Now Bioern, the son of Heriulf, had ill days
Because the heart within him seethed with blood
That would not be allayed with any toil,
Whether of war or hunting or the oar,
But was anhungered for some joy untried: 
For the brain grew not weary with the limbs,
But, while they slept, still hammered like a Troll,
Building all night a bridge of solid dream
Between him and some purpose of his soul,
Or will to find a purpose.  With the dawn 10
The sleep-laid timbers, crumbled to soft mist,
Denied all foothold.  But the dream remained,
And every night with yellow-bearded kings
His sleep was haunted,—­mighty men of old,
Once young as he, now ancient like the gods,
And safe as stars in all men’s memories. 
Strange sagas read he in their sea-blue eyes
Cold as the sea, grandly compassionless;
Like life, they made him eager and then mocked. 
Nay, broad awake, they would not let him be; 20
They shaped themselves gigantic in the mist,
They rose far-beckoning in the lamps of heaven,
They whispered invitation in the winds,
And breath came from them, mightier than the wind,
To strain the lagging sails of his resolve,
Till that grew passion which before was wish,
And youth seemed all too costly to be staked
On the soiled cards wherewith men played their game,
Letting Time pocket up the larger life,
Lost with base gain of raiment, food, and roof. 30
‘What helpeth lightness of the feet?’ they said,
’Oblivion runs with swifter foot than they;
Or strength of sinew?  New men come as strong,
And those sleep nameless; or renown in war? 
Swords grave no name on the long-memoried rock
But moss shall hide it; they alone who wring
Some secret purpose from the unwilling gods
Survive in song for yet a little while
To vex, like us, the dreams of later men,
Ourselves a dream, and dreamlike all we did.’ 40

II

THORWALD’S LAY

So Bioern went comfortless but for his thought,
And by his thought the more discomforted,
Till Erle Thurlson kept his Yule-tide feast: 
And thither came he, called among the rest,
Silent, lone-minded, a church-door to mirth;
But, ere deep draughts forbade such serious song
As the grave Skald might chant nor after blush,
Then Eric looked at Thorwald where he sat
Mute as a cloud amid the stormy hall,
And said:  ’O Skald, sing now an olden song, 50
Such as our fathers heard who led great lives;
And, as the bravest on a shield is borne
Along the waving host that shouts him king,
So rode their thrones upon the thronging seas!’
Then the old man arose; white-haired he stood,
White-bearded, and with eyes that looked afar
From their still region of perpetual snow,
Beyond the little smokes and stirs of men: