Ye skies drop gently round my breast,
And be my corselet blue,
Ye earth receive my lance in rest,
My faithful charger you;
Ye stars my spear-heads in the sky,
My arrow-tips ye are;
I see the routed foemen fly,
My bright spears fixed are.
Give me an angel for a foe,
Fix now the place and time,
And straight to meet him I will go
Above the starry chime.
And with our clashing bucklers' clang
The heavenly spheres shall ring,
While bright the northern lights shall hang
Beside our tourneying.
And if she lose her champion true,
Tell Heaven not despair,
For I will be her champion new,
Her fame I will repair.
There was a high wind this night, which we afterwards learned had
been still more violent elsewhere, and had done much injury to
the cornfields far and near; but we only heard it sigh from time
to time, as if it had no license to shake the foundations of our
tent; the pines murmured, the water rippled, and the tent rocked
a little, but we only laid our ears closer to the ground, while
the blast swept on to alarm other men, and long before sunrise we
were ready to pursue our voyage as usual.
