'And now the land,' said Otherė,
'Bent southward suddenly,
And I followed the curving shore,
And ever southward bore

Into a nameless sea.

And there we hunted the walrus,
The narwhale, and the seal;
Ha! 'twas a noble game!

And like the lightning's flame
Flew our harpoons of steel.

There were six of us all together,
Norsemen of Helgoland;

In two days and no more

We killed of them threescore,

And dragged them to the strand.’

Here Alfred, the Truth-Teller,
Suddenly closed his book,
And lifted his blue eyes,
With doubt and strange surmise
Depicted in their look.

And Othere, the old sea-captain,
Stared at him wild and weird,
Then smiled till his shining teeth
Gleamed white from underneath
His tawny, quivering beard.

And to the King of the Saxons,
In witness of the truth,

Raising his noble head,

He stretched his brown hand, and said,

'Behold this walrus-tooth!'

XCI

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 alarum of drums swept past,

Or a bugle blast

From the camp on the shore.

Then far away to the south uprose

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 pealed

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 wreck,
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 mainmast 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,
Ye are at peace in the troubled stream!
Ho! brave land! with hearts like these,
Thy flag that is rent in twain

Shall be one again,

And without a seam!

XCII

A DUTCH PICTURE

SIMON DANZ has come home again,

From cruising about with his buccaneers; He has singed the beard of the King of Spain, And carried away the Dean of Jaen

And sold him in Algiers.

In his house by the Maes, with its roof of tiles

And weathercocks flying aloft in air,

There are silver tankards of antique styles,
Plunder of convent and castle, and piles
Of carpets rich and rare.

In his tulip-garden there by the town,
Overlooking the sluggish stream,
With his Moorish cap and dressing-gown,
The old sea-captain, hale and brown,
Walks in a waking dream.

A smile in his grey mustachio lurks
Whenever he thinks of the King of Spain,
And the listed tulips look like Turks,
And the silent gardener as he works
Is changed to the Dean of Jaen.

The windmills on the outermost

Verge of the landscape in the haze, To him are towers on the Spanish coast With whiskered sentinels at their post, Though this is the river Maes.

But when the winter rains begin,

He sits and smokes by the blazing brands, And old seafaring men come in, Goat-bearded, grey, and with double chin, And rings upon their hands.

They sit there in the shadow and shine

Of the flickering fire of the winter night;
Figures in colour and design

Like those by Rembrandt of the Rhine,
Half darkness and half light.

And they talk of their ventures lost or won,
And their talk is ever and ever the same,
While they drink the red wine of Tarragon,
From the cellars of some Spanish Don
Or convent set on flame.

Restless at times, with heavy strides
He paces his parlour to and fro;
He is like a ship that at anchor rides,
And swings with the rising and falling tides,
And tugs at her anchor-tow.

Voices mysterious far and near,

Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in his ear,
'Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!'

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again
For one more cruise with his buccaneers,
To singe the beard of the King of Spain,
And capture another Dean of Jaen
And sell him in Algiers.

Longfellow.

XCIII

BARBARA FRIETCHIE

Up from the meadows rich with corn,
Clear in the cool September morn,

The clustered spires of Frederick stand
Green-walled by the hills of Maryland.