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 Væringers, still 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; These moved me more than words of mine can say E'en while at Micklegarth my folks 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 yet the more of Asagard I dreamed, And worthier seemed the ancient faith of praise. But now, but now--when one of all those days Like Lazarus' finger on my heart should be Breaking the fiery fixed eternity, 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 fan 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 Asagard 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.