Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
King Olafs Death-Drink
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (18071882)A
All day have the ships engaged,
But not yet is assuaged
The vengeance of Eric the Earl.
The arrows of death are sped,
The ships are filled with the dead,
And the spears the champions hurl.
The grappling-irons are plied,
The boarders climb up the side,
The shouts are feeble and few.
See her sailors come back o’er the main;
They all lie wounded or slain,
Or asleep in the billows blue!
Around him whistle and sing
The spears that the foemen fling,
And the stones they hurl with their hands.
Kolbiorn, the marshal, appears,
His shield in the air he uprears,
By the side of King Olaf he stands.
Of the Long Serpent’s deck
Sweeps Eric with hardly a check,
His lips with anger are pale;
Till it falls, with the sails overcast,
Like a snow-covered pine in the vast
Dim forests of Orkadale.
He rushes aft with his men,
As a hunter into the den
Of the bear, when he stands at bay.
When lo! on his wondering eyes,
Two kingly figures arise,
Two Olafs in warlike array!
Of King Olaf a word of cheer,
In a whisper that none may hear,
With a smile on his tremulous lip;
Two flashes of golden hair,
Two scarlet meteors’ glare,
And both have leaped from the ship.
Seize Kolbiorn’s shield as it floats,
And cry, from their hairy throats,
“See! it is Olaf the King!”
Floats another shield on the tide,
Like a jewel set in the wide
Sea-current’s eddying ring.
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,
As he swam beneath the main;
And never, by night or by day,
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again!