Told by the Northmen: Stories from the Eddas and Sagas. E. M. Wilmot-Buxton

Hakon's Lay

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      By James Russell Lowell

       Table of Contents

      "O Skald, sing now an olden song,

       Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;

       And, as the bravest on a shield is borne

       Along the waving host that shouts him king,

       So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!"

      Then the old man arose: white-haired he stood,

       White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar

       From their still region of perpetual snow,

       Over the little smokes and stirs of men:

       His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years,

       As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine,

       But something triumphed in his brow and eye,

       Which whoso saw it, could not see and crouch:

       Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused,

       Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagle

       Circles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods,

       So wheeled his soul into the air of song

       High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang:

      "The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out

       Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light;

       And, from a quiver full of such as these,

       The wary bow-man, matched against his peers,

       Long doubting, singles yet once more the best.

       Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate?

       What archer of his arrows is so choice,

       Or hits the white so surely? They are men,

       The chosen of her quiver; nor for her

       Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick

       At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:

       Such answer household ends; but she will have

       Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound