The Pirate Author:Walter Scott Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and emphasis to particular passages, the following imitation of a Northern war-song. of tyaroto The sun is rising dimly red, 'I 'lie wind is wailing low an... more »d dread , From his cliff the eagle sallies, Leaves the wolf his darksome vallies; In the mist the ravens hover, Peep the wild dogs from the cover, Screaming, croaking, having, yelling, Each in his wild accents telling, " Soon we feast on dead and dying, Fair-hair'd Harold's flag is flying." Many a crest on air is streaming, Many a helmet darkly gleaming, Many an arm the axe nprcars, Doom'd to hew the wood of spears. All along the crowded ranks, Horses neigh and armour clanks ; Chiefs arc shouting, clarions ringing, Louder still the hard is singing. " Gather footmen, gather horsemen, To the field, ye valiant Norsemen! " Halt ye not for food or slumber, View not vanlagu, count not number; Jolly reapers, forward still, Grow the crop on vale or hill, Thick or scatterM, stiff or lithe, It shall down before the scythe. Forward with your sickles bright, Reap the harvest of the fight— Onward footmen, onward horsemen, To the charge, ye gallant Norsemen! " Fatal chuser of the slaughter, O'er you hovers Odin's daughter ; Hear the choice she spreads before ye,— Victory, and wealth, and glory; Or old Valhalla's roaring hail, Her ever-circling mead and ale, Where for eternity unite The joys of wassail and of fight. Headlong forward, foot and horsemen, Charge and fight, and die like Norsemen!"— " The poor unhappy blinded heathens!" said Triptolemus, with a sigh deep enough for a groan; " they speak of their eternal cups ofale, and I question if they kenn'd how to manage a croft land of grain. " The cleverer fellows they, neighbour Yel- lowley," answered the poet, " if they made ale without...« less