"He owns her logic of the heart, And wisdom of unreason, Supplying, while he doubts and weighs, The needed word in season.
"He sees with pride her richer thought, Her fancy's freer ranges; And love thus deepened to respect Is proof against all changes.
"And if she walks at ease in ways His feet are slow to travel, And if she reads with cultured eyes What his may scarce unravel,
"Still clearer, for her keener sight Of beauty and of wonder, He learns the meaning of the hills He dwelt from childhood under.
"And higher, warmed with summer lights, Or winter-crowned and hoary, The ridged horizon lifts for him Its inner veils of glory.
"He has his own free, bookless lore, The lessons nature taught him, The wisdom which the woods and hills And toiling men have brought him:
"The steady force of will whereby Her flexile grace seems sweeter; The sturdy counterpoise which makes Her woman's life completer.
"A latent fire of soul which lacks No breath of love to fan it; And wit, that, like his native brooks, Plays over solid granite.
"How dwarfed against his manliness She sees the poor pretension, The wants, the aims, the follies, born Of fashion and convention.
"How life behind its accidents Stands strong and self-sustaining, The human fact transcending all The losing and the gaining.
"And so in grateful interchange Of teacher and of hearer, Their lives their true distinctness keep While daily drawing nearer.
"And if the husband or the wife In home's strong light discovers Such slight defaults as failed to meet The blinded eyes of lovers,
"Why need we care to ask?--who dreams Without their thorns of roses, Or wonders that the truest steel The readiest spark discloses?
"For still in mutual sufferance lies The secret of true living; Love scarce is love that never knows The sweetness of forgiving.
"We send the Squire to General Court, He takes his young wife thither; No prouder man election day Rides through the sweet June weather.
"He sees with eyes of manly trust All hearts to her inclining; Not less for him his household light That others share its shining."
Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew Before me, warmer tinted And outlined with a tenderer grace, The picture that she hinted.
The sunset smouldered as we drove Beneath the deep hill-shadows.
Below us wreaths of white fog walked Like ghosts the haunted meadows.
Sounding the summer night, the stars Dropped down their golden plummets; The pale arc of the Northern lights Rose o'er the mountain summits,
Until, at last, beneath its bridge, We heard the Bearcamp flowing, And saw across the mapled lawn The welcome home lights glowing.
And, musing on the tale I heard, 'T were well, thought I, if often To rugged farm-life came the gift To harmonize and soften;
If more and more we found the troth Of fact and fancy plighted, And culture's charm and labor's strength In rural homes united,--
The simple life, the homely hearth, With beauty's sphere surrounding, And blessing toil where toil abounds With graces more abounding.
1868.
THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.
THE land was pale with famine And racked with fever-pain; The frozen fiords were fishless, The earth withheld her grain.
Men saw the boding Fylgja Before them come and go, And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon From west to east sailed slow.
Jarl Thorkell of Thevera At Yule-time made his vow; On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone He slew to Frey his cow.
To bounteous Frey he slew her; To Skuld, the younger Norn, Who watches over birth and death, He gave her calf unborn.
And his little gold-haired daughter Took up the sprinkling-rod, And smeared with blood the temple And the wide lips of the god.
Hoarse below, the winter water Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er; Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves, Rose and fell along the shore.
The red torch of the Jokul, Aloft in icy space, Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones And the statue's carven face.
And closer round and grimmer Beneath its baleful light The Jotun shapes of mountains Came crowding through the night.
The gray-haired Hersir trembled As a flame by wind is blown; A weird power moved his white lips, And their voice was not his own.
"The AEsir thirst!" he muttered; "The gods must have more blood Before the tun shall blossom Or fish shall fill the flood.
"The AEsir thirst and hunger, And hence our blight and ban; The mouths of the strong gods water For the flesh and blood of man!
"Whom shall we give the strong ones?
Not warriors, sword on thigh; But let the nursling infant And bedrid old man die."
"So be it!" cried the young men, "There needs nor doubt nor parle."
But, knitting hard his red brows, In silence stood the Jarl.
A sound of woman's weeping At the temple door was heard, But the old men bowed their white heads, And answered not a word.
Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla, A Vala young and fair, Sang softly, stirring with her breath The veil of her loose hair.
She sang: "The winds from Alfheim Bring never sound of strife; The gifts for Frey the meetest Are not of death, but life.
"He loves the grass-green meadows, The grazing kine's sweet breath; He loathes your bloody Horg-stones, Your gifts that smell of death.
"No wrong by wrong is righted, No pain is cured by pain; The blood that smokes from Doom-rings Falls back in redder rain.
"The gods are what you make them, As earth shall Asgard prove; And hate will come of hating, And love will come of love.
"Make dole of skyr and black bread That old and young may live; And look to Frey for favor When first like Frey you give.
"Even now o'er Njord's sea-meadows The summer dawn begins The tun shall have its harvest, The fiord its glancing fins."
Then up and swore Jarl Thorkell "By Gimli and by Hel, O Vala of Thingvalla, Thou singest wise and well!