At random from life's vulgar fagot plucked:

Such answer household ends; but she will have

Souls straight and clear, of toughest fibre, sound

Down to the heart of heart; from these she strips

All needless stuff, all sapwood; seasons them;

From circumstance untoward feathers plucks

Crumpled and cheap; and barbs with iron will:

The hour that passes is her quiver-boy: When she draws bow, 't is not across the wind,

Nor 'gainst the sun her haste-snatched arrow sings,

For sun and wind have plighted faith to her:

Ere men have heard the sinew twang,

behold

least ;

Swift-willed is thrice-willed; late means

nevermore;

Impatient is her foot, nor turns again." He ceased; upon his bosom sank his beard

Sadly, as one who oft had seen her pass Nor stayed her: and forth with the frothy tide

Of interrupted wassail roared along; But Biörn, the son of Heriulf, sat apart Musing, and, with his eyes upon the fire, Saw shapes of arrows, lost as soon as seen. "A ship," he muttered, "is a winged bridge

That leadeth every way to man's desire, And ocean the wide gate to manful luck";

And then with that resolve his heart was bent,

Which, like a humming shaft, through many a stripe

Of day and night, across the unpathwayed seas

Shot the brave prow that cut on Vinland sands

The first rune in the Saga of the West.

III.

GUDRIDA'S PROPHECY.

Four weeks they sailed, a speck in sky. shut seas,

Life, where was never life that knew itself,

But tumbled lubber-like in blowing whales ;

Thought, where the like had never been before

Since Thought primeval brooded the abyss;

Alone as men were never in the world.
They saw the icy foundlings of the sea,
White cliffs of silence, beautiful by day,
Or looming, sudden-perilous, at night
In monstrous hush; or sometimes in the
dark

The waves broke ominous with paly gleams

Crushed by the prow in sparkles of cold fire.

Then came green stripes of sea that promised land

But brought it not, and on the thirtieth day

Low in the West were wooded shores

like cloud.

They shouted as men shout with sudden hope;

But Biörn was silent, such strange loss there is

Between the dream's fulfilment and the dream,

Such sad abatement in the goal attained. Then Gudrida, that was a prophetess, Rapt with strange influence from Atlantis, sang:

Her words: the vision was the dreaming shore's.

Looms there the New Land:

Locked in the shadow
Long the gods shut it,
Niggards of newness
They, the o'er-old.

Little it looks there, Slim as a cloud-streak; It shall fold peoples Even as a shepherd Foldeth his flock.

Silent it sleeps now; Great ships shall seek it, Swarming as salmon ; Noise of its numbers Two seas shall hear.

Man from the Northland,
Man from the Southland,
Haste empty-handed;
No more than manhood
Bring they, and hands.

Dark hair and fair hair, Red blood and blue blood, There shall be mingled; Force of the ferment Makes the New Man.

Pick of all kindreds,

King's blood shall theirs be,
Shoots of the eldest
Stock upon Midgard,
Sons of the poor.

Them waits the New Land;
They shall subdue it,
Leaving their sons' sons
Space for the body,
Space for the soul.

Leaving their sons' sons
All things save song-craft,
Plant long in growing,
Thrusting its tap-root
Deep in the Gone.

Here men shall grow up
Strong from self-helping;
Eyes for the present
Bring they as eagles',
Blind to the Past.

They shall make over
Creed, law, and custom;
Driving-men, doughty
Builders of empire,
Builders of men.

Here is no singer;
What should they sing of?
They, the unresting?
Labor is ugly,
Loathsome is change.

These the old gods hate,
Dwellers in dream-land,
Drinking delusion
Out of the empty
Skull of the Past.

These hate the old gods,
Warring against them;
Fatal to Odin,

Here the wolf Fenrir
Lieth in wait

Here the gods' Twilight
Gathers, earth-gulfing;
Blackness of battle,
Fierce till the Old World
Flare up in fire.

Doubt not, my Northmen;
Fate loves the fearless;
Fools, when their roof-tree
Falls, think it doomsday;
Firm stands the sky.

Over the ruin

See I the promise;

Crisp waves the cornfield,
Peace-walled, the homestead
Waits open-doored.

There lies the New Land;
Yours to behold it,
Not to possess it;
Slowly Fate's perfect
Fulness shall come.

would please me well,' Mahmood said; "but, with the block there, I my truth must sell.

sound;

tudes hoary

With lone cries that wander
Now hither, now yonder,
Like souls doomed of old
To a mild purgatory;

But through noonlight and moonlight
The little fount tinkles
Its silver saints'-bells,
That no sprite ill-boding
May make his abode in
Those innocent dells.

IV.

'T is a woodland enchanted!
When the phebe scarce whistles
Once an hour to his fellow,
And, where red lilies flaunted,
Balloons from the thistles
Tell summer's disasters,
The butterflies yellow,
As caught in an eddy
Of air's silent ocean,
Sink, waver, and steady
O'er goats'-beard and asters,
Like souls of dead flowers,
With aimless emotion
Still lingering unready
To leave their old bowers;
And the fount is no dumber,
But still gleams and flashes,
And gurgles and plashes,
To the measure of summer;
The butterflies hear it,
And spell-bound are holden,
Still balancing near it
O'er the goats'-beard so golden.

In its lupin-leaf setting

But a tiny sand-pillar