第76章 LETTER XII(2)

HACON'S LAST BATTLE.

All was over:day was ending As the foeman turned and fled.

Gloomy red Glowed the angry sun descending;

While round Hacon's dying bed,Tears and songs of triumph blending,Told how fast the conqueror bled II.

"Raise me,"said the King.We raised him--

Not to ease his desperate pain;

That were vain!

"Strong our foe was--but we faced him Show me that red field again."Then,with reverent hands,we placed him High above the bloody plain.

III.

Silent gazed he;mute we waited,Kneeling round-a faithful few,Staunch and true,--Whilst above,with thunder freighted,Wild the boisterous north wind blew,And the carrion-bird,unsated,On slant wing around us flew.

IV.

Sudden,on our startled hearing,Came the low-breathed,stern command--"Lo!ye stand?

Linger not,the night is nearing;

Bear me downwards to the strand,Where my ships are idly steering Off and on,in sight of land."V.

Every whispered word obeying,Swift we bore him down the steep,O'er the deep,Up the tall ship's side,low swaying To the storm-wind's powerful sweep,And--his dead companions laying Round him,--we had time to weep.

VI.

But the King said--"Peace!bring hither Spoil and weapons--battle-strown,Make no moan;Leave me and my dead together,Light my torch,and then--begone."But we murmured,each to other,"Can we leave him thus alone?"VII.

Angrily the King replieth;

Flash the awful eyes again,With disdain--

"Call him not alone who lieth Low amidst such noble slain;Call him not alone who dieth Side by side with gallant men."VIII.

Slowly,sadly,we departed:

Reached again that desolate shore,Nevermore Trod by him,the brave true-hearted--Dying in that dark ship's core!

Sadder keel from land ne'er parted,Nobler freight none ever bore!

IX.

There we lingered,seaward gazing,Watching o'er that living tomb,Through the gloom--Gloom!which awful light is chasing--

Blood-red flames the surge illume!

Lo!King Hacon's ship is blazing;

'Tis the hero's self-sought doom.

Right before the wild wind driving,Madly plunging--stung by fire--No help nigh her--

Lo!the ship has ceased her striving!

Mount the red flames higher--higher!

Till--on ocean's verge arriving,Sudden sinks the Viking's pyre--Hacon's gone!

Let me call one more heroic phantom from Norway's romantic past.

A kingly presence,stately and tall;his shield held high above his head--a broken sword in his right hand.Olaf Tryggvesson!Founder of Nidaros;--that cold Northern Sea has rolled for many centuries above your noble head,and yet not chilled the battle heat upon your brow,nor staunched the blood that trickles down your iron glove,from hidden,untold wounds,which the tender hand of Thyri shall never heal!

To such ardent souls it is indeed given "to live for ever"(the for ever of this world);for is it not "Life"to keep a hold on OUR affections,when their own passions are at rest,--to influence our actions (however indirectly)--when action is at an end for them?Who shall say how much of modern heroism may owe its laurels to that first throb of fiery sympathy which young hearts feel at the relation of deeds such as Olaf Tryggvesson's?

The forms of those old Greeks and Romans whom we are taught to reverence,may project taller shadows on the world's stage;but though the scene be narrow here,and light be wanting,the interest is not less intense,nor are the passions less awful that inspired these ruder dramas.

There is an individuality in the Icelandic historian's deion of King Olaf that wins one's interest--at first as in an acquaintance--and rivets it at last as in a personal friend.The old Chronicle lingers with such loving minuteness over his attaching qualities,his social,generous nature,his gaiety and "frolicsomeness;"even his finical taste in dress,and his evident proneness to fall too hastily in love,have a value in the portrait,as contrasting with the gloomy colours in which the story sinks at last.The warm,impulsive spirit speaks in every action of his life,from the hour when--a young child,in exile--he strikes his axe into the skull of his foster-father's murderer,to the last grand scene near Svalderoe.You trace it in his absorbing grief for the death of Geyra,the wife of his youth;the saga says,"he had no pleasure in Vinland after it,"and then naively observes,"he therefore provided himself with war-ships,and went a-plundering,"one of his first achievements being to go and pull down London Bridge.This peculiar kind of "distraction"(as the French call it)seems to have had the desired effect,as is evident in the romantic incident of his second marriage,when the Irish Princess Gyda chooses him--apparently an obscure stranger--to be her husband,out of a hundred wealthy and well-born aspirants to her hand.But neither Gyda's love,nor the rude splendours of her father's court,can make Olaf forgetful of his claims upon the throne of Norway--the inheritance of his father;and when that object of his just ambition is attained,and he is proclaimed King by general election of the Bonders,as his ancestor Harald Haarfager had been,his character deepens in earnestness as the sphere of his duties is enlarged.All the energies of his ardent nature are put forth in the endeavour to convert his subjects to the true Faith.As he himself expresses it,"he would bring it to this,--that all Norway should be Christian or die!"In the same spirit he meets his heretic and rebellious subjects at the Thing of Lade,and boldly replies,when they require him to sacrifice to the false gods,"If I turn with you to offer sacrifice,then shall it be the greatest sacrifice that can be made;I will not offer slaves,nor malefactors to your gods,--I will sacrifice men;--and they shall be the noblest men among you!"It was soon after this that he despatched the exemplary Thangbrand to Iceland.