When of old Hildebrand
I asked his daughter's hand,
Mute did the minstrels stand
To hear my story.

While the brown ale he quaffed, Loud then the champion laughed, And as the wind-gusts waft The sea-foam brightly, So the loud laugh of scorn,` Out of those lips unshorn, From the deep drinking-horn Blew the foam lightly.

"She was a Prince's child, I but a Viking wild,

And though she blushed and smiled,

"Then launched they to the blast,
Bent like a reed each mast,
Yet we were gaining fast,
When the wind failed us;
And with a sudden flaw
Came round the gusty Skaw,
So that our foe we saw
Laugh as he hailed us.

"And as to catch the gale Round veered the flapping sail,

Death! was the helmsman's hail,

Death without quarter!

Midships with iron keel

Struck we her ribs of steel;
Down her black hulk did reel
Through the black water!

"As with his wings aslant,
Sails the fierce cormorant,
Seeking some rocky haunt,
With his prey laden,
So toward the open main,
Beating to sea again,

Through the wild hurricane,

Bore I the maiden.

"Three weeks we westward bore, And when the storm was o'er,

Cloud-like we saw the shore

Stretching to leeward;

There for my lady's bower
Built I the lofty tower,
Which, to this very hour,
Stands looking seaward.

"There lived we many years; Time dried the maiden's tears: She had forgot her fears,

She was a mother:

Death closed her mild blue eyes,

Under that tower she lies;

Ne'er shall the sun arise

On such another!

"Still grew my bosom then,
Still as a stagnant fen!
Hateful to me were men,
The sunlight hateful!
In the vast forest here,
Clad in my warlike gear,
Fell I upon my spear,

O, death was grateful!

"Thus, seamed with many scars, Bursting these prison bars,

Up to its native stars

My soul ascended!

There from the flowing bowl

Deep drinks the warrior's soul,

Skoal! to the Northland! skoal!" Thus the tale ended.

S

I.

OME dreams we have are nothing else but dreams,
Unnatural and full of contradictions;

Yet others of our most romantic schemes

Are something more than fictions.

It might be only on enchanted ground;

It might be merely by a thought's expansion; But in the spirit, or the flesh, I found

An old deserted mansion.

A dwelling-place, and yet no habitation; A house, but under some prodigious ban Of excommunication.

Unhinged, the iron gates half open hung,

Jarred by the gusty gales of many winters,