With ever one fear at the heart o' me
Long by still sea-coasts
coursed my Grey-Falcon,
And the twin delights
of shore and sea were mine,
Sapphire and emerald with
fine pearls between.
Through the pale courses of
the land-caressing in-streams
Glided my barge and
the kindly strange peoples
Gave to me laugh for laugh,
and wine for my tales of wandering.
And the cities gave me welcome
and the fields free passage,
With ever one fear
at the heart o' me.
An thou should'st grow weary
ere my returning,
An "they" should call to thee
from out the borderland,
What should avail me
booty of whale-ways?
What should avail me
gold rings or the chain-mail?
What should avail me
the many-twined bracelets?
What should avail me,
O my beloved,
Here in this "Middan-gard"[7]
what should avail me
Out of the booty and
gain of my goings?
[7] Anglo Saxon "Earth".
Xenia
And
Unto thine eyes my heart
Sendeth old dreams of the spring-time,
Yea of wood-ways my rime
Found thee and flowers in and of all streams
That sang low burthen, and of roses,
That lost their dew-bowed petals for the dreams
We scattered o'er them passing by.
Occidit
Autumnal breaks the flame upon the sun-set herds.
The sheep on Gilead as tawn hair gleam
Neath Mithra's dower and his slow departing,
While in the sky a thousand fleece of gold
Bear, each his tribute, to the waning god.
Hung on the rafters of the effulgent west,
Their tufted splendour shields his decadence,
As in our southern lands brave tapestries
Are hung king-greeting from the ponticells
And drag the pageant from the earth to air,
Wherein the storied figures live again,
Wind-molden back unto their life's erst guise,
All tremulous beneath the many-fingered breath
That Aufidus[8] doth take to house his soul.
[8] The West wind.