Pure was our heaven,--
Pure and blue;
For, with his pinions, angel Peace dispell'd
All reek and vapour from mild virtue's sphere;
Then lower'd Battle's blood-bespatter'd son
Upon our coast,--
And haggard Envy lent to him her torch,
Which sparkled high with hell's sulphureous light,
Then fled the genius of peace, and wept.
A SECOND VOICE.
But mighty thunders peal'd; the earth it shook,
While rattled all the moss-grown giant stones, {f:24}
And Oldom's sunken grave-hill rais'd itself;
Then started Skiold and Frode,
And Svend, and Knud, and Waldemar, {f:25}
In copper hauberks up, and pointing to
Rust-spots of blood on faulchion and on shield--
They vanish'd:
And in the Gothic aisles, high arch'd and dim,
Wild flutter'd of itself, the ancient banner
Which hung above a hero's bones;
The faulchion clatter'd loud and ceaselessly
Within the tomb of Christian the Fourth, {f:26}
By Tordenskiold's {f:27} chapel on the strand,
Wild rose the daring Mermaid's witching song;
The stones were loosen'd round about the grave
Where lay great Juul;
And Hvidtfeld, clad in a transparent mist,
With smiles cherubic beaming on his face,
Stray'd, arm in arm, with his heroic brothers,
Along the deep.
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