Song of the wave / George Cabot Lodge [electronic text]

THE NORSEMEN

THESE are the men! The North has given them name, The children of God who dare, From the field and the growing tree, Come down through the crystalline air Where the sky is a fleece of flame, And the breaker's crest is as hair Blown back from the brows of the sea; These are the men!

These are the men! Where midnight abides in the land, Where the sun walks round the earth, Where the fields of God are benumbed, There the shadow did give them birth,

Where the waves are tawny with sand And the miserly ground breeds dearth And the harps of the air are thrummed, These are the men!

These are the men! Oh Mercifiul what for them? For thy children with frozen lips? Then the Lord spake, "I am the Life; Go down to the sea in ships Belovèd and dwell in the hem Of my robe though the tempest rips Like a sword, for I give ye Strife!" These are the men!

These are the men! For they stand in the dawn of things Full-armed from the ocean's womb; With their dower of wild great joy In the pouring sun, in the boom

Of the wave as the storm-flail sings, Till the waters pulse and ployAnd gape like a snow-fringed tomb; These are the men!

These are the men! In the strength of the primal song As the increate world turned whiteThey descended and dwelt with the sea, Like a flower dawn bloomed on the night, And they knew that their lives were strong, That life was and should ever be— Then the sun!—and a pulse of light— These are the men!

These are the men! In their youth without memory They were glad, for they might not see The lies that the world has wrought On this parchment of God. The tree

Yielded them ships and the sky Flamed as the waters fought; But they knew that death was a lie, That the life of man was as nought, And they dwelt in the truth of the sea: These are the men!