Then the stout-hearted men of Sir Burislav’s train
  To the gate-way came thronging full fast
And the battle-blade rang with a murderous clang,
  Borne aloft on the wings of the blast.

And they hewed and they thrust, till each man bit the dust,
  Their fierce valor availing them naught. 
But the Thunderer proud, how he laughed in his cloud,
  When he saw how the Norsemen had fought!

Then came Burislav forth; to the men of the North
  Thus in quivering accents spake he: 
“O, ye warriors, name me the ransom ye claim,
  Or in gold, or in robes, or in fee.”

“Oh, what reck I thy gold?” quoth Earl Sigurd, the bold;
  “Has not Thor laid it all in my hand? 
Give me Swanwhite, the fair, and by Balder I swear
  I shall never revisit thy land.

“For my vengeance speeds fast, and I come like the blast
  Of the night o’er the billowy brine;
I forget not thy scorn and thy laugh on that morn
  When I wooed me the maid that was mine.”

Then the chief, sore afraid, brought the lily-white maid
  To the edge of the blood-sprinkled field,
And they bore her aloft o’er the sward of the croft
  On the vault of the glittering shield.

But amain in their path, in a whirlwind of wrath
  Came young Harold, Sir Burislav’s son;
With a great voice he cried, while the echoes replied: 
  “Lo, my vengeance, it cometh anon!”

Hark ye, Norsemen, hear great tidings: 
  Odin, Thor, and Frey are dead,
And white Christ, the strong and gentle,
  standeth peace-crowned in their stead.

Lo, the blood-stained day of vengeance to the
  ancient night is hurled,
And the dawn of Christ is beaming blessings
  o’er the new-born world.

“See the Cross in splendor gleaming far and
  wide o’er pine-clad heath,
While the flaming blade of battle slumbers in
  its golden sheath. 
And before the lowly Savior, e’en the rider of
  the sea,
Sigurd, tamer of the billow, he hath bent the
  stubborn knee.”

Now at Yule-tide sat he feasting on the shore
  of Drontheim fiord,
And his stalwart swains about him watched
  the bidding of their lord. 
Huge his strength was, but his visage, it was
  mild and fair to see;
Ne’er old Norway, heroes’ mother, bore a
  mightier son than he.

With her maids sat gentle Swanwhite ’neath a
  roof of gleaming shields,
As the rarer lily blossoms ’mid the green herbs
  of the fields;

To and fro their merry words flew lightly
  through the torch-lit room,
Like a shuttle deftly skipping through the
  mazes of the loom.

And the scalds with nimble fingers o’er the
  sounding harp-strings swept;
Now the strain in laughter rippled, now with
  hidden woe it wept,
For they sang of Time’s beginning, ere the sun
  the day brought forth—­
Sang as sing the ocean breezes through the
  pine-woods of the North.