VANNA IS BID FOR Not easily would you have found a girl more winning in a tender sort than Giovanna Scarpa of Verona at one and twenty, fair-haired and flushed, delicately shaped, tall and pliant, as she then was. She had to suffer her hours of ill report, but passes for near a saint now, in consequence of certain miracles and theophanies done on her account, which it is my business to declare; before... more...

PROEMSing of the end of Troy, and of that floodOf passion by the bloodOf heroes consecrate, by poet's craftHallowed, if that thin waftOf godhead blown upon thee stretch thy songTo span such store of strongAnd splendid vision of immortal themesLate harvested in dreams,Albeit long years laid up in tilth. Most meetThou sing that slim and sweetFair woman for whose bosom and delightParis, as well he... more...

This tale is founded upon two sagas, which have been translated literally and without attempt to accord their discrepancies by York Powell and Vigfussen in their invaluable Origines Icelandicae. As well as those versions I have had another authority to help me, in Laing's Sea-Kings of Norway. I have blent the two accounts into one, and put forward the result with this word of explanation, which I... more...

O what is this you've done to me,Or what have I done,That bare should be our fair roof-tree,And I all alone?'Tis worse than widow I becomeMore than desolate,To face a worse than empty homeWithout child or mate.'Twas not my strife askt him his lifeWhen it was but begun,Nor mine, I was a new-made wifeAnd now I am none;Nor mine that many a sapless ghostWails in sorrow-fare—But this does... more...