Volume Iii Part 16 (2/2)

For Christmas cheer is to home hearts dear, And Christmas now was drawing near.

Stout Fitz-Stephen came to the King,-- A pilot famous in seafaring;

And he held to the King, in all men's sight, A mark of gold for his tribute's right.

”Liege Lord! my father guided the s.h.i.+p From whose boat your father's foot did slip When he caught the English soil in his grip,

”And cried: 'By this clasp I claim command O'er every rood of English land!'

”He was borne to the realm you rule o'er now In that s.h.i.+p with the archer carved at her prow:

”And thither I'll bear, an' it be my due, Your father's son and his grandson too.

”The famed White s.h.i.+p is mine in the bay; From Harfleur's harbor she sails to-day,

”With masts fair-pennoned as Norman spears And with fifty well-tried mariners.”

Quoth the King: ”My s.h.i.+ps are chosen each one, But I'll not say nay to Stephen's son.

”My son and daughter and fellows.h.i.+p Shall cross the water in the White s.h.i.+p.”

The King set sail with the eve's south wind, And soon he left that coast behind.

The Prince and all his, a princely show, Remained in the good White s.h.i.+p to go.

With n.o.ble knights and with ladies fair, With courtiers and sailors gathered there, Three hundred living souls we were:

And I Berold was the meanest hind In all that train to the Prince a.s.signed.

The Prince was a lawless, shameless youth; From his father's loins he sprang without ruth:

Eighteen years till then he had seen, And the devil's dues in him were eighteen.

And now he cried: ”Bring wine from below; Let the sailors revel ere yet they row:

”Our speed shall o'ertake my father's flight Though we sail from the harbor at midnight.”

The rowers made good cheer without check; The lords and ladies obeyed his beck; The night was light, and they danced on the deck.

But at midnight's stroke they cleared the bay, And the White s.h.i.+p furrowed the water way.

The sails were set, and the oars kept tune To the double flight of the s.h.i.+p and the moon:

Swifter and swifter the White s.h.i.+p sped Till she flew as the spirit flies from the dead:

As white as a lily glimmered she Like a s.h.i.+p's fair ghost upon the sea.

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