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And Balder moved no limb,
And no sound escaped his lip;
And he look'd, yet scarcely saw
The destruction of his ship:
Nor the fleet sparks mounting high,
Nor the glare upon the sky;
Scarcely heard the billows dash,
Nor the burning timber crash;-
Scarcely felt the scorching heat
That was gathering at his feet,

Nor the fierce flames mounting o'er him

Greedily.

But the life was in him yet,

And the courage to forget All his pain, in his triumph

Once alone a cry arose,

On the sea.

Half of anguish, half of pride,
As he sprang upon his feet

With the flames on every side.

'I am coming!' said the king,

'Where the swords and bucklers ring

Where the warrior lives again

With the souls of mighty men Where the weary find repose, And the red wine ever flows;· I am coming, great All-father,

Unto Odin, unto Thor,

Unto Thee!

And the strong true hearts of yore—

I am coming to Valhalla,

O'er the sea.'

Red and fierce upon the sky

Until midnight shone the glare,
And the burning ship drove on

Like a meteor of the air.
She was driven and hurried past,
Mid the roaring of the blast.
And of Balder, warrior born,

Naught remain'd at break of morn,
On the charr'd and blacken'd hull,
But some ashes and a skull;

And still the vessel drifted

Heavily.

With a pale and hazy light

Until far into the night,

When the storm had spent its rage,

On the sea.

Then the ocean ceased her strife

With the wild winds, lull'd to rest,

And a full, round, placid moon
Shed a halo on her breast;

And the burning ship still lay
On the deep sea, far away;

From her ribs of solid oak,

Pouring forth the flame and smoke;

Until burnt through all her bulk,

To the water's edge, the hulk

Down a thousand fathoms sank

Suddenly,

With a low and sullen sound;
While the billows sang around
Sad requiems for the Monarch

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Rather such sand as, when the loud winds wake,

Each ocean-wave knoweth.

Like a Wrath with pinions burning Travels the red sand of the desert abroad;

While the soft sea-sand glisteneth smooth and untrod,

As eve is returning.

Here is no caravan or camel;

Here the weary mariner alone finds a grave,
Nightly mourned by the moon, that now on yon wave
Sheds a silver enamel.

From the German of F. FReiligrath.

SEA-WEED.

WHEN descends on the Atlantic
The gigantic

Storm-wind of the equinox,

Landward in his wrath he scourges

The toiling surges,

Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:

From Bermuda's reefs; from edges
Of sunken ledges,

In some far off, bright Azore;
From Bahama, and the dashing
Silver-flashing

Surges of San Salvador;

From the tumbling surf, that buries,
The Orkneyan skerries,

Answering the hoarse Hebrides;

And from wrecks of ships, and drifting

Spars, uplifting

On the desolate, rainy seas:

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,
On the shifting

Currents of the restless main ;

Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,

All have found repose again.

So when storms of wild emotion
Strike the ocean

Of the poet's soul, ere long,

From each cave and rocky fastness,
In its vastness

Floats some fragment of a song;

From the far-off isles enchanted
Heaven has planted

With the golden fruit of Truth;
From the flashing surf, whose vision
Gleams Elysian

In the tropic clime of Youth;

From the strong Will, and the Endeavor

That forever

Wrestles with the tides of Fate;

From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered,

Tempest-shattered,

Floating waste and desolate :

:

Ever drifting, drifting, drifting,

On the shifting

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