But the Saxon king was a sire in age,
Weak in battle, in council sage;
Peace of that heathen leader he sought,
Gifts he gave and quiet he bought;
And the count took upon him the peace-
able style

Of a vassal and liegeman of Briton's broad isle.

IV.

Time will rust the sharpest sword,
Time will consume the strongest cord;
That which moulders hemp and steel
Mortal arm and nerve must feel.

Of the Danish band whom Count Witikind led

Many waxed aged and many were dead: Himself found his armor full weighty to bear,

Wrinkled his brows grew and hoary his hair;

He leaned on a staff when his step went abroad,

And patient his palfrey when steed he bestrode.

As he grew feebler, his wildness ceased,

He made himself peace with prelate and priest,

Made his peace, and stooping his head Patiently listed the counsel they said: Saint Cuthbert's Bishop was holy and grave, Wise and good was the counsel he gave.

V.

'Thou hast murdered, robbed, and spoiled, Time it is thy poor soul were assoiled; Priests didst thou slay and churches burn, Time it is now to repentance to turn; Fiends hast thou worshipped with fiendish rite,

Leave now the darkness and wend into light:

O, while life and space are given,
Turn thee yet, and think of Heaven!'
That stern old heathen his head he raised,
And on the good prelate he steadfastly
gazed;

'Give me broad lands on the Wear and the Tyne,

My faith I will leave and I'll cleave unto

thine.'

VI.

Broad lands he gave him on Tyne and Wear,

To be held of the church by bridle and spear,

Part of Monkwearmouth, of Tynedale part, To better his will and to soften his heart: Count Witikind was a joyful man,

Less for the faith than the lands that he

wan.

The high church of Durham is dressed for the day,

The clergy are ranked in their solemn array:

There came the count, in a bear-skin warm,
Leaning on Hilda his concubine's arm.
He kneeled before Saint Cuthbert's shrine
With patience unwonted at rites divine;
He abjured the gods of heathen race
And he bent his head at the font of
grace.
But such was the grisly old proselyte's look,
That the priest who baptized him grew pale
and shook;

And the old monks muttered beneath their hood,

"Of a stem so stubborn can never spring good!'

Young Harold was feared for his hardihood,
His strength of frame and his fury of mood.
Rude he was and wild to behold,
Wore neither collar nor bracelet of gold,
Cap of vair nor rich array,

Such as should grace that festal day:

His doublet of bull's hide was all unbraced, Uncovered his head and his sandal unlaced: His shaggy black locks on his brow hung low,

And his eyes glanced through them a swarthy glow;

A Danish club in his hand he bore,

The spikes were clotted with recent gore; At his back a she-wolf and her wolf-cubs

twain,

In the dangerous chase that morning slain. Rude was the greeting his father he made, None to the bishop,-while thus he said:

IX.

'What priest-led hypocrite art thou With thy humbled look and thy monkish brow,

Like a shaveling who studies to cheat his Vow?

Canst thou be Witikind the Waster known, Royal Eric's fearless son,

Haughty Gunhilda's haughtier lord,

Who won his bride by the axe and sword; From the shrine of Saint Peter the chalice who tore,

And melted to bracelets for Freya and Thor; With one blow of his gauntlet who burst the skull,

Before Odin's stone, of the Mountain Bull? Then ye worshipped with rites that to wargods belong,

With the deed of the brave and the blow of the strong;

And now, in thine age to dotage sunk, Wilt thou patter thy crimes to a shaven monk,

Lay down thy mail-shirt for clothing of hair,

Fasting and scourge, like a slave, wilt thou bear?

Or, at best, be admitted in slothful bower
To batten with priest and with paramour?
O, out upon thine endless shame!
Each Scald's high harp shall blast thy fame,
And thy son will refuse thee a father's
name!'

X.

Ireful waxed old Witikind's look,
His faltering voice with fury shook:-
:-
Hear me, Harold of hardened heart!
Stubborn and wilful ever thou wert.
Thine outrage insane I command thee to

cease,

Fear my wrath and remain at peace: -
Just is the debt of repentance I've paid,
Richly the church has a recompense made,
And the truth of her doctrines I prove with
my blade,

But reckoning to none of my actions I owe, And least to my son such accounting will show.

Why speak I to thee of repentance or truth, Who ne'er from thy childhood knew reason or ruth?

Hence! to the wolf and the bear in her den; These are thy mates, and not rational men.'

XI.

Grimly smiled Harold and coldly replied, 'We must honor our sires, if we fear when they chide.

With Kyrie Eleison came clamorously in The war-songs of Danesmen, Norweyan, and Finn,

Till man after man the contention gave o'er, Outstretched on the rushes that strewed the hall floor;

And the tempest within, having ceased its wild rout,

Gave place to the tempest that thundered without.

XIV.

Apart from the wassail in turret alone
Lay flaxen-haired Gunnar, old Ermengarde's

son;

In the train of Lord Harold that page was the first,

For Harold in childhood had Ermengarde nursed;

And grieved was young Gunnar his master should roam,

Unhoused and unfriended, an exile from home.

He heard the deep thunder, the plashing of rain,

He saw the red lightning through shot-hole and pane;

'And O!' said the page, 'on the shelterless wold

Lord Harold is wandering in darkness and cold!

What though he was stubborn and wayward and wild,

He endured me because I was Ermengarde's child,

And often from dawn till the set of the sun In the chase by his stirrup unbidden I run; I would I were older, and knighthood could bear,

I would soon quit the banks of the Tyne and the Wear:

For my mother's command with her last parting breath

Bade me follow her nursling in life and to death.

XV.

'It pours and it thunders, it lightens amain, As if Lok the Destroyer had burst from his chain!

Accursed by the church and expelled by his sire,

Nor Christian nor Dane give him shelter or fire,

And this tempest what mortal may houseless endure?

Unaided, unmantled, he dies on the moor! Whate'er comes of Gunnar, he tarries not here.'

He leapt from his couch and he grasped to his spear,