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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=420749" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Norsemen ( From Narrative and Legendary Poems )</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">. </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>GIFT from the cold and silent Past! <br>A relic to the present cast, <br>Left on the ever-changing strand <br>Of shifting and unstable sand, <br>Which wastes beneath the steady chime <br>And beating of the waves of Time! <br>Who from its bed of primal rock <br>First wrenched thy dark, unshapely block? <br>Whose hand, of curious skill untaught, <br>Thy rude and savage outline wrought? <br>The waters of my native stream <br>Are glancing in the sun's warm beam; <br>From sail-urged keel and flashing oar <br>The circles widen to its shore; <br>And cultured field and peopled town <br>Slope to its willowed margin down. <br>Yet, while this morning breeze is bringing <br>The home-life sound of school-bells ringing, <br>And rolling wheel, and rapid jar <br>Of the fire-winged and steedless car, <br>And voices from the wayside near <br>Come quick and blended on my ear,-- <br>A spell is in this old gray stone, <br>My thoughts are with the Past alone! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">A change! -- The steepled town no more <br>Stretches along the sail-thronged shore; <br>Like palace-domes in sunset's cloud, <br>Fade sun-gilt spire and mansion proud: <br>Spectrally rising where they stood, <br>I see the old, primeval wood; <br>Dark, shadow-like, on either hand <br>I see its solemn waste expand; <br>It climbs the green and cultured hill, <br>It arches o'er the valley's rill, <br>And leans from cliff and crag to throw <br>Its wild arms o'er the stream below. <br>Unchanged, alone, the same bright river <br>Flows on, as it will flow forever! <br>I listen, and I hear the low <br>Soft ripple where its water go; <br>I hear behind the panther's cry, <br>The wild-bird's scream goes thrilling by, <br>And shyly on the river's brink <br>The deer is stooping down to drink. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">But hard! -- from wood and rock flung back, <br>What sound come up the Merrimac? <br>What sea-worn barks are those which throw <br>The light spray from each rushing prow? <br>Have they not in the North Sea's blast <br>Bowed to the waves the straining mast? <br>Their frozen sails the low, pale sun <br>Of Thulë's night has shone upon; <br>Flapped by the sea-wind's gusty sweep <br>Round icy drift, and headland steep. <br>Wild Jutland's wives and Lochlin's daughters <br>Have watched them fading o'er the waters, <br>Lessening through driving mist and spray, <br>Like white-winged sea-birds on their way! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Onward they glide, -- and now I view <br>Their iron-armed and stalwart crew; <br>Joy glistens in each wild blue eye, <br>Turned to green earth and summer sky. <br>Each broad, seamed breast has cast aside <br>Its cumbering vest of shaggy hide; <br>Bared to the sun and soft warm air, <br>Streams back the Northmen's yellow hair. <br>I see the gleam of axe and spear, <br>A sound of smitten shields I hear, <br>Keeping a harsh and fitting time <br>To Saga's chant, and Runic rhyme; <br>Such lays as Zetland's Scald has sung, <br>His gray and naked isles among; <br>Or mutter low at midnight hour <br>Round Odin's mossy stone of power. <br>The wolf beneath the Arctic moon <br>Has answered to that startling rune; <br>The Gael has heard its stormy swell, <br>The light Frank knows its summons well; <br>Iona's sable-stoled Culdee <br>Has heard it sounding o'er the sea, <br>And swept, with hoary beard and hair, <br>His altar's foot in trembling prayer! </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'T is past, -- the 'wildering vision dies <br>In darkness on my dreaming eyes! <br>The forest vanishes in air, <br>Hill-slope and vale lie starkly bare; <br>I hear the common tread of men, <br>And hum of work-day life again; <br>The mystic relic seems alone <br>A broken mass of common stone; <br>And if it be the chiselled limb <br>Of Berserker or idol grim, <br>A fragment of Valhalla's Thor, <br>The stormy Viking's god of War, <br>Or Praga of the Runic lay, <br>Or love-awakening Siona, <br>I know not, -- for no graven line, <br>Nor Druid mark, nor Runic sign, <br>Is left me here, by which to trace <br>Its name, or origin, or place. <br>Yet, for this vision of the Past, <br>This glance upon its darkness cast, <br>My spirit bows in gratitude <br>Before the Giver of all good, <br>Who fashioned so the human mind, <br>That, from the waste of Time behind, <br>A simple stone, or mound of earth, <br>Can summon the departed forth; <br>Quicken the Past to life again, <br>The Present lose in what hath been, <br>And in their primal freshness show <br>The buried forms of long ago. <br>As if a portion of that Thought <br>By which the Eternal will is wrought, <br>Whose impulse fills anew with breath <br>The frozen solitude of Death, <br>To mortal mind were sometimes lent, <br>To mortal musing sometimes sent, <br>To whisper -- even when it seems <br>But Memory's fantasy of dreams -- <br>Through the mind's waste of woe and sin, <br>Of an immortal origin! </div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=John+Greenleaf+Whittier">John Greenleaf Whittier</a><div class=q>
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GIFT from the cold and silent Past! 
A relic to the present cast, 
Left on the ever-changing strand 
Of shifting and unstable sand, 
Which wastes beneath the steady chime 
And beating of the waves of Time! 
Who from its bed of primal rock 
Fi..."></div>
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