curst claw could hurt my gallant son,
Long, long, ere this, the deed would have been done."

But Harrald look'd so moody and forlorn,
And thus his mother he address'd one morn:
"Minona's face is equall'd by her mind;
Methinks she calls me from her hills of wind?
Give me a ship with men and gold at need,
And let me to her father's kingdom speed;
I'll soon return, and back across the tide
Bring thee a daughter, and myself a bride."

Dame Sigrid promis'd him an answer soon,
And went that night, when risen was the moon,
Deep through the black recesses of the wood,
To where old Bruno's shelter'd cabin stood.
She enter'd--there he sat behind his board,
His woollen vestment girded by a cord;
The little lamp, which hung from overhead,
Gleam'd on the Bible-leaves before him spread.

"Hail to thee, Father!--man of hoary age,
Thy Queen demands from thee thy counsel sage.
Young Harrald to a distant land will go,
And I his destiny would gladly know:
Thou read'st the stars,--O do the stars portend
That he shall come to an untimely end?
Take from his mother's heart this one last care,
And she will always name thee in her pray'r."

The hermit, rising from his lonely nook,
With naked head, and coldly placid look,
Went out and gaz'd intently on the sky,
Whose lights were letters to his ancient eye.
"The stars," said he, "in friendly order stand,
One only, flashes like an angry brand:--
Thy Harrald, gentle Queen, will not be slain
Upon the _Earth_, nor yet upon the _Main_."

While thus the seer prophetically spoke,
A flush of joy o'er Sigrid's features broke:
"He'll not be slain on ocean or on land,"
She said, and kiss'd the hermit's wrinkled hand;
"Why then, I'm happy, and my son is free
To mount his bark, and gallop through the sea:
Upon the grey stone he will sit as king,
When, in the grave, my bones are mouldering."

The painted galley floats now in the creek--
Flags at her mast, and garlands at her beak;
High on the yard-arm hoisted is the sail,
Half spread it flutters in the evening gale.
The night before he goes, young Harrald stray'd
Into the wood where first he saw his maid:
Burning impatience fever'd all his blood,
He wish'd for wings to bear him o'er the flood.

Then sigh'd the wind among the bushy grounds,
Far in the distance rose the yell of hounds:
The flame-wisps, starting from the sedge and grass,
Hung, 'mid the vapours, over the morass.
Up to him came a beldame, wildly drest,
Bearing a closely-fol