"So far I live to the northward, No man lives north of me; To the east are wild mountain-chains, And beyond them meres and plains; To the westward all is sea. "So far I live to the northward, From the harbor of Skeringes-hale, If you only sailed by day, With a fair wind all the way, More than a month would you sail. "I own six hundred reindeer, "I ploughed the land with horses, But my heart was ill at ease, For the old seafaring men Came to me now and then, With their sagas of the seas;· "Of Iceland and of Greenland, For thinking of those seas. "To the northward stretched the desert, How far I fain would know ; So at last I sallied forth, And three days sailed due north, "To the west of me was the ocean, To the right the desolate shore, But I did not slacken sail For the walrus or the whale, Till after three days more. "The days grew longer and longer, I saw the sullen blaze Of the red midnight sun. "And then uprose before me, "The sea was rough and stormy, But onward still I sailed. "Four days I steered to eastward, Four days without a night : Round in a fiery ring Went the great sun, O King, With red and lurid light." Here Alfred, King of the Saxons, But Othere, the old sea-captain, He neither paused nor stirred, Till the King listened and then Once more took up his pen, And wrote down every word. "And now the land," said Othere, "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! 't was a noble game! 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 And lifted his blue eyes, With doubt and strange surmise And Othere the old sea-captain 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!" DAYBREAK WIND came up out of the sea, A room for me." 66 It hailed the ships, and cried, "Sail on, And hurried landward far away, It said unto the forest, "Shout! It touched the wood-bird's folded wing, And o'er the farms, "O chanticleer, It whispered to the fields of corn, It shouted through the belfry-tower, It crossed the churchyard with a sigh, |