She hastened to her bower,
 A green silk purse she brought,
With bird and tree and flower
 And beast ’twas deftly wrought;
On seas were white-winged vessels,
 Beneath the silver moon,
Of gold were all the tassels,
 The clasp with rubies shone.

She placed the dainty treasure
 Within her father’s band;
He filled it, brimming measure,
 With coin from foreign land. 
“This welcome gift is only
 A tribute to a friend;
And now the winter lonely
 Consent with us to spend.

True courage knows no danger,
 But Heyd and Ham, I fear,
Revived await the ranger,
 And winter storms are here. 
All foes the deep is hiding,
 Ellide may not shun,
And many whales are riding
 The waves, though conquered one.”

With jesting and potation
 The hours till day were spent,
Without inebriation
 The wine-cup gladness lent. 
A brimming skoal was given
 To Angantyr at last;
So Fridthjof in this haven
 The cheerful winter passed.

XII.

THE RETURN.

Now spring is breathing in skies of blue,
And earth her carpet has woven anew,
And Fridthjof grateful his kind host leaving
Again the billowy plain is cleaving,
And gayly speeding through silver-spray,
His black swan ploweth her sunny way.

The western breezes that spring is bringing,
Like nightingales in the sails are singing,
And AEger’s daughters in veils of blue
About the rudder their sports pursue. 
Ah, how delightful when safely clearing
A foreign land, to be homeward steering! 
When memory pictures the smoke that curled
Above one’s hearthstone, his childhood’s world,
The fount where playing his swift feet hurried,
The honored graves where his dead are buried. 
He thinks of her who perchance may be
On high cliffs standing to watch the sea. 
Six days he sailed on his way returning,
The seventh a strip of blue discerning
Low down the horizon, he neared it fast,
Saw rock and islet and land at last. 
That land is his; from the waves advancing,
He sees green forests in sunlight dancing. 
He hears the roar of the foaming streams,
Can trace each cliff which with granite gleams,
Salutes the headland and sound, then glideth
Along by the groves where his Ing’borg bideth. 
Thinks how last summer each evening fair,
With her beside him he wandered there. 
“Where is she?  Guesses she not her lover
Is near her, safely the blue waves over? 
Perhaps, removed from her Balder’s care,
She strikes the harp in the palace, where
Her grief she’d lessen, her needle plying.”

Then sudden rises his falcon, flying
From temple turret, then downward flits
To Fridthjof’s shoulder, and there he sits,
As was his wont, of his love to assure him. 
From Fridthjof’s shoulder can none allure him,
He scratches fast with his gold-tipped claws,
He gives no quiet, he makes no pause. 
To Fridthjof’s ear now his beak he bendeth,
Perchance some loved one a message sendeth;
Is it Ingeborg?  Wildly his pulses bound,
But none interprets the broken sound.