THE POESY OF SKALDS
125
- And the honor-lessener
- Of the Lady of the Sea-Crag
- Won foot-hold in the surging
- Of the hail-rolled leaping hill-spate;
- The rock-knave's swift Pursuer
- Passed the broad stream of his staff's road,
- Where the foam-flecked mighty rivers
- Frothed with raging venom.
- There they set the staves before them
- In the streaming grove of dogfish;
- The wind-wood's slippery pebbles,
- Smitten to speech, slept not;
- The clashing rod did rattle
- 'Gainst the worn rocks, and the rapid
- Of the fells howled, storm-smitten,
- On the river's stony anvil.
- The Weaver of the Girdle
- Beheld the washing slope-stream
- Fall on his hard-grown shoulders:
- No help he found to save him;
- The Minisher of hill-folk
- Caused Might to grow within him
- Even to the roof of heaven,
- Till the rushing flood should ebb.
