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

Recent Interactions*

This poem was read 17 times,

This poem was added to the favorite list by 0 members,

This poem was voted by 0 members.

(* Interactions only in the last 7 days)

New Poems

Wonderful Women
by Umaru Kanneh Boima
Freedom To Scratch In Peace
by Olute Aete
Happy New Year
by Felix Menda
Human Beings
by Dana Graslie
Lust
by Wisdom Greatness
An Isolated Tree's Song
by Sayeed Abubakar
A Strange Boy
by Sayeed Abubakar
O Soil
by Sayeed Abubakar
No War, No War-monger
by Sayeed Abubakar
Night's Town
by Sayeed Abubakar

Popular Poets

1. Emily Dickinson(2414 poems)
2. Madison Julius Cawein(1231 poems)
3. Ella Wheeler Wilcox(1136 poems)
4. William Wordsworth(1016 poems)
5. Robert Burns(986 poems)
6. Edgar Albert Guest(945 poems)
7. Thomas Moore(849 poems)
8. Robert Service(831 poems)

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

Write your comment about The Discoverer Of The North Cape - A Leaf From King Alfred's Orosius poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Recent Interactions*

New Poems

Popular Poets