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The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 53, Pages 177-180
(177)
SUBJECTS FOR PICTURES.—NO. VI.
The Two Deaths.
I.—The Death of Sigurd, the Earl of Northumberland.
The Earl lay on his purple bed,
Faint and heavy was his head,
Where the snows of age were shed—
Heavy on his pillow.
Never more when seas are dark
Will Earl Sigurd guide his bark
Thro' the dashing billow.
Never from that bed of pain
Will the warrior rise again.
Yes, he will arise:—e'en now
Red he flushes to the brow;
Like the light before his prow
Is the dark eye's gleaming.
No: it never shall be said
Sigurd died within his bed
With its curtains streaming—
Whose sole curtain wont to be
Banners red with victory.
Lift me up, the sea-king said—
At the word his sons obey'd,
And the old man was convey'd
Where the sea was sounding.
At his ancient castle-gate,
Death's dark coming to await,
With his knights surrounding,
Morn was reddening in the sky,
As the Earl came forth to die.
In a carved oaken chair,
Carved with carving quaint and rare—
Faces strange—and garlands fair—
Is the chieftain seated,
As when at some festival
In his high ancestral hall
Bards his deeds repeated.
And there was no loftier song,
Than what bore his name along.
Round him swept his mantle red,
Like a chief apparelled,
With his helmet on his head—
With its white plumes flying.
At his side the sheathed brand,
And the spear in his right hand—
Mid the dead and dying.
Where the battle raged the worst,
Ever was that right hand first.
He—the tamer of the wild—
Who invincible was styled,
Now is feeble as a child
By its mother sleeping;
