Now archly at the angry Priest. "From all excesses, sins, and crimes Thou hast committed in past times Thee I absolve! And furthermore, Purified from all earthly taints, To the communion of the Saints And to the sacraments restore! All stains of weakness, and all trace Of shame and censure I efface; Remit the pains thou shouldst endure, And make thee innocent and pure, So that in dying, unto thee The gates of heaven shall open be! Though long thou livest, yet this grace Until the moment of thy death Unchangeable continueth!"
Then said he to the Priest: "I find This document is truly signed
Brother John Tetzel, his own hand. At all tribunals in the land In evidence it may be used; Therefore acquitted is the accused." Then to the cobbler turned: "My friend, Pray tell me, didst thou ever read Reynard the Fox ?"-"O yes, indeed!' "I thought so. Don't forget the end."
Meanwhile from out its ebon case His violin the Minstrel drew, And having tuned its strings anew, Now held it close in his embrace, And poising in his outstretched hand The bow, like a magician's wand, He paused, and said, with beaming face: "Last night my story was too long; To-day I give you but a song, An old tradition of the North; But first, to put you in the mood, I will a little while prelude, And from this instrument draw forth Something by way of overture."
He played; at first the tones were pure And tender as a summer night, The full moon climbing to her height, The sob and ripple of the seas,
AT Stralsund, by the Baltic Sea, Within the sandy bar,
At sunset of a summer's day, Ready for sea, at anchor lay The good ship Valdemar.
The sunbeams danced upon the waves, And played along her side;
And through the cabin windows streamed In ripples of golden light, that seemed The ripple of the tide.
There sat the captain with his friends,— Old skippers brown and hale,
Who smoked and grumbled o'er their grog, And talked of iceberg and of fog,
Of calm and storm and gale.
And one was spinning a sailor's yarn About Klaboterman,
The Kobold of the sea; a sprite Invisible to mortal sight,
Who o'er the rigging ran.
Sometimes he hammered in the hold, Sometimes upon the mast,
Sometimes abeam, sometimes abaft, Or at the bows he sang and laughed, And made all tight and fast.
He helped the sailors at their work, And toiled with jovial din;
He helped them hoist and reef the sails, He helped them stow the casks and bales, And heave the anchor in.
'She haunts the Atlantic north and south, But mostly the mid-sea,
Where three great rocks rise bleak and bare Like furnace chimneys in the air,
And are called the Chimneys Three.
"And ill betide the luckless ship That meets the Carmilhan; Over her deck the seas will leap, She must go down into the deep, And perish mouse and man.'
The captain of the Valdemar Laughed loud with merry heart. "I should like to see this ship," said he; "I should like to find these Chimneys Three, That are marked down in the chart.
"I have sailed right over the spot," he said, "With a good stiff breeze behind,
When the sea was blue, and the sky was clear,You can follow my course by these pinholes here,And never a rock could find."
And then he swore a dreadful oath,
He swore by the Kingdoms Three, That, should he meet the Carmilhan, He would run her down, although he ran, Right into Eternity!
All this, while passing to and fro, The cabin-boy had heard; He lingered at the door to hear, And drank in all with greedy ear, And pondered every word.
He was a simple country lad, But of a roving mind.
O, it must be like heaven," thought he, "Those far-off foreign lands to see, And fortune seek and find!"
But in the fo'castle, when he heard The mariners blaspheme,
He thought of home, he thought of God, And his mother under the churchyard sod, And wished it were a dream.
One friend on board that ship had he; "Twas the Klaboterman,
Who saw the Bible in his chest, And made a sign upon his breast, All evil things to ban.
The cabin windows have grown blank As eyeballs of the dead;
No more the glancing sunbeams burn On the gilt letters of the stern, But on the figure-head;
On Valdemar Victorious, Who looketh with disdain
To see his image in the tide Dismembered float from side to side, And reunite again.
"It is the wind," those skippers said, "That swings the vessel so;
It is the wind; it rises fast, "Tis time to say farewell at last, 'Tis time for us to go."
They shook the captain by the hand, Good luck! good luck!" they cried; Each face was like the setting sun, As, broad and red, they one by one Went o'er the vessel's side.
The sun went down, the full moon rose, Serene o'er field and flood;
And all the winding creeks and bays And broad sea-meadows seemed ablaze, The sky was red as blood.
The south-west wind blew fresh and fair, As fair as wind could be; Bound for Odessa, o'er the bar, With all sail set, the Valdemar Went proudly out to sea.
The lovely moon climbs up the sky As one who walks in dreams; A tower of marble in her light, A wall of black, a wall of white, The stately vessel seems. Low down upon the sandy coast The lights begin to burn; And now, uplifted high in air, They kindle with a fiercer glare, And now drop far astern.
The dawn appears, the land is gone, The sea is all around;
Then on each hand low hills of sand Emerge and form another land;
She steereth through the Sound.
Through Kattegat and Skager-rack She flitteth like a ghost;
By day and night, by night and day, She bounds, she flies upon her way Along the English coast.
Cape Finisterre is drawing near, Cape Finisterre is past;
Into the open ocean stream
She floats, the vision of a dream
Too beautiful to last.
Suns rise and set, and rise, and yet
There is no land in sight;
The liquid planets overhead
Burn brighter now the moon is dead,
And longer stays the night.
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