In the fierce sea-fight,
"There is told a wonderful tale,
How the King stripped off his mail,
Like leaves of the brown sea-kale,
As he swam beneath the main;
"But the young grew old and gray,
And never by night or day
In his kingdom of Norroway
Was King Olaf seen again."
The victory must be won by other weapons. In the convent of Drontheim,
Astrid, the abbess, hears a voice in the darkness:--
"Cross against corslet,
Love against hatred.
Peace-cry for war-cry!"
The voice continues in peaceful music, forecasting heavenly rest:--
"As torrents in summer,
Half dried in their channels,
Suddenly rise, though the
Sky is still cloudless,
For rain has been falling
Far off at their fountains;
"So hearts that are fainting
Grow full to o'erflowing,
And they that behold it
Marvel, and know not
That God at their fountains
Far off has been raining."
With this exquisitely beautiful strain of the abbess the Saga ends.
The theologian muses aloud upon creeds and churches, then tells a
fearful tragedy of Spain,--the story of a father who betrays his
daughter to the fires of Torquemada.
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