Too loath and longsome,
That on the people came,
Dire wrath and grim,
Of night-woes the worst.
This from home heard
Higelac's Thane,

Good among the Goths,
Grendel's deeds.
He was of mankind
In might the strongest,
At that day
Of this life,

Noble and stalwart.
He bade him a sea-ship,
A goodly one, prepare.
Quoth he, the war-king,
Over the swan's road,
Seek he would

The mighty monarch,
Since he wanted men.
For him that journey
His prudent fellows
Straight made ready,
Those that loved him.
They excited their souls,
The omen they beheld.
Had the good-man
Of the Gothic people
Champions chosen,
Of those that keenest
He might find,
Some fifteen men.

The sea-wood sought he,
The warrior showed,
Sea-crafty man!

The land-marks,

And first went forth.

The ship was on the waves,

Boat under the cliffs.

The barons ready

To the prow mounted.

The streams they whirled

The sea against the sands.

The chieftains bore
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.

The men shoved off,

Men on their willing way,

The bounden wood.

Then went over the sea-waves,

Hurried by the wind,

The ship with foamy neck,
Most like a sea-fowl,

Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward
So that the sailors
The land saw,

The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing
Of the earl at an end.
Then up speedily
The Weather people
On the land went,
The sea-bark moored,

Their mail-sarks shook,

Their war-weeds.

God thanked they,

That to them the sea-journey

Easy had been.

Then from the wall beheld The warden of the Scyldings, He who the sea-cliffs

Had in his keeping,

Bear o'er the balks
The bright shields,

The war-weapons speedily.
Him the doubt disturbed
In his mind's thought,
What these men might be.

Went then to the shore,
On his steed riding,
The Thane of Hrothgar.
Before the host he shook

His warden's-staff in hand,
In measured words demanded:

"What men are ye

THE SOUL'S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE BODY.

Over the water-street

Leading come

Hither over the sea?

I these boundaries

As shore-warden hold;

That in the Land of the Danes

Nothing loathsome

With a ship-crew

Scathe us might. . .

Ne'er saw I mightier
Earl upon earth
Than is your own,
Hero in harness.

Not seldom this warrior
Is in weapons distinguished;
Never his beauty belies him,
His peerless countenance !
Now would I fain

Your origin know,

Ere ye forth

As false spies

Into the Land of the Danes

Farther fare.

Now, ye dwellers afar-off!

Ye sailors of the sea!

Listen to my

One-fold thought.

Quickest is best

To make known

Whence your coming may be."

565

THE SOUL'S COMPLAINT AGAINST THE BODY.

FROM THE ANGLO-SAXON.

MUCH it behoveth

Each one of mortals,

That he his soul's journey

In himself ponder,

How deep it may be.
When Death cometh,
The bonds he breaketh

By which united
Were body and soul.

Long it is thenceforth
Ere the soul taketh
From God himself
Its woe or its weal;
As in the world erst,
Even in its earth-vessel,
It wrought before.

The soul shall come

Wailing with loud voice,
After a sennight,
The soul, to find
The body

That it erst dwelt in ;-
Three hundred winters,
Unless ere that worketh

The Eternal Lord,
The Almighty God,

The end of the world.

Crieth then, so care-worn,

With cold utterance,

And speaketh grimly,

The ghost to the dust:

Dry dust! thou dreary one!

How little didst thou labour for me!

In the foulness of earth

Thou all wearest away

Like to the loam !

Little didst thou think
How thy soul's journey
Would be thereafter,
When from the body
It should be led forth."

SONG.

FROM THE PORTUGUESE.

If thou art sleeping, maiden,

Awake, and open thy door :

'Tis the break of day, and we must away, O'er meadow, and mount, and moor.

Wait not to find thy slippers,

But come with thy naked feet:

We shall have to pass through the dewy grass,
And waters wide and fleet.

FRITHIOF'S HOMESTEAD.

FROM THE SWEDISH.

THREE miles extended around the fields of the homestead; on three sides

Valleys and mountains and hills, but on the fourth side was the ocean.

Birch-woods crowned the summits, but over the down-sloping

hill-sides

Flourished the golden corn, and man-high was waving the rye-field.

Lakes, full many in number, their mirror held up for the mountains,

Held for the forests up, in whose depths the high-antlered reindeers

Had their kingly walk, and drank of a hundred brooklets. But in the valleys, full widely around, there fed on the green

sward

Herds with sleek, shining sides, and udders that longed for the milk-pail.

'Mid these were scattered, now here and now there, a vast, countless number

Of white-woolled sheep, as thou seest the white-looking stray clouds,

Flock-wise, spread o'er the heavenly vault, when it bloweth in spring-time.

Twice twelve swift-footed coursers, mettlesome, fast-fettered storm-winds,

Stamping stood in the line of stalls, all champing their fodder,

Knotted with red their manes, and their hoofs all whitened with steel shoes.

The banquet-hall, a house by itself, was timbered of hard fir. Not five hundred men (at ten times twelve to the hundred) Filled up the roomy hall, when assembled for drinking at Yule-tide.

Thorough the hall, as long as it was, went a table of holmoak,