Who is it holds them helpless there?
'Tis He Who hears the anguished prayer;
'Tis He Who to the wave
Hath fixed the bound--mud, rock, or sand--
To mark how far upon the strand
Its foaming sweep may rave.
What is it, but the ebbing tide,
That leaves them here, by Hamble's side,
So firm embedded in the mud
No force of stream, nor storm, nor flood,
Shall ever these five ships bear forth
To fiords and islets of the north;
A thousand years shall pass away,
And leave those keels in Hamble's bay.

IV

Ill were it in my rhyme to tell
The work of slaughter that befell;
In sooth it was a savage time--
Crime ever will engender crime.
Each Viking, as he swam to land,
Fell by a Saxon's vengeful hand;
Turn we from all that vengeance wild--
Where on the deck there cowered a child,
And, closely to his bosom prest,
A snow-white kitten found a nest.
That tender boy, with tresses fair,
Was Edric, Egbert's cherished heir;
The plaything of the homestead he,