'The vision made our Monarch start,
But soon he mann'd his noble heart,
And in the first career they ran,
The Elfin Knight fell, horse and man; 465
Yet did a splinter of his lance
Through Alexander's visor glance,
And razed the skin--a puny wound.
The King, light leaping to the ground,
With naked blade his phantom foe 470
Compell'd the future war to show.
Of Largs he saw the glorious plain,
Where still gigantic bones remain,
Memorial of the Danish war;
Himself he saw, amid the field, 475
On high his brandish'd war-axe wield,
And strike proud Haco from his car,
While all around the shadowy Kings
Denmark's grim ravens cower'd their wings.
'Tis said, that, in that awful night, 480
Remoter visions met his sight,
Foreshowing future conquest far,
When our sons' sons wage northern war;
A royal city, tower and spire,
Redden'd the midnight sky with fire, 485
And shouting crews her navy bore,
Triumphant, to the victor shore.
Such signs may learned clerks explain,
They pass the wit of simple swain.