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. Night passed, day dawned, and we grew full of 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. OGIER THE DANE. ARGUMENT. When Ogier was born, six fay ladies came to the cradle where he lay, and gave him various gifts, as to be brave and happy and the like; but the sixth gave him to be her love when he should have lived long in the world: so Ogier grew up and became the greatest of knights, and at last, after many years, fell into the hands of that fay, and with her, as the story tells, he lives now, though he returned once to the world, as is shown in the process of this tale. Within some Danish city by the sea, Whose name, changed now, is all unknown to me, Great mourning was there one fair summer eve, Because the angels, bidden to receive The fair Queen's lovely soul in Paradise, Had done their bidding, and in royal guise Her helpless body, once the prize of love, Unable now for fear or hope to move, Lay underneath the golden canopy; And bowed down by unkingly misery The King sat by it, and not far away, Within the chamber a fair man-child lay, His mother's bane, the king that was to be, Not witting yet of any royalty, Harmless and loved, although so new to life.