XXI. KING OLAF'S DEATH-DRINK. ALL day has the battle raged, The vengeance of Eric the Earl. The decks with blood are red, The arrows of death are sped, The ships are filled with the dead, And the spears the champions hurl. They drift as wrecks on the tide, The grappling-irons are plied, The shouts are feeble and few. Ah! never shall Norway again See her sailors come back o'er the main; They all lie wounded or slain, Or asleep in the billows blue! On the deck stands Olaf the King, The spears that the foemen fling, And the stones they hurl with their hands. In the midst of the stones and the spears, His shield in the air he uprears, By the side of King Olaf he stands. Over the slippery wreck Of the Long Serpent's deck Sweeps Eric with hardly a check, His lips with anger are pale; He hews with his axe at the mast, Till it falls, with the sails overcast, Like a snow-covered pine in the vast Dim forests of Orkadale. Seeking King Olaf then, As a hunter into the den Of the bear, when he stands at bay. "Remember Jarl Hakon!" he cries; When lo! on his wondering eyes, Two kingly figures arise, Two Olafs in warlike array ! Then Kolbiorn speaks in the ear Two shields raised high in the air, Two flashes of golden hair, Two scarlet meteors' glare, And both have leaped from the ship. Earl Eric's men in the boats Seize Kolbiorn's shield as it floats, And cry, from their hairy throats, "See! it is Olaf the King!" While far on the opposite side Like a jewel set in the wide Sea-current's eddying ring. There is told a wonderful tale, As he swam beneath the main ; |