not distant, nor is the night starless. Love is eternal. God is still God, and his faith shall not fail us. Christ is eternal. Interlude A strain of music closed the tale, a low monotonous funeral wail, that with its cadence wild and sweet made the long saga more complete. Thank God, the theologian said, the rain of violence is dead, or dying surely from the world, while love triumphant rains instead, and in a brighter sky o'erhead his blessed banners are unfurled. And most of all thank God for this, the war and waste of clashing creeds, now end in words, and not in deeds, and no one suffers loss or bleeds for thoughts that men call heresies. I stand without here in the porch, I hear the bells melodious din, I hear the organ peel within, I hear the prayer with words that scorch like sparks from an inverted torch, I hear the sermon upon sin with threatenings of the last account, and all translated in the air, reach me but as our dear Lord's prayer, and as the sermon on the mount. Must it be Calvin and not Christ? Must it be Athanasian creeds, or holy water, books and beads? Must struggling souls remain content with councils and decrees of Trent? And can it be enough for these the Christian church, the year in Balms with evergreens and boughs of palms, and fills the air with litanies? I know that Yonder Pharisee thanks God that he is not like me, in my humiliation dressed I only stand and beat my breast and pray for human charity. Not to one church alone, but seven, the voice prophetic spake from heaven, and under each the promise came diversified, but still the same, for him that over cometh are the new name written on the stone, the raiment white, the crown, the throne, and I will give him the morning star. Ah, to how many faith has been no evidence of things unseen, but a dim shadow that recasts the creed of the fantasiasts, for whom no man of sorrows died, for whom the tragedy divine was but a symbol and a sign, and Christ a phantom crucified. For others a diviner creed is living in the life they lead. The passing of their beautiful feet blesses the pavement of the street, and all their looks and words repeat old fullers saying, wise and sweet, not as a vulture, but a dove the holy ghost came from above. And this brings back to me a tale so sad the hero well may quail, and question if such things can be. Yet in the chronicles of Spain, down the dark pages runs this stain, and nought can wash them white again, so fearful is the tragedy. In the heroic days when Ferdinand and Isabella ruled the Spanish land, and Torquimada with his subtle brain ruled them, as a grand inquisitor of Spain, in a great castle near Valadolid, moted and high and by fair woodlands hid, there dwelt, as from the chronicles we learn, an old Hidalgo, proud and taciturn, whose name has perished with his towers of stone, and all his actions save this one alone. This one so terrible perhaps, to a best if it too were forgotten with the rest, unless perchance our eyes can see therein the martyrdom triumphant, or the sin, a double picture with its gloom and glow, the splendour overhead, the death below. This somber man counted each day as lost, on which his feet no sacred threshold crossed, and when he chanced the passing host to meet, he knelt and prayed devoutly in the street. Oft he confessed, and with each mutinous thought, as with wild beasts at Ephesus, he fought. In deep contrition scourged himself in lent, walked in processions with his head downbent, at plays of Corpus Christi oft was seen, and on Palm Sunday bore his bow of green. His only pastime was to hunt the bore through tangled thickets of the forest-hall, or with his jingling mules to hurry down to some grand bullfight in the neighbouring town, or in the crowd with lighted taper-stand, when Jews were burned or banished from the land. Then stirred within him a tumultuous joy, the demon whose delight it is to destroy, shook him, and shouted with a trumpet-tone, Kill, kill, and let the Lord find out his own. And now, in that old castle in the wood, his daughters in the dawn of womanhood, returning from their convent school had made resplendent with their bloom the forest shade, reminding him of their dead mother's face, when first she came into that gloomy place, a memory in his heart as dim and sweet as moonlight in a solitary street, where the same rays that lift the sea are thrown lovely but powerless upon walls of stone. These two fair daughters of a mother dead were all the dream had left him as it fled, a joy at first and then a growing care, as if a voice within him cried, Beware! A vague presentiment of impending doom, like ghostly footsteps in a vacant room, haunted him day and night, a formless fear that death to some one of his house was near, with dark surmises of a hidden crime, made life itself a death before its time. Jealous, suspicious, with no sense of shame, a spy upon his daughters he became, with velvet slippers noiseless on the floors, he glided softly through half-open doors, now in the room and now upon the stair, he stood beside them ere they were aware, he listened in the passage when they talked, he watched them from the casement when they walked, he saw the gypsy haunt the river's side, he saw the monk among the cork-tree's glide, and, tortured by the mystery and the doubt of some dark secret, past his finding out, baffled he paused, then reassured again pursued the flying phantom of his brain, he watched them even when they knelt in church, and then, descending lower in his search, questioned the servants, and with eager eyes listened incredulous to their replies, the gypsy none had seen her in the wood, the monk a mendicant in search of food. At length the awful revelation came, crushing at once his pride of birth and name, the hopes his yearning bosom forward cast, and the ancestral glories of the past all fell together, crumbling in disgrace, a turret rent from battlement to base, his daughters talking in the dead of night in their own chamber, and without a light, listening as he was won't, he overheard and learned the dreadful secret, word by word, and hurrying from his castle with a cry, he raised his hands to the unpitting sky, repeating one dread word, till bush and tree caught it, and shuddering answered, heresy! Wrapped in his cloak, his hat drawn over his face, now hurrying forward, now with lingering pace, he walked all night the alleys of his park, with one unseen companion in the dark, the demon who within him lay in wait, and by his presence turned his love to hate, forever muttering in an undertone, kill, kill, and let the Lord find out his own. Upon the morrow, after early mass, while yet the dew was glistening on the grass, and all the woods were musical with birds, the old Hidalgo, uttering fearful words, walked homeward with the priest, and in his room summoned his trembling daughters to their doom. When questioned, with brief answers they replied, nor when accused, evaded or denied, expostulations, passionate appeals, all that the human heart most fears or feels, in vain the priest with earnest voice essayed, in vain the father threatened, wept, and prayed, until at last he said with haughty mean, the holy offices, then, must intervene. And now the grand inquisitor of Spain, with all the fifty horsemen of his train, his awful name resounding, like the blast of funeral trumpets as he onward passed, came to Valar de Lid, and there began to harry the rich Jews with fire and ban. To him the Hidalgo went, and at the gate demanded audience on affairs of state, and in a secret chamber, stood before a venerable gray beard of forescore, dressed in the hood and habit of a friar. Out of his eyes flashed a consuming fire, and in his hand the mystic horn he held, which poison and all noxious charms dispelled. He heard in silence the Hidalgo's tale, then answered in a voice that made him quail. Son of the church, when Abraham of old, to sacrifice his only son was told, he did not pause to parley nor protest, but hastened to obey the Lord's behest. In him it was a counted righteousness. The holy church expects of thee no less. A sacred frenzy seized the father's brain, and mercy from that hour implored in vain. Ah, who will ere believe the words I say? His daughters he accused, and the same day they both were cast into the dungeon's gloom. That dismal anti-chamber of the tomb, arraigned, condemned, and sentenced to the flame, the secret torture, and the public shame. Then to the grand inquisitor once more the Hidalgo went, more eager than before, and said, When Abraham offered up his son, he clave the wood wherewith it might be done. By his example taught, let me too bring wood from the forest for my offering. And the deep voice, without a pause, replied, Son of the church, by faith now justified, complete thy sacrifice, even as thou wilt. The church absolves thy conscience from all guilt. Then this most wretched father went his way into the woods that round his castle they, where once his daughters in their childhood played with their young mother in the sun and shade. Now all the leaves had fallen, the branches bare made a perpetual moaning in the air, and screaming from their eerie's overhead, the ravens sailed, a thwart the sky of lead. With his own hands he lopped the boughs, and bound faggots that crackled with foreboding sound, and on his mules, comparison'd and gay with bells and tassels, sent them on their way. Then with his mind on one dark purpose bent, again to the inquisitor he went, and said, Behold, the faggots I have brought, and now lest my atonement be as nought, grant me one more request, one last desire, with my own hand to light the funeral-fire? And Torkimada answered from his seat, Son of the church, thine offering is complete, her servants through all ages shall not cease to magnify thy deed, depart in peace. Upon the marketplace, builded of stone, a scaffold rose, whereon death claimed his own. At the four corners in stern attitude, four statues of the Hebrew prophets stood, gazing with calm indifference in their eyes, upon this place of human sacrifice. Round which was gathered fast the eager crowd with clamour of voices dissonant and loud, and every roof and window was alive with restless gazers swarming like a hive. The church bells tolled. The chant of monks drew near. Loud trumpets stammered forth their notes of fear. A line of torches smoked along the street. There was a stir, a rush, a tramp of feet, and with its banners floating in the air, slowly the long procession crossed the square. And to the statues of the prophets bound, the victims stood with faggots piled around. Then all the air a blast of trumpets shook, and louder sang the monks with bell and book, and the Hidalgo, lofty, stern and proud, lifted his torch, and bursting through the crowd lighted in haste the faggots, and then fled, lest those imploring eyes should strike him dead. Oh pitiless skies! Why did your clouds retain for peasants' fields their floods of hoarded rain? Oh pitiless earth! Why opened no abyss to bury in its chasm a crime like this? That night a mingled column of fire and smoke from the dark thickets of the forest broke, and glaring o'er the landscape leaks away, made all the fields and hamlets bright as day. Wrapped in a sheet of flame the castle blazed, and as the villagers interrogased they saw the figure of that cruel night lean from a window in the turret's height, his ghastly face illumined with the glare, his hands upraised above his head in prayer till the floor sank beneath him, and he fell down the black hollow of that burning well. Three centuries and more above his bones have piled the oblivious years like funeral stones. His name has perished with him, and no trace remains on earth of his afflicted race. But Torkumarder's name, with clouds o'er cast, looms in the distant landscape of the past, like a burnt tower upon a blackened heath, lit by the fires of burning woods beneath. Interlude. Thus closed the tale of guilt and gloom, that cast upon each listener's face its shadow, and for some brief space unbroken silence filled the room. The Jew was thoughtful and distressed. Upon his memory thronged and pressed the persecution of his race, dear wrongs and sufferings and disgrace, his head was sunk upon his breast, and from his eyes alternate came flashes of wroth and tears of shame. The student, first the silence broke, as one who long has lain in wait with purpose to retaliate, and thus he dealt the avenging stroke. In such a company as this a tale so tragic seems amiss, that by its terrible control O'er masters and drags down the soul into a fathomless abyss. The Italian tales that you disdain, some merry night of strapper-roll, or Machiavelli's bell-figure would cheer us and delight us more, give greater pleasure and less pain than your grim tragedies of Spain. And here the poet raised his hand. With such entreaty and command it stopped discussion at its birth, and said, The story I shall tell has meaning in it, if not mirth. Listen, and hear what once befell the merry birds of Killingworth. End of Section 8. It was the season when through all the land the Merle and Mavis build, and building sing those lovely lyrics written by his hand, whom Saxon Kydman calls the Blythe-Harped King, when on the boughs the purple buds expand, the banners of the vanguard of the spring, and rivulets rejoicing rush and leap, and wave their fluttering signals from the steep. The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee, the sparrows chirped, as if they still were proud their race in holy writ should mention to be, and hungry crows assembled in a crowd clamoured their piteous prayer incessantly, knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread. Across the sound the birds of passage sailed, speaking some unknown language, strange and sweet, of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed the village with the cheers of all their fleet, or quarrelling together, laughed and railed like foreign sailors landed in the street of Seaport Town, and without landish noise of oaths and gibberish, frightening girls and boys. Thus came the jocund spring in Killingworth, in fabulous days some hundred years ago, and thrifty farmers as they tilled the earth, heard with alarm the coring of the crow, that mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe. They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words, to swift destruction the whole race of birds, and a town meeting was convened straight way to set a price upon the guilty heads of these marauders, who in lieu of pay levied blackmail upon the garden beds and cornfields, and beheld without dismay the awful scarecrow with his fluttering shreds, the skeleton that waited at their feast, whereby their sinful pleasure was increased. Then from his house, a temple painted white, with fluted columns and a roof of red, the squire came forth, august and splendid sight, slowly descending with majestic tread, three flights of steps, nor looking left, nor right, down the long street he walked, as one who said, a town that boasts inhabitants like me can have no lack of good society. The parson, too, appeared, a man or steer, the instinct of whose nature was to kill, the wrath of God he preached from year to year, and read with fervour Edwards on the will. His favourite pastime was to slay the deer in summer on some Adirondack hill, year now, while walking down the rural lane, he lopped the wayside lilies with his cane. From the academy, whose belfry crowned the hill of science with its vein of brass, came the preceptor, gazing idly round, now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, and all absorbed in reveries profound of fair Almira in the upper class, who was, as in a sonnet he had said, as pure as water, and as good as bread. And next the deacon issued from his door in his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow, a suit of sable bombazine he wore, his form was ponderous, and his step was slow, there never was so wise a man before, he seemed the incarnate, well, I told you so, and to perpetuate his great renown there was a street named after him in town. These came together in the new town hall, with sundry farmers from the region round, the squire presided, dignified, and tall, his air impressive, and his reasoning sound, ill-fared it with the birds both great and small, hardly a friend in all that crowd they found, but enemies enough, who every one charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun. When they had ended, from his place apart rose the preceptor to redress the wrong, and trembling like a steed before the start looked round bewildered on the expectant throng, then thought of fair Almira, and took heart to speak out what was in him clear and strong, alike regardless of their smile or frown, and quite determined not to be laughed down. Plato, anticipating the reviewers from his republic banished without pity the poets, in this little town of yours you put to death by means of a committee, the ballad singers, and the troubadours, the street musicians of the heavenly city, the birds who make sweet music for us all in our dark hours, as David did for Saul, the thrush that carols at the dawn of day, from the green steeples of the piney wood, the oriole in the elm, the noisy jay, jargonning like a foreigner at his food, the bluebird balanced on some topmost spray, flooding with melody the neighborhood, linnet and meadowlark, and all the throng that dwell in nests, and have the gift of song. You slay them all, and wherefore, for the gain of a scant handful more or less of wheat, or rye, or barley, or some other grain, scratched up at random by industrious feet, searching for worm or weevil after rain, or a few cherries that are not so sweet as are the songs these uninvited guests sing at their feast with comfortable breasts, do you near think what wondrous beings these? Do you near think who made them, and who taught the dialect they speak, where melodies alone are the interpreters of thought, whose household words are songs in many keys, sweeter than instrument of man air court, whose habitations in the tree tops even are halfway houses on the road to heaven? Think every morning when the sun peeps through the dim leaf-lattice-windows of the grove, how jubilant the happy birds renew their old melodious madrigals of love, and when you think of this remember toot is always morning somewhere, and above the awakening continents from shore to shore, somewhere the birds are singing evermore. Think of your woods and orchards without birds, of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams, as in an idiot's brain remembered words hang empty mid the cobwebs of his dreams. Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds make up for the lost music when your teams drag home the stingy harvest, and no more the feathered gleamers follow to your door? What would you rather see the incessant stir of insects in the windrows of the hay, and hear the locusts and the grasshopper their melancholy hurdy-gurdy's play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whir of meadowlark and its sweet roundelay, or Twitter of little field fares, as you take your nooning in the shade of bush and break? You call them thieves and pillagers, but no they are the winged wardens of your farms, who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe and from your harvest keep a hundred harms. Even the blackest of them all, the crow, renders good service as your man at arms, crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, and crying havoc on the slug and snail. How can I teach your children gentleness and mercy to the weak, and reverence for life, which in its weakness or excess is still a gleam of God's omnipotence? Or death, which seeming darkness, is no less the self-same light, although averted hence, when by your laws, your actions, and your speech, you contradict the very things I teach? With this he closed, and through the audience went a murmur like the rustle of dead leaves. The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent their yellow heads together like their sheaves. Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment, who put their trust in bullocks and in beaves. The birds were doomed, and as the record shows, a bounty offered for the heads of crows. There was another audience out of reach, who had no voice nor vote in making laws, but in the papers read his little speech, and crowned his modest temples with applause. They made him conscious, each one more than each. He still was victor, vanquished in their cause, sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O' fair Almira at the academy. And so the dreadful massacre began, O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests, the ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. Dead fell the birds with bloodstains on their breasts, or wounded crept away from sight of man, while the young died of famine in their nests. A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, the very st. Bartholomew of birds. The summer came, and all the birds were dead. The days were like hot coals. The very ground was burned to ashes. In the orchards fed myriads of caterpillars, and around the cultivated fields and garden beds, hosts of devouring insects crawled and found no foe to check their march, till they had made the land a desert without leaf or shade. Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town. Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly slaughtered the innocents. From the trees spun down the canker worms upon the passers-by, upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, who shook them off with just a little cry. They were the terror of each favourite walk, the endless theme of all the village talk. The farmers grew impatient, but a few confessed their error, and would not complain, for after all the best thing one can do when it is raining is to let it rain. Then they repealed the law, although they knew it would not call the dead to life again, as schoolboys finding their mistake too late draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate. That year in Killingworth the autumn came without the light of his majestic look, the wonder of the falling tongues of flame, the illumined pages of his doomsday book. A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, and drowned themselves despairing in the brook, while the wild wind went moaning everywhere, lamenting the dead children of the air. But the next spring a stranger sight was seen, a sight that never yet by bard was sung, as great a wonder as it would have been if some dumb animal had found a tongue, a wagon overarched with evergreen, upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, all full of singing birds came down the street, filling the air with music, wild and sweet. From all the country round these birds were brought, by order of the town, with anxious quest, and loosened from their wicker prisons, sought in woods and fields the places they loved best, singing loud canticles which many thought were satires to the authorities addressed, while others listening in green lanes averred such lovely music never had been heard. But blither still and louder caralled they upon the morrow, for they seemed to know it was the fair Elmira's wedding day, and everywhere, around, above, below. When the preceptor bore his bride away, their songs burst forth in joyous overflow, and a new heaven bent over a new earth amid the sunny farms of Killingworth. Finale, the hour was late, the fire burned low, the landlord's eyes were closed in sleep, and near the story's end a deep, sonorous sound at times was heard, as when the distant bagpipes blow. At this all laughed the landlord stirred as one awaking from a swound, and gazing anxiously around protested that he had not slept, but only shut his eyes and kept his ears attentive to each word. Then all arose and said, Good-night. Alone remained the drowsy squire to rake the embers of the fire, and quenched the waning parlor light, while from the windows here and there the scattered lamps a moment gleamed, and the illumined hostel seemed the constellation of the bear downward a thought the misty air, sinking and setting toward the sun far off the village clock struck one. Between the dark and the daylight when the night is beginning to lower comes a pause in the day's occupations that is known as the children's hour. I hear in the chamber above me the patter of little feet, the sound of a door that is opened, and voices soft and sweet. From my study I see in the lamp-light descending the broad hall stair, grave Alice and laughing Allegra, and Edith with golden hair. A whisper, and then a silence. Yet I know by their merry eyes they are plotting and planning together, to take me by surprise. A sudden rush from the stairway, a sudden raid from the hall, by three doors left unguarded they enter my castle wall. They climb up into my turret door, the arms and back of my chair. If I try to escape they surround me. They seem to be everywhere. They almost devour me with kisses, their arms about me entwine. Till I think of the Bishop of Bingen in his mouse-tower on the Rhine. Do you think, O blue-eyed bandit-y, because you have scaled the wall, such an old moustache as I am is not a match for you all? I have you fast in my fortress, and will not let you depart, but put you down into the dungeon, in the round tower of my heart. And there will I keep you for ever, yes, for ever, and a day, till the walls shall crumble to ruin, and moulder in dust away. Enkeledus, under Mount Etna, he lies. It is slumber, it is not death, for he struggles at times to arise, and above him the lurid skies are hot with his fiery breath. The crags are piled on his breast, the earth is heaped on his head, but the groans of his wild unrest, though smothered and half suppressed, are heard, and he is not dead. And the nations far away are watching with eager eyes. They talk together and say, Tomorrow, perhaps today, Enkeledus will arise. And the old gods, the austere oppressors in their strength, stand aghast, and white with fear, at the ominous sounds they hear, and tremble and mutter at length. Ah me, for the land that is sown with the harvest of despair, where the burning cinders blown from the lips of the overthrown Enkeledus fill the air, where ashes are heaped in drifts over vineyard and field and town, whenever he starts and lifts his head through the blackened drifts of the crags that keep him down. See, see, the red light shines. It is the glare of his awful eyes, and the storm wind shouts through the pines of Alps and of Apennines. Enkeledus, arise! The Cumberland, at anchor in Hampton roads we lay, on board of the Cumberland, sloop of war, and at times from the fortress across the bay the alarm of drums swept past, or a bugle passed from the camp on the shore, then far away to the south up rose a little feather of snow-white smoke, and we knew that the iron ship of our foes was steadily steering its course to try the force of our ribs of oak. Down upon us heavily runs silent and sullen the floating fort, then comes a puff of smoke from her guns and leaps the terrible death with fiery breath from each open port. We are not idle, but send her straight defiance back in a full broadside as hail rebounds from a roof of slate rebounds our heavier hail from each iron scale of the monster's hide. Strike your flag, the rebel cries in his arrogant old plantation strain. Never, our gallant Morris replies, it is better to sink than to yield, and the whole air peeled with the cheers of our men. Then, like a kraken, huge and black, she crushed our ribs in her iron grasp. Down went the cumberland, all a rack, with a sudden shudder of death, and the cannon's breath for her dying gasp. Next morn, as the sun rose over the bay, still floated our flag at the main-mast head. Lord, how beautiful was thy day! Every waft of the air was a whisper of prayer, or a dirge for the dead. Ho! brave hearts that went down in the seas, you are at peace in the troubled stream. Ho! brave land with hearts like these, thy flag that is rent intoane shall be won again, and without a seam. Snowflakes Out of the bosom of the air, out of the cloudfolds of her garments shaken, over the woodlands brown and bare, over the harvest fields forsaken, silent and soft and slow descends the snow. Even as our cloudy fancies take suddenly shape in some divine expression, even as the troubled heart doth make in the white countenance confession, the troubled sky reveals the grief it feels. This is the poem of the air, slowly in silent syllables recorded. This is the secret of despair, long in its cloudy bosom hoarded, now whispered and revealed to wood and field. A Day of Sunshine O gift of God, O perfect day, whereon shall no man work but play, whereon it is enough for me not to be doing, but to be. Through every fibre of my brain, through every nerve, through every vein, I feel the electric thrill, the touch of life that seems almost too much. I hear the wind among the trees playing celestial symphonies. I see the branches downward bent like keys of some great instrument, and over me unrolls on high the splendid scenery of the sky, where through a sapphire sea the sun sails like a golden galleon towards Yonder Cloudland in the west, towards Yonder Islands of the Blessed, whose steep seerah far uplifts its cruggy summits, white with drifts. Blow winds and waft through all the rooms the snowflakes of the cherry blooms. Blow winds and bend within my reach the fiery blossoms of the peach. O life and love, O happy throng of thoughts whose only speech is song, O heart of man, canst thou not be blithe as the air is, and as free? 1860 Something left undone, labour with what zeal we will, something still remains undone, something uncompleted still waits the rising of the sun. By the bedside on the stair at the threshold near the gates, with its menace or its prayer like a mendicant it waits, waits and will not go away, waits and will not be gainsaid, by the cares of yesterday each to-day is heavier made. Till at length the burden seems greater than our strength can bear, heavy as the weight of dreams pressing on us everywhere, and we stand from day to day like the dwarfs of times gone by, who, as the northern legends say, on their shoulders held the sky. Weariness, O little feet, that such long years must wonder on through hopes and fears, must ache and bleed beneath your load, high, nearer to the wayside inn where toil shall cease, and rest begin, and weary, thinking of your road. O little hands, that weak or strong have still to serve, or rule so long, have still so long to give or ask, I, who so much with book and pen have toiled among my fellow men, am weary, thinking of your task. O little hearts, that throb and beat with such impatient feverish heat, such limitless and strong desires, mine, that so long has glowed and burned, with passions into ashes turned, now covers and conceals its fires. O little souls, as pure and white and crystalline as rays of light direct from heaven, their source divine, refracted through the mist of years, how red my setting sun appears, how lurid looks this soul of mine. The end, the end of Section 10 and the end of Tales of a Wayside Inn by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow