THE DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH CAPE A.D. 890

BY H. W. LONGFELLOW

OTHERE, the old sea-captain,
Who dwelt in Helgoland,

To King Alfred, the Lover of Truth,
Brought a snow-white walrus-tooth,
Which he held in his brown right hand.

His figure was tall and stately,

Like a boy's his eye appeared;

His hair was yellow as hay,
But threads of a silvery grey
Gleamed in his tawny beard.

Hearty and hale was Othere,

His cheek had the colour of oak;
With a kind of laugh in his speech,
Like the sea-tide on a beach,

As unto the king he spoke.

And Alfred, King of the Saxons,
Had a book upon his knees,
And wrote down the wondrous tale
Of him who was first to sail

Into the Arctic seas.

DANISH CONQUESTS, A.D. 1017

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

WOE to the crown that doth the cowl obey!
Dissension checks the arms that would restrain
The incessant rovers of the Northern main;
And widely spreads once more a pagan sway:
But gospel-truth is potent to allay

Fierceness and rage; and soon the cruel Dane
Feels, through the influence of her gentle reign,
His native superstitions melt away.

Thus, often, when thick gloom the east o'ershrouds, The full-orbed moon, slow-climbing, doth appear Silently to consume the heavy clouds ;

How no one can resolve; but every eye

Around her sees, while air is hushed, a clear
And widening circuit of ethereal sky.

CANUTE, A.D. 1018

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

A PLEASANT music floats along the mere,
From monks in Ely chanting service high,
Whileas Canute the king is rowing by :
"My oarsmen," quoth the mighty king,

near,

That we the sweet song of the monks may hear!
He listens, (all past conquests and all schemes
Of future vanishing like empty dreams),
Heart-touched, and haply not without a tear.
The royal minstrel, ere the choir is still,

While his free barge skims the smooth flood along,
Gives to that rapture an accordant rhyme.

O suffering earth! be thankful; sternest clime
And rudest age are subject to the thrill
Of heaven-descended piety and song.

KING CANUTE, A.D. 1020

BY W. M. THACKERAY

KING CANUTE was weary-hearted; he had reigned. for years a score,

Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more;

And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

'Twixt the chancellor and bishop walked the king with steps sedate,

Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks great,

Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages-all the officers of state,

Sliding after like his shadow, pausing when he chose to pause;

If a frown his face contracted, straight the courtiers dropped their jaws ;

If to laugh the king was minded, out they burst in loud hee-haws.

But that day a something vexed him, that was clear to old and young:

Thrice his grace had yawned at table, when his favourite gleemen sung,

Once the queen would have consoled him, but he bade her hold her tongue.

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Something ails my gracious master," cried the keeper of the seal.

Sure, my lord, it is the lampreys served at dinner, or the veal?'

"Pshaw!" exclaimed the angry monarch. "Keeper, 'tis not that I feel.

"'Tis the heart, and not the dinner, fool, that doth my rest impair :

Can a king be great as I am, prithee, and yet know no care?

Oh, I'm sick, and tired, and weary."-Some one cried, "The king's arm-chair!

Then towards the lackeys turning, quick my lord the keeper nodded,

Straight the king's great chair was brought him, by two footmen able-bodied;

Languidly he sank into it: it was comfortably wadded.

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Leading on my fierce companions,” cried he, over storm and brine,

have fought and I have conquered! Where was glory like to mine?"

oudly all the courtiers echoed: "Where is glory like to thine ?"

What avail me all my kingdoms? Weary am 1 now and old;

ose fair sons I have begotten, long to see me dead and cold;

ould I were, and quiet buried, underneath the

silent mould!

h, remorse, the writhing serpent! at my bosom tears and bites;

rid, horrid things I look on, though I put out all the lights;

sts of ghastly recollections troop about my bed at nights.

ties burning, convents blazing, red with sacrilegious fires;

ners weeping, virgins screaming vainly for their slaughtered sires.'

ch a tender conscience," cries the bishop, every one admires.

for such unpleasant bygones, cease, my racious lord, to search,

re forgotten and forgiven by our Holy Mother Church;

never does she leave her benefactors in the

Look! the land is crowned with minsters, which

your grace's bounty raised;

Abbeys filled with holy men, where you and Heaven are daily praised:

You, my lord, to think of dying? on my conscience I'm amazed!

"Nay, I feel,” replied King Canute, that my end is drawing near."

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Don't say so," exclaimed the courtiers (striving each to squeeze a tear).

Sure your grace is strong and lusty, and may live this fifty year."

"Live these fifty years actions made to suit.

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Are

! the bishop roared, with

you mad, my good lord keeper, thus to speak of King Canute!

Men have lived a thousand years, and sure his majesty will do't.

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'Adam, Enoch, Lamech, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Methuselah,

Lived nine hundred years apiece, and mayn't the king as well as they?"

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Fervently," exclaimed the keeper, 'fervently I trust he may."

"He to die?" resumed the bishop.

like to us ?

"He a mortal

Death was not for him intended, though communis omnibus :

Keeper, you are irreligious, for to talk and cavil thus.

"With his wondrous skill in healing ne'er a doctor can compete,

Loathsome lepers, if he touch them, start up clean upon their feet

;

Surely he could raise the dead up, did his Highness think it meet.