High over the wild sea-border, on the
furthest downs to the west,
Is the green grave-mound of the Norseman,
with the yew-tree grove on its crest.
And I heard in the winds his story, as they
leapt up salt from the wave,
And tore at the creaking branches that grow
from the sea-king's grave.
Some son of the old-world Vikings, the wild
sea-wandering lords,
Who sailed in a snake-prowed galley, with a
terror of twenty swords.
From the fiords of the sunless winter, they
came on an icy blast,
Till over the whole world's sea-board the
shadow of Odin passed,
Till they sped to the inland waters and under
the South-land skies,
And stared on the puny princes, with their
blue victorious eyes.
And they said he was old and royal, and a
warrior all his days,
But the king who had slain his brother lived
yet in the island ways.
And he came from a hundred battles, and
died in his last wild quest,
For he said, "I will have my vengeance, and
then I will take my rest."
He had passed on his homeward journey, and
the king of the isles was dead;
He had drunken the draught of triumph, and
his cup was the isle-king's head;
And he spoke of the song and feasting, and
the gladness of things to be,
And three days over the waters they rowed on
a waveless sea.
Till a small cloud rose to the shoreward, and
a gust broke out of the cloud,
And the spray beat over the rowers, and the
murmur of winds was loud,
With the voice of the far-off thunders, till the
shuddering air grew warm,
And the day was as dark as at even, and the
wild god rode on the storm.
But the old man laughed in the thunder as he
set his casque on his brow,
And he waved his sword in the lightnings and
clung to the painted prow.
And the shaft of the storm-god's quiver,
flashed out from the flame-flushed skies,
Rang down on his war-worn harness, and
gleamed in his fiery eyes.
And his mail and his crested helmet, and his
hair, and his beard burned red;
And they said, "It is Odin calls;" and he
fell, and they found him dead.
So here, in his war-guise armoured, they laid
him down to his rest,
In his casque with the rein-deer antlers, and
the long grey beard on his breast:
His bier was the spoil of the islands, with a
sail for a shroud beneath,
And an oar of his blood-red galley, and his
battle brand in the sheath;
And they buried his bow beside him, and
planted the grove of yew,
For the grave of a mighty archer, one tree for
each of his crew;
Where the flowerless cliffs are sheerest, where
the sea-birds circle and swarm,
And the rocks are at war with the waters,
with their jagged grey teeth in the storm;
And the huge Atlantic billows sweep in, and
the mists enclose
The hill with the grass-grown mound where
the Norseman's yew-tree grows.