How The Mead-Slave Was Set Free

Nay, move not! Sit just as you are,             Under the carved wings of the chair.             The hearth-glow sifting through your hair             Turns every dim pearl to a star             Dawn-drowned in floods of brightening air.             I have been thinking of that night             When all the wide hall burst to blaze             With spears caught up, thrust fifty ways             To find my throat, while I lay white             And sick with joy, to think the days             I dragged out in your hateful North--             A slave, constrained at banquet's need             To fill the black bull's horns with mead             For drunken sea-thieves--were henceforth             Cast from me as a poison weed,             While Death thrust roses in my hands!             But you, who knew the flowers he had             Were no such roses ripe and glad             As nod in my far southern lands,             But pallid things to make men sad,             Put back the spears with one calm hand,             Raised on your knee my wondering head,             Wiped off the trickling drops of red             From my torn forehead with a strand             Of your bright loosened hair, and said:             "Sea-rovers! would you kill a skald?             This boy has hearkened Odin sing             Unto the clang and winnowing             Of raven's wings. His heart is thralled             To music, as to some strong king;             "And this great thraldom works disdain             Of lesser serving. Once release             These bonds he bears, and he may please             To give you guerdon sweet as rain             To sailors calmed in thirsty seas."             Then, having soothed their rage to rest,             You led me to old Skagi's throne,             Where yellow gold rims in the stone;             And in my arms, against my breast,             Thrust his great harp of walrus bone.             How they came crowding, tunes on tunes!             How good it was to touch the strings             And feel them thrill like happy things             That flutter from the gray cocoons             On hedge rows, in your gradual springs!             All grew a blur before my sight,             As when the stealthy white fog slips             At noonday on the staggering ships;             I saw one single spot of light,             Your white face, with its eager lips--             And so I sang to that. O thou             Who liftedst me from out my shame!             Wert thou content when Skagi came,             Put his own chaplet on my brow,             And bent and kissed his own harp-frame?