Classic Poem

A Night BY THE S EA

Starless and chill is the night;
The sea yawns wide,
And stretched on the sea, flat on his paunch
Lies the shapeless form of the North-Wind
Who snivels and groans in stealthy mumblings,
A peevish old grumbler in garrulous humor,
Babbling down to the waves!
And he tells them wild, lawless stories,
Giant tales of gloom and murder,
Ancient sagas from Norway,
And again, with wide-clanging laughter he bellows
The witching spells of the Edda
And crafty rime-runes,
So darkly strong and so potent with magic
That the snowy sea-children
Leap up the waves with shouting,
Hissing in wild joy.

But meanwhile across the flat sea-beach
Over the clinging, spray-soaked sand
Strideth a stranger, whose heart within him
Is far more wild than winds and waters
Where'er he steps
Sparks are scattered and sea-conches crackle;
And he wraps him close in his gloomy mantle
And presses on through the wind-driven night,
Safely led by the tiny candle,
Enticing and sweet, that glimmers
From a lonely fisher cottage.

Father and brother are out at sea,
And lone as a mother's soul she lives
In the cottage, the fisher-maiden,
The wondrous lovely fisher-maiden.
And by the fireside
Sits harkening to the kettle
Purr in sweet and secret surmise,
And heaps the crackling boughs on the fire,
And blows on it
Till the flapping flames of crimson
Mirrored are in wizard beauty
On her face, set a-glowing,
On her white and tender shoulders
That peer so piteously
From her coarse and faded costume,
And on the heedful little hand
Which more closely binds the under-garment
Round her slender hips.

Then suddenly the door springs wide,
And he enters there, the nocturnal stranger;
Sure of love, his eyes he resteth
On the pale and slender maiden
Who shrinks before his gaze
Like a frail, terrified lily;
And he throws to the ground his mantle
And laughs and speaks:

" Behold, my child, I keep our troth.
I am come, and with me come
The ancient years when the gods from the heavens
To the daughters of mortals descended
And the daughters of mortals embraced them
And with them engendered
Kingly races, the scepter-carriers,
And heroes, wonders o' the world ...
Don't puzzle, my child, any further
About my divinity,
But I beg of you, mix me some tea with rum;
For outside 'twas cold, —
Before such a night-wind
Even we gods might freeze, though eternal,
And easily catch the godliest sneezings,
A cough like the gods without ending. "