Old King Hake

Got by the Sea on a rocky coast
Was old King Hake;
Where inner fire and outer fro. t
Brave virtue make!
He was a hero in the old
Blood-letting days;
An iron hero of Norse mould,
And warring ways.
He lived according to the light
That lighted him;
Then strode into the eternal night,
Resolved and grim.
His grip was stern for free sword-play,
When men were mown;
His feet were rough-shod for the day
Of treadinsr down.

When angry, out the blood would start
With old King Hake;
Not sneak in dark caves of the heart,
Where curls the snake,
And secret Murder's hiss is heard
Ere the deed be done:
He wove no web of wile and word;

He bore with none.

When sharp within its sheath asleep
Lay his good sword,
He held it royal work to keep
His kingly word.
A man of valour, bloody and wild,
In Viking need;
And yet of firelight feeling mild
As honey-mead.

Once in his youth, from farm to farm,
Collecting Scatt,
He gathered gifts and welcomes warm;

And one night sat,
With hearts all happy for his throne —
Wishing no higher —
Where Peasant faces merrily shone
Across the fire:
Their Braga-bowl was handed round
By one fair girl:
The Sea-King looked and thought, " I've found
My hidden pearl."
Her wavy hair was golden-fair,
With sunbeams curled;
Her eyes clear blue as heaven, and there
Lay his new world.
He drank out of the mighty horn,
Strong, stinging stuff;
Then wiped his manly mouth unshorn
With hand as rough,
And kissed her; drew her to his side,
With loving mien,
Saying, " If they will make you a Bride,
I will make you a Queen.'"

And round her waist she felt an arm;

For in those days
A waist could feel: 'twas lithe and wai in,
And wore no stays.
" How many brave deeds have you done? '
She asked her wooer,
Counting the arm's gold rings: they won
One victory more.
The blood of joy looked rich and red
Out of his face;
And to his manly strength he wed
Her maiden grace.
'Twas thus King Hake struck royal root
In homely ground;
And healthier buds with goodlier fruit
His branches crowned.

But Hake could never bind at home
His spirit free;
It grew familiar with the foam
Of many a sea.
A rare good blade whose way was rent
In gaps of war,
And wore no gem for ornament
But notch and scar.
In day of battle and hour of strife,
Cried old King Hake:
" Kings live for honour and not long life."

Then would he break
Right through their circle of shields, to reach
Some Chief of a race
That never yielded ground, but each
Died in his place.

There the old Norseman towered tall
Above the rest
A head and shoulders, like King Saul;

They saw his crest
Toss, where the war-wave reared and rode
O'er mounds of dead,
Till all the battle-dust was trod
A miry red.
For Odin, in the glad wide blue
Of heaven, would laugh
With sunrise, and the ruddy dew
Of slaughter quaff.

But, 'twas the bravest, goodliest show,
To see him sit,
"With his Long-serpent all aglow,
And steering it
For the hot heart of fiercest fight,
A grewsome shape!
The dragon-head rose, glancing bright,
And all agape:
Over the calm blue water it came
Writhingly on,
As half in sea and half in flame,
It swam, and shone.
The sunlit shields link scale to scale
From stem to stern,
Over the Steersman's head the tail
Doth twist and burn:
With oars all moved at once, it makes
Low hoverings;
Half walks the water, and half takes
The air with wings.

The war-horns bid the fight begin
With death-grip good:
King Hake goes at the foremost, in
His Bare-Sark mood:
A twelvemonth's taxes spent in spears
Hurled in an hour!
But in that host no spirit fears
The hurtling shower.
And long will many a Mother and Wife
Wait, weary at home,
Ere from that mortal murderous strife
Their darlings come.

Hake did not seek to softly die,
With Child and Wife:
He bore his head in death as high
As in his life.
Glittering in eye, and grim in lip,
He bade them make
Beady for sailing his War- Ship,
That he, King Hake,
The many-wounded, gray, and old,
His day being done, —
He, the Norse warrior, brave and bold,
Might die like one.
And chanting an old battle-song,
Thrilling and weird,
His soul vibrating, shook his long
Majestic beard:
The gilded battle-axe, still red,
In his right hand;
His shield on arm, his helm on head,
They helped him stand,
And girded him with his good sword;

Then, so attired,
With his dead warriors all abroad,
The Ship he fired,
And lay down with his heroes dead,
On deck to die;
Still singing, drooped his gray old head,
With face to sky.

The wind blew seawards; gloriously
The death-pyre glowed:
On his last Yiking voyage he
Exulting rode:
Floating afar between the Isles,
To his last home,
Where open-armed Valhalla smiles,
And bids him come.
There, as a sinking Sunset dies
Down in the West,
The fire flamed out; the rude heart lies
At rest — at rest,
And sleeping in his Ocean-bed,
That burial-place
Most royal for the kingly dead
0' the old sea-race!
So the Norse noble of renown,
With fearless pride,
His flaming crown of death pulled down;

And so he died.