Nor win bright harvests from their barren breast. Its chill refusal to warm human prayers! "The peasant's son," he said, ('twas spoke in scorn,) Were no fit mate, methinks, for Odin's daughter! 66 We will believe thy word, enforce thy suit, "My life-long bliss hangs on a single word," (So did I speak) " yet fear it not, King Helga ! I would not lie to gain Valhalla's joys, Nor those of earth-Yes! I have seen thy sister, I said no more. But murmurs deep of horror Than to delude a maid in Baldur's grove ! When summer shall return, we wait thee, here, Else is thy honour, Frithioff, forfeited, And from our land thou dwellest a life-long exile." Frith. Doth there remain a choice? Hangs not mine honor on my sovereign's challenge? I will redeem it, should Aganthyr hide His worthless gold in Nastrand's deepest flood. Ev'n now I sail. Frith. Nay, I forsake thee not-thou comest with me. Ingeb. Impossible ! Frith. Nay, hear me ere thou answer. We are reluctantly obliged to omit the long and glowing speech in which Frithioff, from the descriptions of his late father, draws a delicious picture of a life of love and freedom amid the lovely isles of Greece. He paints, with all the eloquence of passion, their laurel-groves and clustering vines, and the moss-grown temples and mouldering pillars, whose graceful forms look out from amidst them, to enchant the wondering mariner. "Here, my Ingeborg!" exclaims he, "We will build ourselves among the waves a little Northland, fairer than the one we have left-our love shall animate the deserted temples, and please their forsaken gods-and when with loosely-flowing sail (for storms are here Ingeb. Frith. Not follow-me? for ever bound,) a mariner shall pass our isle in the rosy glow of evening, he shall see a southern Freya, (for such there is, called Aphrodita,) and marvel as he sees her golden locks flow in the winds, and her eyes brighter than Heaven's own blue. There, too, like a troop of elves, a little band of ministering cherubs shall grow around her, with cheeks glowing as if the South had shed her clustering roses on our Northern snows." How eloquent is passion!-how tempting opportunity. Ellida flaps her eagle wings, and favouring breezes only await the fiat of the maiden to bear her for ever from bondage and oppression to liberty and love. Let her reply. Alas! I cannot follow thee ! Ah! Frithioff, thou art happy, Thou followest none; thou wend'st thine own bright way, Just like thine arrowy sea-snake, at whose helm Stands stern resolve, and guides her destined course, Oh! it is sadly otherwise with me! In ruthless hands my destiny has fall'n; Hands that ne'er quit their prey till it has bled. To yield herself a victim, scarce complaining, Is the King's daughter's lot-and therefore mine! Frith. Art thou not free, if such thy will ?-thy father Ingeb. King Helga is my father, Bestow my hand. And know that Bela's daughter The holy ties with which Eternal wisdom Bound her frail being to some mighty stem? That sinks and rises with the billows' swell. The mariner holds on his reckless course, Nor marks when her frail stem his keel has sever'd! Her deep roots anchor in th' unfathom'd sand. This very night-O 'twas a fearful night! While swam a cloud of pale and dark-hair'd thoughts Yet would I ne'er had heard of those bright isles Swimming in floods of evening's purple glow,- As sisters-tender as love's flatteries! I hear you not-nay, nay, I will not listen— Child of the North, why should I seek the South? My soul would fade beneath its ardent suns, My noble Frithioff Frithioff! be wise, and let us from Fate's shipwreck Frith. Tis well! King Helga's sister, fare thee well? Ingeb. Oh! Frithioff, Frithioff! is it thus we part? Hast thou no look of kindness for the playmate Of unoffending childhood ?-not a hand For one so wretched, and so late beloved? Think'st thou I tread on roses, and can fling, With cold and hollow smiles, life's bliss away, And rend without a pang that bosom's hope That twined with all my being's fibres grew? Hast thou not been my young soul's morning dream? All I e'er knew of joy, I call'd it Frithioff! And all that life contains of great or noble, Brought to my mind's eye but the thought of thee. Shroud not this sunny picture!-nor repay Thus sternly woman's weakness, when she offers All that is dearest to her here below, And dearest shall be in yon high Valhalla! Hard is the offering, Frithioff! hard enough, And well deserves one word of friendly comfort. I know thou lov'st me-I have known it long, E'er since thought dawn'd upon my infant being. And memory of Ingeborg will haunt thee For many a year-go wheresoe'er thou wilt. Now drown'd, perchance, amid the din of arms, Now lost amid wild winds, and wilder waves; Scared by the tumults of the jovial board, Shunning the deep carouse for victory won, But now and then, when in the hush of night, Frith. Thou'st conquer'd-Bela's daughter, weep no more! He then conjures her to forgive his injustice, the effect of bitter disappointment, adopts her for his good Destiny, and, under its influence, promises himself speedy conquest, and subsequent success in a suit no longer addressed to a tyrannical brother, but to the nation assembled in council. In the meantime, he bids her the tenderest farewell, and puts on her arm the wonderful bracelet before mentioned among his heir-looms, as a sort of golden zodiac. He compares it on her white arm to a "glow-worm on a lily's stem," breathes a passionate adieu, and departs. INGEBORG alone. How bravely he departs-how full of hope! To yon old King, who claims it with the sword. Far as I see, there is no hope for me, Yet I rejoice she dwells within thy heart. Mine be the pangs-Heaven's blessing go with thee! Ingeborg's complaint follows, a sweet pathetic strain, in which, after committing her absent lover to the special charge of winds and waves, and stars friendly to mariners, she bewails her own approaching immolation, and holds converse with her Frithioff's stray falcon, which had remained behind with her. She longs to borrow his wings to follow his master, but sighing, invokes the heavenward pinions of Death to re-unite her finally with her beloved. Frithioff at sea, is one of the finest and most characteristic of the various strains, which, in delightful diversity of subject, of measure, and of passion, are strung together to form this most spirit-stirring of epics. Perhaps a more animated picture of danger at sea, and heroism amidst it, was never drawn. The tempest, which nearly proves fatal to Frithioff, is conjured up by the magic arts and incantations of Helga. At every new assault of the elements, the hero waxes bolder and more unappalled; only contrasting, during the intervals of the storm, its awful accompaniments, with his still moonlight voyage and blissful interview with Ingeborg in the peaceful grove of Baldur. He declines running for a port, fearful of the maiden's contempt as a timid mariner, and declares his lofty joy in contending with the mountain billows. The marvellous ship is described as threading the waves, now disappearing beneath them like a falling star," then "springing up again from the abyss like a chamois among the cliffs." 66 Night comes on, so grim and starless, that one mast is not to be seen from the other, and an unfathomable grave" yawns for the devoted crew." Still Frithioff is undaunted, though the sea goddess Rana is even now, he says, "spreading for him her deep, blue couch." While he is yet speaking, a mountain wave sweeps the deck, carrying all before it. He then be thinks him of propitiating the goddess, by dividing with his surviving com panions a massy gold bracelet, the gift of King Bela, that "they may not go empty-handed to dark Rana's cold embrace." The sails are rent, the rudder snaps, and Frithioff can no longer conceal from himself that "Death is on board;" yet, amid the howling of the angry elements, his voice yet resounds in tones of courage and confidence. He exclaims that such an unheard-of tempest cannot be the legitimate decree of the Gods, but the work of unhallowed arts; and, climbing "like a martin," to the mast-head, he discovers that the ship is pursued by three sea monsters, a huge whale, a bear, and an eagle. Ellida is desired to exert her self-moving and instinctive power; to steer right upon, and cleave with her keel the whale that "floats like an island;" while a pair of well-aimed lances demolish the unholy bear and eagle. All goes henceforth well with the mariners; the spell is broken, and the wished-for land comes in sight. The return of fine weather is beautifully hailed, and ascribed by the grateful Frithioff to the prayers and tears of his betrothed. The exhausted crew are carried to land on the sturdy shoulders of the hero and his friend; Biorn carrying four, and Frithioff of course twice as many. They kindle a fire, and are just beginning to forget the perils of the deep in a horn of mead to Ingeborg's health, when they are descried, and, as a matter of course, defied to deadly combat, by some of Earl Aganthyr's champions. Frithioff, exhausted as he is, accepts the challange of a gigantic adversary. Chivalry could have taught nothing new, in the way of courtesy, to either of these doughty warriors; for, when the stranger's sword snaps, Frithioff throws his to a distance; and, when the former lies prostrate, and Frithioff cannot give him the coup de grace for want of a sword, the vanquished man promises "to lie still in his present position, till the weapon is picked up again;" coolly observing, that one |