Poem by James Russell Lowell

Hakon's Lay

  Then Thorstein looked at Hakon, where he sate,
  Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall,
  And said: "O, Skald, sing now an olden song,
  Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;
  And, as the bravest on a shield is borne
  Along the waving host that shouts him king,
  So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!"

  Then the old man arose: white-haired he stood,
  White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar
  From their still region of perpetual snow,
  Over the little smokes and stirs of men:
  His head was bowed with gathered flakes of years,
  As winter bends the sea-foreboding pine,
  But something triumphed in his brow and eye,
  Which whoso saw it, could not see and crouch:
  Loud rang the emptied beakers as he mused,
  Brooding his eyried thoughts; then, as an eagle
  Circles smooth-winged above the wind-vexed woods,
  So wheeled his soul into the air of song
  High o'er the stormy hall; and thus he sang:

  "The fletcher for his arrow-shaft picks out
  Wood closest-grained, long-seasoned, straight as light;
  And, from a quiver full of such as these,
  The wary bow-man, matched against his peers,
  Long doubting, singles yet once more the best.
  Who is it that can make such shafts as Fate?
  What archer of his arrows is so choice,
  Or hits the white so surely? They are men,
  The chosen of her quiver; nor for her
  Will every reed suffice, or cross-grained stick
  At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:
  Such answer household ends; but she will have
  Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound
  Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips
  All needless stuff, all sapwood, hardens them,
  From circumstance untoward feathers plucks
  Crumpled and cheap, and barbs with iron will:
  The hour that passes is her quiver-boy;
  When she draws bow, 'tis not across the wind,
  Nor 'gainst the sun, her haste-snatched arrow sings,
  For sun and wind have plighted faith to her:
  Ere men have heard the sinew twang, behold,
  In the butt's heart her trembling messenger!

  "The song is old and simple that I sing:
  Good were the days of yore, when men were tried
  By ring of shields, as now by ring of gold;
  But, while the gods are left, and hearts of men,
  And the free ocean, still the days are good;
  Through the broad Earth roams Opportunity
  And knocks at every door of hut or hall,
  Until she finds the brave soul that she wants."

  He ceased, and instantly the frothy tide
  Of interrupted wassail roared along;
  But Leif, the son of Eric, sate apart
  Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire,
  Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen;
  But then with that resolve his heart was bent,
  Which, like a humming shaft, through many a strife
  Of day and night across the unventured seas,
  Shot the brave prow to cut on Vinland sands
  The first rune in the Saga of the West.

1. Fancies about a Rosebud, Pressed in an Old Copy of Spenser
2. Fourth of July Ode
3. My Friend, Adown Life's Valley, Hand in Hand
4. Verse Cannot Say How Beautiful Thou Art
5. Sayest Thou, Most Beautiful, That Thou Wilt Wear

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