[From The Legend of St. Olaf's Kirk.]

VALBORG WATCHING AXEL'S DEPARTURE.

AT kirk knelt Valborg, the cold altar-stone
Reeling beneath her. Filled with choking grief
She could not say good-bye, but by a page
Her rosary sent him; and when he had climbed
His horse, and on the far-off bridge she heard

The dull tramp of his troopers, up she fared
By stair and ladder to old Steindor's post,
For he was mute, and could not nettle her

With words' cheap guise of sympathy. There perched
Beside him up among the dusty bells,

She pushed her face between the mullions, looked
Across the world of snow, lighted like day
By moon and moor-ild; saw with misty eyes
A gleam of steel, an eagle's feather tall;

And through the clear air watched it, tossing, pass
Across the sea-line; saw the ship lift sail
And blow to southward, catching light and shade
As 'mong the sheers and skerries it picked out
A crooked pathway; saw it round the ness,
And, catching one last flicker of the moon,
Fade into nothingness. With desolate steps
She left the bellman and crept down the stairs;
Heard all the air re-echoing: "He is gone!"
Felt a great sob behind her lips, and tears
Flooding the sluices of her eyes; turned toward
The empty town, and for the first time saw
That Nidaros was small and irksome, felt
First time her tether galling, and, by heaven!
Wished she'd been born a man-child, free to fare
Unhindered through the world's wide pastures, free
To stand this hour with Axel as his squire.

And with him brave the sea-breeze. Aimlessly

She sought the scattered gold-threads that had formed
Life's glowing texture: but how dull they seemed!
How bootless the long waste of lagging weeks,

With dull do-over of mean drudgeries,

And miserable cheer of pitying mouths

Whistling and whipping through small round of change
Their cowering pack of saw and circumstance!

How slow the crutches of the limping years!

HE erred, no doubt, perhaps he And now, when I look in the face of sinned;

Perhaps this blotch, on a garment | My tears, down dropping, with theirs

I have lost a thought that many a No, I'm not what I was yesterday,

Thus all must work -- with head or When something stood behind,