The old man sleeps in death forgot: Peace to his dust! A tale which stirred My youth receive. When thou hast heard, Weep, North, with me for Axel’s lot. Beside the old man’s words sublime My song is weak, in humble rhyme.
In Bender Sweden’s sovereign lay. His foes had torn his lands away, His glory sinking out of sight. His people, like a wounded knight, Who even feels death’s creeping chill, Rose on its knees, resisting still, And hope of rescue there was none, Except in Charles, the absent one. Although the leaves in Fate’s dark book Turned in the storm, though nature shook, He stood calm like the bomb-proof wall, When sacked and burning cities fall, Like rocks lashed wildly by the wave, Like Resignation on a grave.
The king had called, one afternoon, Young Axel in, the brave dragoon. “Here, take this letter, and—away! Ride for your life both night and day, And straightway when you reach our land, Deliver to the council’s hand. Go with God’s help, set forth to-night, And greet our hills and northern light!”
Young Axel dearly loved to ride, And glad he sewed the letter in His hollow belt. At Holofzin His father fell the king beside, And orphaned thus this son of arms Grew up amid the camp’s alarms. His frame was strong, such as of old, Whose like have not yet vanished all, Fresh as a rose, but slight and tall, Like pines upon the Swedish mould.
The keen-eyed king had placed him in His body-guard, souls near of kin. They numbered seven, a slender troop As are the stars of Charles’s Wain, At most nine, like the muses’ group, And hard the honor was to gain. By sword and fire their claims were tried, They were a Christian viking-stock, Not unlike that which once defied All dangers of the wave and rock. They never slept upon a bed, But on their cloaks spread on the ground, In storms and northwest snows as sound As if on daisied meads instead. A horse-shoe they could press together, And never in the wildest weather Approached the hearthstone’s crackling light, But warmed themselves with shot,[B] each one, As red as when the rayless sun Goes down in blood some winter’s night. The rule was when in strife exposed That one might yield if seven opposed, His breast still turned to their attack, For none must ever see his back. And last there was this law beside, The most austere, perhaps, of all, To let no maid bring them in thrall, Till Charles himself should take a bride. However blue two eyes might smile, However red two lips beguile,— They all must shut their eyes—or flee: Their swords were pledged, they must be free.