The stranger
M. Shaw
Starless and cold is the night;
Old Ocean yawns,
And flat on the ocean, upon his belly
Squats the uncouth North Wind;
And stealthily croaking, with groan and with grunt,
Like a crotchety grumbler waxing good-humoured,
He babbles into the waters
Mad tales without number;
Tales of giants, breathing of slaughter,
And world-old stories of Norway;
And ever between
he laughs and howls out
Incantations from Edda
And ancient Runes,
So darkly defiant and potent of spell
That the white ocean children
Leap up high and exulting
In turbulent frenzy.
Meanwhile, on the flat lone shore,
O'er the tide-washed sands,
Strides a stranger whose throbbing heart
Beats yet wilder than wind and waves.
Whither he treads
Sparks fly, and shells crunch beneath him
And he wraps him up in his sombre mantle,
And strides on fast through the wind and the night,
Safely led by the glimmering taper,
That beckons so sweetly inviting
From the fisherman's lonely cottage.
Father and brothers are out at sea,
And all alone by herself was left
In the cottage the fisherman's daughter,
The wondrously beautiful fisherman's daughter.
By the hearth sits she,
And lists to the kettle's
Drowsy song, full of sweet promise;
Fuel and sticks she adds to the fire,
And blows thereon,
And the flickering red light
As by magic illumines
Her blooming features,
And her tender white shoulder
That peeps forth pathetic
From coarse linen kirtle,
And illumines, too, her small hand,
Carefully tying yet faster her garments
Round her slender waist.
But on a sudden the door springs open,
And there enters the stranger nocturnal;
Full and assured of love
Rests his eye on the fair slight maiden,
Who trembles before him
Like a frightened lily,
And he throws his cloak on the ground,
And he laughs and says:
"Look you, my child, I have kept my word,
And I come, and there comes
Unto me the old time when the gods
Descended from Heaven to the daughters of men,
And embraced the daughters of men,
And begat with them
Sceptre-bearing races of Kings,
And Heroes, world-renowned,
But stand not amazed, my child, any longer
At my divinity,
But give me some tea with hot rum, I beseech you,
For it's cold outside,
And on such a raw night
Even we shiver, we gods eternal,
And easily catch we most heavenly colds,
And coughs divinely immortal."