Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/252

 236 AVILLIAM ROSS WALLACE. [1830-40. O'er the hill- top and tide its magnificent fold, With a terrible glitter of azure and gold, In the storm, in the sunshine, and darkness unrolled. It blazed in the valley — it blazed on the mast — * It leaped with, its Eagle abroad on the blast ; A.nd the eyes of whole nations were turned to its light ; And the heart of the multitude soon "Was swayed by its stars, as they shone through the night Like an ocean when swayed by the moon. Again through the midnight that Bell thunders out, And banners and torches are hurried about : — A shout as of waters ! a long-uttered cry ! How it leaps, how it leaps from the earth to the sky! From the sky to the earth, from the earth to the sea. Hear a chorus re-echoed, " The People are Free!" That old Bell is still seen by the Patriot's eye, And he blesses it ever, when journeying by ; Long years have passed o'er if, and yet every soul "Will thrill in the night to its wonderful roll; For it speaks in its belfry, when kissed by the blast. Like a glory-breathed tone from the mys- tical Past. Long years shall roll o'er it, and yet every chime Shall unceasingly tell of an era sublime More splendid, more dear than the rest of all time. yes ! if the flame on our altars should pale, Let its voice but be heard, and the Free- man shall start To rekindle the fire, while he sees on the gale, All the stars and the stripes of the Flag of his heart ! THE NORTH EDDA. Noble was the old North Edda, Filling many a noble grave. That "for Man the one thing needful In his world is to be brave." This the Norland's blue-eyed mother Nightly chanted to her child, While the Sea-King, grim and stately. Looked upon his boy and smiled. And the boy, grown up a Sea-King, Grasped the old ancestral spear — ■ Ever in the Jotun-battle Foremost, only fearing Fear. If the Valkyrs did not choose him In some combat for the dead — If, when old, and gray, and wasted. He was dying in his bed — He would bid the kings to lay him In his ship, and spread her sail — Then, with slow fire burning, give her To the white god of the gale. So he went, a death-hymn breathing Feebly in his snowy beard — So by fire within the Ocean Was the Ocean-King interred. Odin crowned his stately spirit In the Hero's hall of shells. Far away from Hela's darkness And the coward's hell of hells. Let us learn that old North Edda, Chanted grandly on the grave : Still for Man the one thing needful In his world is to be brave. Valkja's yet are forth and choosing Who must be anion"; the slaui :