They came to the slopes of the New World’s Bay, And the either hills were green, But a red canoe with plumes of gray In the dusky nights was seen. Then Thorfin said: “The sun is bright, And its summers are wondrous fair, But the wily savage lurks at night In the land of the golden air; In the land of the lily and rose, The land where the sun-birds sing, Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, And the winters are bright with spring. “We will write our names on the sea walls clear, On the reedy rocks by the Bay; And the legend leave of our young child here, Then sail o’er the seas away.” So back o’er the waves of the windy seas, The child of their love they bear, To dream of the mount and its sun-crowned trees In the land of the golden air; In the land of the lily and rose, In the land where the sun-birds sing, Where the purple vine of the wined grape grows, And the winters are bright with spring. To the fiords wild came the lateen sail, To the fiords white and gray, Where the nights are fire, and the sun is pale, And the snow-mists veil the day. “The sail comes back,” said the bards of the halls, “From the land of lands most fair; Now what shall we sing at the festivals? For sorrow and death are there, In the land of the lily and rose, In the land where the sun-birds sing, And the world is not happy wherever goes The barque with the silver wing.” On their royal pens round Mount Hope Bay, The ospreys scream in the noons, And the early bluebirds flit, and stray The herons white, in the moons. And the rocks of the Bay, the legends say, The name of the young child bear; Though centuries nine have passed away, From the booths of Thorfin there; And this was the Northmen’s Rune of the Rose, And the land of the sunshine clear, And the bride who sailed from the Norland snows And the waters of Fiord Fere. [5] This Rock may be seen on the East shore of the Mt. Hope Lands, near the Soldiers’ Home. The last stories told at the folk-lore meetings in the Art Palace were largely in verse. One of these was a peculiar kind of old New England narrative, told in the “chink, chink” manner; another was an Illinois wonder-tale, with a peculiar refrain. The old Puritan baby-story of the “wee, wee pig” was also recited in the colonial manner.