And where the battle-dust was trod
    A miry red.
For Odin, in the glad wide blue
    Of heaven, would laugh
With sunrise, and the ruddy dew
    Of slaughter quaff.

But, 'twas the grandest gallant show
    To see him sit,
With his Long-Serpent all aglow,
    And steering it
For the hot heart of fiercest fight.
    A grewsome shape!
The dragon-head rose, glancing bright,
    And all agape;
Over the calm blue sea it came
    Writhingly on,
As half in sea, and half in flame,
    It swam, and shone.
The sunlit shields link scale to scale
    From stem to stern,
Over the steersman's head the tail
    Doth twist and burn.
With oars all moved at once, it makes
    Low hoverings;
Half walks the water, and half takes
    The air with wings.
The war-horns bid the light begin
    With death-grip good:
King Hake goes at the foremost, in
    His Bare-Sark mood.
A twelvemonth's taxes spent in spears
    Hurled in an hour!
But in that host no spirit fears
    The hurtling shower.
And long will many a mother and wife
    Wait, weary at home,
Ere from that mortal murderous strife
    Their darlings come.

Hake did not seek to softly die,
    With child and wife;
He bore his head in death as high
    As in his life.
Glittering in eye, and grim in lip,
    He bade them make
Ready for sailing his War-Ship,
    That he, King Hake,
The many-wounded, grey, and old,
    His day being done,
He, the  Norse warrior, brave and bold,
    Might die like one.
And chanting some old battle-song,
    Thrilling and weird,
His soul vibrating, shook his long
    Majestic beard.
The gilded battle-axe, still red,
    In his right hand;
With shield on arm, and helm on head,
    They help'd him stand,
And girded him with his good sword;
    And so attired,
With his dead warriors all aboard,
    The ship he fired,
And lay down with his heroes dead,
    On deck to die;
Still singing, drooped his grey old head,
    With face to sky.
The wind blew seawards; gloriously
    The death-pyre glowed!
On his last Viking voyage he
    Triumphing rode:
Floating afar between the Isles,
    To his last home,
Where open-armed Valhalla smiles,
    And bids him come.
There, as a sinking sunset dies
    Down in the west,
The fire went out; the rude heart lies
    At rest—at rest,
And sleeping in its ocean bed,
    That burial-place
Most royal for the kingly dead
    O' the old sea-race!
So the Norse noble of renown,
    With his stern pride,
That flaming crown of death pulled down.
    And so he died.

A DAY'S RIDE: A LIFE'S ROMANCE.

CHAPTER III.

Who has not experienced the charm of the
first time in his life, when totally removed from
all the accidents of his station, the circumstance
of his fortune, and his other belongings,
he has taken his place amongst perfect strangers,
and been estimated by the claims of his
own individuality? Is it not this which gives
the almost ecstasy of our first tour—our first
journey? There are none to say, "Who is this
Potts that gives himself these airs?" "What
pretension has he to say this, or order that?"
"What would old Peter say if he saw his son
to-day?" with all the other "What has the
world come tos?" and " What are we to see
nexts?" I say, it is with a glorious sense of
independence that one sees himself emancipated
from all these restraints, and recognises
his freedom to be that which nature has made
him.

As I sat on Lord Keldrum's left—Father
Dyke was on his right—was I in any real quality
other than I ever am? Was my nature
different, my voice, my manner, my social tone,
as I received all the bland attentions of my
courteous host? And yet, in my heart of
hearts, I felt that if it were known to that
polite company I was the son of Peter Potts,
apothecary, all my conversational courage would
have failed me. I would not have dared to
assert fifty things I now declared, nor vouched
for a hundred that I as assuredly guaranteed.
If I had had to carry about me traditions of the
shop in Mary's Abbey, the laboratory, and the
rest of it, how could I have had the nerve to
discuss any of the topics on which I now
pronounced so authoritatively? And yet, these
were all accidents of my existence—no more ME
than was the colour of his whiskers mine who
vaccinated me for cow-pock. The man Potts
was himself through all; he was neither
compounded of senna and salts, nor amalgamated
with sarsaparilla and the acids; but by the
cruel laws of a harsh conventionality it was
decreed otherwise, and the trade of the father
descends to the son in every estimate of all he
does, and says, and thinks. The converse
of the proposition I was now to feel in the