Classic Poem

ON HER FIRST ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.

Fierce, brown-bearded, enclad in the spoils of wolf and of wild-cat,
Keener in ravin than wolves, than wild-cats wilder in onset,
Came, in the days gone by, the Danes to the shores of the Angles,
Came on an errand of blood — to beleaguer, to burn, and to ravage.
Ploughing up furrows of foam on the grass-green meads of the North Sea
Steered the old Vikings their course, one hand on the helm of their galley,
One on the helve of their axe: and when from Flamborough's foreland,
Shading his eyes from the glimmer of sunrise, the watcher beheld them
Holding right on for the coast, with the signs and the standards of battle,
Loud through the wolds rang the cry, " The Dane! the Dane cometh hither! "
Flickered with warning flames the crests of the hills, and the cressets,
Mothers and maidens fled inland — fast gathered the bowmen and billmen.
Grim the welcome awaiting those strangers! — such greeting as arrows
Carry on wings of wrath, such kisses as edge of sword renders; —
All their room in the land as much as the length of their lances,
Nay, or beneath its turf, the length of the Chieftains who bore them.

Fair, golden-haired, and glad with the joy of her youth and her beauty,
Daughter herself of a Prince, of a Prince the loved and the chosen,
Comes in these happier days the Dane to the shores of the Angles,
Comes on an errand of love, to the music of soft hymenaeals.
Over the silver-green seas, which kiss the keel of her vessel,
Bending their foreheads on this side and that to the Maiden of Norseland
(Rightfully Queen of the waves by her Father's right and her Husband's),
Speeds the sweet Princess to land; and all the voices of gladness
Tell that she is arrived whose hand the Prince of the English
Takes in the sight of God and man for the hand of his consort —
Consort in splendors and cares, in the gloom and the glitter of ruling.
Warm the welcome awaiting this lovely and winning invader!
Such as men give with the lips when the heart has gone forward before them;
Such as a nation of freemen, not apt to flatter for fashion,
Make, when the innocent past is a pledge of the happy to-morrows.

Princess! weak is one voice in the throng and clamor of voices,
Poor one flower in the rain of the roses that shower at thy footsteps,
Faint one prayer in the anthem of litanies uttered to bless thee;
Yet to thy young fair face I make an Englishman's greeting,
On thy path to the altar I lay this wreath from a singer,
Unto the God of the altar we pray for blessings together,
We — of the men whose fathers encountered thy fathers with battle,
These — of the women whose mothers turned pale at the galleys of Denmark,
Heralds of happiness now, sea-birds that bring from the Norland
Unto our Prince his Bride — and to England omens of gladness.