Note 76 — Chapter I · DENMARK.

Profane not, youth—it is not thine

To judge the spirit of our line—

The bold berserkars’ rage divine,

Through whose inspiring, deeds are wrought

Past human strength and human thought.

When full upon his gloomy soul

The champion feels the influence roll,

He swims the lake, he leaps the wall,

Heeds not the depth nor plumbs the fall—

Unshielded, mailless, on he goes

Singly against a host of foes;

Their spears he holds as withered reeds,

Their mails like maidens’ silken weeds:

One ‘gainst a hundred will he strive,

Take countless wounds, and yet survive.

How rush the eagles to his cry

Of slaughter and of victory;

And blood he quaffs like Odin’s bowl,

Deep drinks his sword—deep drinks his soul,

And all that meet him in his ire

He gives to ruin, rout, and fire.

Then, like gorged lion, seeks some den,

And couches till he’s man agen.

Harold the Dauntless, Canto iii. st. 8.