The Discoverer Of The North Cape - A Leaf From King Alfred's Orosius Poem Rhyme Scheme

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Othere the old sea captain	A
Who dwelt in Helgoland	B
To King Alfred the Lover of Truth	C
Brought a snow white walrus tooth	C
Which he held in his brown right hand	B
	-
His figure was tall and stately	D
Like a boy's his eye appeared	B
His hair was yellow as hay	E
But threads of a silvery gray	E
Gleamed in his tawny beard	B
	-
Hearty and hale was Othere	E
His cheek had the color of oak	F
With a kind of laugh in his speech	G
Like the sea tide on a beach	G
As unto the King he spoke	F
	-
And Alfred King of the Saxons	H
Had a book upon his knees	I
And wrote down the wondrous tale	J
Of him who was first to sail	J
Into the Arctic seas	I
	-
So far I live to the northward	B
No man lives north of me	D
To the east are wild mountain chains	K
And beyond them meres and plains	K
To the westward all is sea	D
	-
So far I live to the northward	B
From the harbor of Skeringes hale	J
If you only sailed by day	E
With a fair wind all the way	E
More than a month would you sail	J
	-
I own six hundred reindeer	E
With sheep and swine beside	B
I have tribute from the Finns	L
Whalebone and reindeer skins	L
And ropes of walrus hide	B
	-
I ploughed the land with horses	M
But my heart was ill at ease	I
For the old seafaring men	N
Came to me now and then	N
With their sagas of the seas	I
	-
Of Iceland and of Greenland	B
And the stormy Hebrides	I
And the undiscovered deep	O
I could not eat nor sleep	O
For thinking of those seas	I
	-
To the northward stretched the desert	B
How far I fain would know	P
So at last I sallied forth	Q
And three days sailed due north	Q
As far as the whale ships go	P
	-
To the west of me was the ocean	A
To the right the desolate shore	E
But I did not slacken sail	J
For the walrus or the whale	J
Till after three days more	E
	-
The days grew longer and longer	E
Till they became as one	A
And southward through the haze	R
I saw the sullen blaze	R
Of the red midnight sun	A
	-
And then uprose before me	D
Upon the water's edge	S
The huge and haggard shape	T
Of that unknown North Cape	T
Whose form is like a wedge	S
	-
The sea was rough and stormy	D
The tempest howled and wailed	B
And the sea fog like a ghost	B
Haunted that dreary coast	B
But onward still I sailed	B
	-
Four days I steered to eastward	B
Four days without a night	B
Round in a fiery ring	U
Went the great sun O King	U
With red and lurid light	B
	-
Here Alfred King of the Saxons	H
Ceased writing for a while	V
And raised his eyes from his book	W
With a strange and puzzled look	W
And an incredulous smile	V
	-
But Othere the old sea captain	A
He neither paused nor stirred	B
Till the King listened and then	N
Once more took up his pen	N
And wrote down every word	B
	-
And now the land said Othere	E
Bent southward suddenly	D
And I followed the curving shore	E
And ever southward bore	E
Into a nameless sea	D
	-
And there we hunted the walrus	X
The narwhale and the seal	Y
Ha 't was a noble game	Z
And like the lightning's flame	Z
Flew our harpoons of steel	Y
	-
There were six of us all together	E
Norsemen of Helgoland	B
In two days and no more	E
We killed of them threescore	E
And dragged them to the strand	B
	-
Here Alfred the Truth Teller	E
Suddenly closed his book	W
And lifted his blue eyes	A2
With doubt and strange surmise	A2
Depicted in their look	W
	-
And Othere the old sea captain	A
Stared at him wild and weird	B
Then smiled till his shining teeth	B2
Gleamed white from underneath	B2
His tawny quivering beard	B
	-
And to the King of the Saxons	H
In witness of the truth	C
Raising his noble head	B
He stretched his brown hand and said	B
Behold this walrus tooth	C

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Discoverer Of The North Cape - A Leaf From King Alfred's Orosius Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis

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