as of old!
Oh! thus I’d play th’ enchanter’s part, thus scatter bliss around,
And not a tear, nor aching heart, should in the world be found!
The heart that had been mourning, o’er vanished dreams of love,
Should see them all returning – like Noah’s faithful dove;
And Hope should launch her blessed bark on Sorrow’s darkening sea,
And Misery’s children have an ark and saved from sinking be.
Oh! thus I’d play th’ enchanter’s part, thus scatter bliss around,
And not a tear, nor aching heart, should in the world be found!
Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again, —
The eternal years of God are hers;
But Error, wounded, writhes in pain,
And dies among his worshippers.
KING HACON’S LAST BATTLE
All was over; day was ending
As the foemen turned and fled.
Gloomy red
Glowed the angry sun descending;
While round Hacon’s dying bed
Tears and songs of triumph blending
Told how fast the conqueror bled.
“Raise me,” said the king. We raised him —
Not to ease his desperate pain;
That were vain!
“Strong our foe was, but we faced him —
Show me that red field again.”
Then with reverent hands we placed him
High above the battle plain.
Sudden, on our startled hearing,
Came the low-breathed, stern command —
“Lo! ye stand?
Linger not – the night is nearing;
Bear me downwards to the strand,
Where my ships are idly steering
Off and on, in sight of land.”
Every whispered word obeying,
Swift we bore him down the steep,
O’er the deep,
Up the tall ship’s side, low swaying
To the storm-wind’s powerful sweep,
And his dead companions laying
Round him – we had time to weep.
But the king said, “Peace! bring hither
Spoil and weapons, battle-strown —
Make no moan;
Leave me and my dead together;
Light my torch, and then – begone.”
But we murmured, each to other,
“Can we leave him thus alone?”
Angrily the king replieth;
Flashed the awful eye again
With disdain —
“Call him not alone who lieth
Low amidst such noble slain;
Call him not alone who dieth
Side by side with gallant men.”
Slowly, sadly we departed —
Reached again that desolate shore,
Never more
Trod by him, the brave, true-hearted,
Dying in that dark ship’s core!
Sadder keel from land ne’er parted,
Nobler freight none ever bore!
There we lingered, seaward gazing
Watching o’er that living tomb,
Through the gloom —
Gloom which awful light is chasing;
Blood-red flames the surge illume!
Lo! King Hacon’s ship is blazing;
’Tis the hero’s self-sought doom.
Right before the wild wind driving,
Madly plunging – stung by fire —
No help nigh her —
Lo! the ship has ceased her striving!
Mount the red flames higher, higher,
Till, on ocean’s verge arriving,
Sudden sinks the viking’s pyre. —
Hacon’s gone!
MR. PICKWICK ON THE ICE
On Christmas morning Mr. Wardle invited Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Snodgrass, Mr. Tupman, Mr. Winkle, and his other guests to go down to the pond.
“You skate, of course, Winkle?” said Mr. Wardle.
“Ye – s; oh, yes!” replied Mr. Winkle. “I – I – am rather out of practice.”
“Oh, do skate, Mr. Winkle,” said Arabella. “I like to see it so much.”
“Oh, it is so graceful,” said another young lady.
A third young lady said it was “elegant,” and a fourth expressed her opinion that it was “swanlike.”
“I should be very happy, I am sure,” said Mr. Winkle, reddening, “but I have no skates.”
This objection was at once overruled. Trundle had a couple of pairs, and the fat boy announced that there were half a dozen more downstairs; whereat Mr. Winkle expressed exquisite delight, and looked exquisitely uncomfortable.
Mr. Wardle led the way to a pretty large sheet of ice; and the fat boy and Mr. Weller having shovelled and swept away the snow which had fallen on it during the night, Mr. Bob Sawyer adjusted his skates with a dexterity which to Mr. Winkle was perfectly marvellous, and described circles with his left leg, and cut figures of eight, and inscribed upon the ice, without once stopping for breath, a great many other pleasant and astonishing devices, – to the excessive satisfaction of Mr. Pickwick, Mr. Tupman, and the ladies, – which reached a pitch of positive enthusiasm when Mr. Wardle and Benjamin Allen, assisted by Bob Sawyer, performed some mystic evolutions which they called a reel.
All this time Mr. Winkle, with his face and hands blue with the cold, had been forcing a gimlet into the soles of his shoes, and putting his skates on, with the points behind, and getting the straps into a very complicated state, with the assistance of Mr. Snodgrass, who knew rather less about skates than a Hindoo. At length, however, with the assistance of Mr. Weller, the unfortunate skates were firmly screwed and buckled on, and Mr. Winkle was raised to his feet.
“Now, then, sir,” said Sam, in an encouraging tone, “off with you, and show them how to do it.”
“Stop, Sam, stop!” said Mr. Winkle, trembling violently, and clutching hold of Sam’s arms with the grasp of a drowning man. “How slippery it is, Sam!”
“Not an uncommon thing upon ice, sir,” replied Mr. Weller. “Hold up, sir!”
This last observation of Mr. Weller’s bore reference to a demonstration Mr. Winkle made at the instant of a frantic desire to throw his feet in the air, and dash the back of his head on the ice.
“These – these – are very awkward skates; aren’t they, Sam?” inquired Mr. Winkle, staggering.
“I’m