"Too dear the AEsir's favors Bought with our children's lives; Better die than shame in living Our mothers and our wives.
"The full shall give his portion To him who hath most need; Of curdled skyr and black bread, Be daily dole decreed."
He broke from off his neck-chain Three links of beaten gold; And each man, at his bidding, Brought gifts for young and old.
Then mothers nursed their children, And daughters fed their sires, And Health sat down with Plenty Before the next Yule fires.
The Horg-stones stand in Rykdal; The Doom-ring still remains; But the snows of a thousand winters Have washed away the stains.
Christ ruleth now; the Asir Have found their twilight dim; And, wiser than she dreamed, of old The Vala sang of Him
1868.
THE TWO RABBINS.
THE Rabbi Nathan two-score years and ten Walked blameless through the evil world, and then, Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, Met a temptation all too strong to bear, And miserably sinned. So, adding not Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught No more among the elders, but went out From the great congregation girt about With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice, Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, Behold the royal preacher's words: "A friend Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end; And for the evil day thy brother lives."
Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who gives Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay My sins before him."
And he went his way Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe, Before him still the old temptation came, And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his staff the blankness round about.
At length, in the low light of a spent day, The towers of Ecbatana far away Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb, Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore Himself away: "O friend beloved, no more Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame.
Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, May purge my soul, and make it white like thine.
Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!"
Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare The mournful secret of his shirt of hair.
"I too, O friend, if not in act," he said, "In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read, 'Better the eye should see than that desire Should wander?' Burning with a hidden fire That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee For pity and for help, as thou to me.
Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried, "Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!"
Side by side In the low sunshine by the turban stone They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own, Forgetting, in the agony and stress Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; His prayers were answered in another's name; And, when at last they rose up to embrace, Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!
Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words were read: "_Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead; Forget it in love's service, and the debt Thou, canst not pay the angels shall forget; Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone; Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!_"
1868.
NOREMBEGA.
Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.
THE winding way the serpent takes The mystic water took, From where, to count its beaded lakes, The forest sped its brook.
A narrow space 'twixt shore and shore, For sun or stars to fall, While evermore, behind, before, Closed in the forest wall.
The dim wood hiding underneath Wan flowers without a name; Life tangled with decay and death, League after league the same.
Unbroken over swamp and hill The rounding shadow lay, Save where the river cut at will A pathway to the day.
Beside that track of air and light, Weak as a child unweaned, At shut of day a Christian knight Upon his henchman leaned.
The embers of the sunset's fires Along the clouds burned down; "I see," he said, "the domes and spires Of Norembega town."
"Alack! the domes, O master mine, Are golden clouds on high; Yon spire is but the branchless pine That cuts the evening sky."
"Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these But chants and holy hymns?"
"Thou hear'st the breeze that stirs the trees Though all their leafy limbs."
"Is it a chapel bell that fills The air with its low tone?"
"Thou hear'st the tinkle of the rills, The insect's vesper drone."
"The Christ be praised!--He sets for me A blessed cross in sight!"
"Now, nay, 't is but yon blasted tree With two gaunt arms outright!"
"Be it wind so sad or tree so stark, It mattereth not, my knave; Methinks to funeral hymns I hark, The cross is for my grave!
"My life is sped; I shall not see My home-set sails again; The sweetest eyes of Normandie Shall watch for me in vain.
"Yet onward still to ear and eye The baffling marvel calls; I fain would look before I die On Norembega's walls.
"So, haply, it shall be thy part At Christian feet to lay The mystery of the desert's heart My dead hand plucked away.
"Leave me an hour of rest; go thou And look from yonder heights; Perchance the valley even now Is starred with city lights."
The henchman climbed the nearest hill, He saw nor tower nor town, But, through the drear woods, lone and still, The river rolling down.
He heard the stealthy feet of things Whose shapes he could not see, A flutter as of evil wings, The fall of a dead tree.
The pines stood black against the moon, A sword of fire beyond; He heard the wolf howl, and the loon Laugh from his reedy pond.
He turned him back: "O master dear, We are but men misled; And thou hast sought a city here To find a grave instead."
"As God shall will! what matters where A true man's cross may stand, So Heaven be o'er it here as there In pleasant Norman land?
"These woods, perchance, no secret hide Of lordly tower and hall; Yon river in its wanderings wide Has washed no city wall;
"Yet mirrored in the sullen stream The holy stars are given Is Norembega, then, a dream Whose waking is in Heaven?
"No builded wonder of these lands My weary eyes shall see; A city never made with hands Alone awaiteth me--
"'_Urbs Syon mystica_;' I see Its mansions passing fair, '_Condita caelo_;' let me be, Dear Lord, a dweller there!"
Above the dying exile hung The vision of the bard, As faltered on his failing tongue The song of good Bernard.
The henchman dug at dawn a grave Beneath the hemlocks brown, And to the desert's keeping gave The lord of fief and town.