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PROLOGUE: THE WANDERERS.

ARGUMENT.

Certain gentlemen and mariners of Norway, having considered all that they had heard of the Earthly Paradise, set sail to find it, and after many troubles and the lapse of many years came old men to some Western land, of which they had never before heard: there they died, when they had dwelt there certain years, much honoured of the strange people.

FORGET six counties overhung with smoke,

Forget the snorting steam and piston stroke,
Forget the spreading of the hideous town;
Think rather of the pack-horse on the down,
And dream of London, small, and white, and
clean,

The clear Thames bordered by its gardens green;
Think, that below bridge the green lapping waves
Smite some few keels that bear Levantine staves,
Cut from the yew wood on the burnt-up hill,
And pointed jars that Greek hands toiled to fill,
And treasured scanty spice from some far sea,
Florence gold cloth, and Ypres napery,
And cloth of Bruges, and hogsheads of Guienne;
While nigh the thronged wharf Geoffrey Chaucer's

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A nameless city in a distant sea, White as the changing walls of faërie, Thronged with much people clad in ancient guise I now am fain to set before your eyes; There, leave the clear green water and the quays, And pass betwixt its marble palaces, Until ye come unto the chiefest square; A bubbling conduit is set midmost there, And round about it now the maidens throng, With jest and laughter, and sweet broken song, Making but light of labour new begun While in their vessels gleams the morning sun. On one side of the square a temple stands, Wherein the gods worshipped in ancient lands Still have their altars; a great market-place Upon two other sides fills all the space, And thence the busy hum of men comes forth; But on the cold side looking toward the north A pillared council-house may you behold, Within whose porch are images of gold,

Gods of the nations who dwelt anciently About the borders of the Grecian sea,

Pass now between them, push the brazen door, And standing on the polished marble floor Leave all the noises of the square behind; Most calm that reverent chamber shall ye find, Silent at first, but for the noise you made When on the brazen door your hand you laid To shut it after you-but now behold The city rulers on their thrones of gold, Clad in most fair attire, and in their hands Long carven silver-banded ebony wands; Then from the daïs drop your eyes and see Soldiers and peasants standing reverently Before those elders, round a little band Who bear such arms as guard the English land, But battered, rent, and rusted sore, and they, The men themselves, are shrivelled, bent, and grey; And as they lean with pain upon their spears Their brows seem furrowed deep with more than years;

For sorrow dulls their heavy sunken eyes; Bent are they less with time than miseries.

Pondering on them the city grey-beards gaze Through kindly eyes, midst thoughts of other days, And pity for poor souls, and vague regret For all the things that might have happened yet, Until, their wonder gathering to a head, The wisest man, who long that land has led, Breaks the deep silence, unto whom again A wanderer answers. Slowly as in pain, And with a hollow voice as from a tomb At first he tells the story of his doom, But as it grows and once more hopes and fears, Both measureless, are ringing round his ears, His eyes grow bright, his seeming days decrease, For grief once told brings somewhat back of peace.

THE ELDER OF THE CITY.

But now, but now-when one of all those days Like Lazarus' finger on my heart should be

From what unheard-of world, in what strange Breaking the fiery fixed eternity,
keel,

Have ye come hither to our commonweal?
No barbarous folk, as these our peasants say,
But learned in memories of a long-past day,
Speaking, some few at least, the ancient tongue
That through the lapse of ages still has clung
To us, the seed of the Ionian race.

Speak out and fear not; if ye need a place
Wherein to pass the end of life away,

That shall ye gain from us from this same day,
Unless the enemies of God ye are ;

We fear not you and yours to bear us war,
And scarce can think that ye will try again
Across the perils of the shifting plain

To seek your own land, whereso that may be :
For folk of ours bearing the memory
Of our old land, in days past oft have striven
To reach it, unto none of whom was given
To come again and tell us of the tale,
Therefore our ships are now content to sail,
About these happy islands that we know.

THE WANDErer.

Masters, I have to tell a tale of woe,
A tale of folly and of wasted life,
Hope against hope, the bitter dregs of strife,
Ending, where all things end, in death at last :
So if I tell the story of the past,
Let it be worth some little rest, I pray,
A little slumber ere the end of day.

No wonder if the Grecian tongue I know,
Since at Byzantium many a year ago
My father bore the twibil valiantly;
There did he marry, and get me, and die,
And I went back to Norway to my kin,
Long ere this beard ye see did first begin
To shade my mouth, but nathless not before
Among the Greeks I gathered some small lore,
And standing midst the Væring warriors heard
From this or that man many a wondrous word;
For ye shall know that though we worshipped God,
And heard mass duly, still of Swithiod
The Greater, Odin and his house of gold,
The noble stories ceased not to be told;

But for one moment-could I see once more
The grey-roofed sea-port sloping towards the shore
Or note the brown boats standing in from sea,
Or the great dromond swinging from the quay,
Or in the beech-woods watch the screaming jay
Shoot up betwixt the tall trunks, smooth and grey.
Yea, could I see the days before distress
When very longing was but happiness!

Within our house there was a Breton squire
Well learned, who fail'd not to blow up the fire
That evermore unholpen burned in me
Strange lands and things beyond belief to see;
Much lore of many lands this Breton knew;
And for one tale I told, he told me two.
He, counting Asgard but a new-told thing,
Yet spoke of gardens ever blossoming
Across the western sea where none grew old,
E'en as the books at Micklegarth had told,
And said moreover that an English knight
Had had the Earthly Paradise in sight,
And heard the songs of those that dwelt therein,
But entered not, being hindered by his sin.
Shortly, so much of this and that he said
That in my heart the sharp barb entered,
And like real life would empty stories seem,
And life from day to day an empty dream.

Another man there was, a Swabian priest,
Who knew the maladies of man and beast,
And what things helped them; he the stone still
sought

Whereby base metal into gold is brought,
And strove to gain the precious draught, whereby
Men live midst mortal men, yet never die;
Tales of the Kaiser Redbeard could he tell
Who neither went to Heaven nor yet to Hell,
When from that fight upon the Asian plain
He vanished, but still lives to come again
Men know not how or when; but I listening
Unto this tale thought it a certain thing
That in some hidden vale of Swithiod
Across the golden pavement still he trod.

But while our longing for such things so grew,

These moved me more than words of mine can say And ever more and more we deemed them true,

E'en while at Micklegarth my folk did stay;

But when I reached one dying autumn-tide

My uncle's dwelling near the forest side,
And saw the land so scanty and so bare,
And all the hard things men contend with there,
A little and unworthy land it seemed,
And all the more of Asgard's days I dreamed,
And worthier seemed the ancient faith of praise.

Upon the land a pestilence there fell
Unheard of yet in any chronicle,

And, as the people died full fast of it,

With these two men it chanced me once to sit,
This learned squire whose name was Nicholas,
And Swabian Laurence, as our manner was;
For, could we help it, scarcely did we part
From dawn to dusk so heavy, sad at heart,

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The yellow flowers grown deeper with the sun
Were letting fall their petals one by one;
No wind there was, a haze was gathering o'er
The furthest bound of the faint yellow shore;
And in the oily waters of the bay

Scarce moving aught some fisher-cobbles lay,
And all seemed peace; and had been peace indeed
But that we young men of our life had need,
And to our listening ears a sound was borne
That made the sunlight wretched and forlorn-
-The heavy tolling of the minster bell-
And nigher yet a tinkling sound did tell

Setting your faces to undreamed delight,
Turning your backs unto this troublous hell,
Or is the time too short to say farewell?"

"Not so," I said, "rather would I depart Now while thou speakest; never has my heart Been set on anything within this land."

5

Then said the Swabian, "Let us now take hand
And swear to follow evermore this quest
Till death or life have set our hearts at rest."

So with joined hands we swore, and Nicholas
said,

"To-night, fair friends, be ye apparelléd
And such men as ye trust; my own good man
To leave this land, bring all the arms ye can
Guards the small postern looking towards St.

Bride,

And good it were ye should not be espied,
Since mayhap freely ye should not go hence,
Thou Rolf in special; for this pestilence

That through the streets they bore our Saviour Makes all men hard and cruel, nor are they
Christ

By dying lips in anguish to be kissed.

At last spoke Nicholas, "How long shall we
Abide here, looking forth into the sea
Expecting when our turn shall come to die?
Fair fellows, will ye come with me and try
Now at our worst that long-desired quest,
Now-when our worst is death, and life our best."
"Nay, but thou know'st," I said, "that I but
wait

The coming of some man, the turn of fate,
To make this voyage-but I die meanwhile,
For I am poor, though my blood be not vile,
Nor yet for all his lore doth Laurence hold
Within his crucibles aught like to gold;
And what hast thou, whose father driven forth
By Charles of Blois, found shelter in the North
But little riches as I needs must deem?"

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'Well," said he, "things are better than they

seem,

For 'neath my bed an iron chest I have
That holdeth things I have made shift to save
E'en for this end; moreover, hark to this,
In the next firth a fair long-ship there is
Well victualled, ready even now for sea,
And I may say it 'longeth unto me;
Since Marcus Erling, late its owner, lies
Dead at the end of many miseries,
And little Kirstin, as thou well mayst know,
Would be content throughout the world to go
If I but took her hand, and now still more
Hath heart to leave this poor death-stricken shore.
Therefore my gold shall buy us Bordeaux swords
And Bordeaux wine as we go oceanwards.
"What say ye, will ye go with me to-night,

Willing that folk should 'scape if they must stay:
Be wise; I bid you for a while farewell,
Leave ye this stronghold when St. Peter's bell
Strikes midnight, all will surely then be still,
And I will bide you at King Tryggvi's hill
Outside the city gates."

Each went his way
Gained for the quest three men that I deemed true,
Therewith, and I the remnant of that day
And did such other things as I must do,
And still was ever listening for the chime,
Half maddened by the lazy lapse of time;
Yea, scarce I thought indeed that I should live
Till the great tower the joyful sound should give
That set us free. And so the hours went past,
Till startled by the echoing clang at last
That told of midnight, armed from head to heel
Down to the open postern did I steal,
Bearing small wealth-this sword that yet hangs
here

Worn thin and narrow with so many a year,
My father's axe that from Byzantium,
With some few gems my pouch yet held, had come,
Nought else that shone with silver or with gold.
But by the postern gate could I behold
Laurence the priest all armed as if for war,
And my three men were standing not right far
From off the town-wall, having some small store
Of arms and furs and raiment: then once more
I turned, and saw the autumn moonlight fall
Upon the new-built bastions of the wall,
And further off I saw the lead shine bright
Strange with black shadow and grey flood of light,
On tower and turret-roof against the sky,
And looking down I saw the old town lie
Black in the shade of the o'er-hanging hill,

Stricken with death, and dreary, but all still
Until it reached the water of the bay,
That in the dead night smote against the quay
Not all unheard, though there was little wind.
But as I turned to leave the place behind,
The wind's light sound, the slowly falling swell,
Were hushed at once by that shrill-tinkling bell,
That in that stillness jarring on mine ears,
With sudden jangle checked the rising tears,
And now the freshness of the open sea
Seemed ease and joy and very life to me.

So greeting my new mates with little sound,
We made good haste to reach King Tryggvi's
mound,

And there the Breton Nicholas beheld,
Who by the hand fair Kirstin Erling held,
And round about them twenty men there stood,
Of whom the more part on the holy rood
Were sworn till death to follow up the quest,
And Kirstin was the mistress of the rest.

Again betwixt us was there little speech,
But swiftly did we set on toward the beach,
And coming there our keel, the Fighting Man,
We boarded, and the long oars out we ran,
And swept from out the firth, and sped so well
That scarcely could we hear St. Peter's bell
Toll one, although the light wind blew from land;
Then hoisting sail southward we 'gan to stand,
And much I joyed beneath the moon to see
The lessening land that might have been to me
A kindly giver of wife, child, and friend,
And happy life, or at the worser end

A quiet grave till doomsday rend the earth.

To talk of what he deemed our course should be,
To whom agape I listened, since I knew
Nought but old tales, nor aught of false and true
Midst these, for all of one kind seemed to be
The Vineland voyage o'er the unknown sea
And Swegdir's search for Godhome, when he found
The entrance to a new world underground;
But Nicholas o'er many books had pored
And this and that thing in his mind had stored,
And idle tales from true report he knew.
-Would he were living now, to tell to you
This story that my feeble lips must tell!

Now he indeed of Vineland knew full well,
Both from my tales where truth perchance touched
lies,

And from the ancient written histories;
But now he said, "The land was good enow
That Leif the son of Eric came unto,

But this was not our world, nay scarce could be
The door into a place so heavenly

As that we seek, therefore my rede is this,
That we to gain that sure abode of bliss
Risk dying in an unknown landless sea;
Although full certainly it seems to me
All that we long for there we needs must find.

"Therefore, O friends, if ye are of my mind,
When we are passed the French and English strait
Let us seek news of that desired gate
To immortality and blessed rest
Within the landless waters of the west,
But still a little to the southward steer.
Certes no Greenland winter waits us there,
No year-long night, but rather we shall find
Spice-trees set waving by the western wind,

Night passed, day dawned, and we grew full of And gentle folk who know no guile at least,

mirth

As with the ever-rising morning wind
Still further lay our threatened death behind,
Or so we thought: some eighty men we were,
Of whom but fifty knew the shipman's gear,
The rest were uplanders; midst such of these
As knew not of our quest, with promises
Went Nicholas dealing florins round about,
With still a fresh tale for each new man's doubt,
Till all were fairly won or seemed to be
To that strange desperate voyage o'er the sea.

Now if ye ask me from what land I come
With all my folly,-Wick was once my home
Where Tryggvi Olaf's son and Olaf's sire
Lit to the ancient Gods the sacred fire,
Unto whose line am I myself akin,
Through him who Astrid in old time did win,
King Olaf's widow: let all that go by,
Since I was born at least to misery.

Now Nicholas came to Laurence and to me

And many a bright-winged bird and soft-skinned

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