Of divers sorts: a wise and valiant king Deserves that tear which praises, not bewails, Greatness gone by.' The pirate shouted loud, 'A land it is of laughter, not of tears!' Know ye the tale of Harald? He had sailed Round southern coasts and eastern--sacked or burned A hundred Christian cities. One he found So girt with giant walls and brazen gates His sea-kings vainly dashed themselves thereon, And died beneath them, frustrate. Harald sent A herald to that city proffering terms: "Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth: He sends you spoils from many a city burnt, And craves interment in your chiefest church." Next day the masked procession wound in black Through streets defenceless. When the church was reached They laid their chief before the altar-lights: Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge, And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloud Sudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand, Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smote The hoary pontiff down, and brake his neck; And all those maskers doffed their weeds of woe And showed the mail beneath, and raised their swords, And drowned that pavement in a sea of blood, While raging rushed their mates through portals wide, And, since that city seemed but scant of spoil, Fired it and sailed. Ofttimes old Harald laughed That tale recounting,' Many a Kentish chief Re-echoed Harald's laugh;--not Ethelbert: The war-scar reddening on his brow he rose And spake: 'My Thanes, ye laugh at deeds accurst! An old King I, and make my prophecy One day that northern race which smites and laughs, Our kith and kin albeit, shall smite our coasts: That day ye will not laugh!' Earconwald, Not rising, likewise answer made, heart-grieved: 'Six sons had I: all these are slain in war; Yet I, an unrejoicing man forlorn, Find solace ofttimes thinking of their deeds: They laughed not when they smote. No God, be sure, Smiles on the jest red-handed.' Egfrid rose, And three times cried with lifted sword unsheathed, 'Behold my God! No God save him I serve!' While thus they held discourse, where blue waves danced Not far from land, behold, there hove in sight, Seen 'twixt a great beech silky yet with Spring And pine broad-crested, round whose head old storms Had wov'n a garland of his own green boughs, A bark both fair and large; and hymn was heard. Then laughed the King, 'The stag-hunt and our songs So drugged my memory, I had nigh forgotten Why for our feast I chose this heaven-roofed hall: Missives I late received from friends in France; They make report of strangers from the South Who, tarrying in their coasts have learned our tongue, And northward wend with tidings strange and new Of some celestial Kingdom by their God Founded for men of Faith.