Page:Papers on Literature and Art (Fuller).djvu/143

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The winds were loud, the waves were high,

 In drear eclipse the sun

Was crouched within the caves of heaven,

 And light had scarce begun;

The Earth’s green front lay drowned below,

 And Death and Chaos fought

O’er all the tumult vast of things

 Not yet to severance brought.

’T was then that spoke the fateful voice,

 And ’mid the huge uproar,

Above the dark I sprang to life,

 A good unhoped before.

My tresses waved along the sky,

 And stars leapt out around,

And earth beneath my feet arose,

 And hid the pale profound.

A lamp amid the night, a feast

 That ends the strife of war,

To wearied mariners a port,

 To fainting limbs a car,

To exiled men the friendly roof,

 To mourning hearts the lay,

To him who long has roamed by night

 The sudden dawn of day.

All these are mine, and mine the bliss

 That visits breasts in woe,

And fills with wine the cup that once

 With tears was made to flow.

Nor question thou the help that comes

 From Aphrodite’s hand;

For madness dogs the bard who doubts

 Whate’er the gods command.

Alfred the Harper has the same strong picture and noble beat of wing. One line we have heard so repeated by a voice, that could give it its full meaning, that we should be very grateful to the poet for that alone.

Still lives the song though Regnar dies.