Read FICTION books online

Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



Fiction genre suitable for people of all ages. Everyone will find something interesting for themselves. Our electronic library is always at your service. Reading online free books without registration. Nowadays ebooks are convenient and efficient. After all, don’t forget: literature exists and develops largely thanks to readers.
The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖

Book online «Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖». Author Lytton



1 ... 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 ... 170
Go to page:
the height, he halted, and made sign to Haco, who had also dismounted, to do the same. Half way down the side of the slope which faced the ruined peristyle, Haco beheld a maiden, still young, and of beauty surpassing all that the court of Normandy boasted of female loveliness. She was seated on the sward;—while a girl younger, and scarcely indeed grown into womanhood, reclined at her feet, and leaning her cheek upon her hand, seemed hushed in listening attention. In the face of the younger girl Haco recognised Thyra, the last-born of Githa, though he had but once seen her before—the day ere he left England for the Norman court—for the face of the girl was but little changed, save that the eye was more mournful, and the cheek was paler.

And Harold’s betrothed was singing, in the still autumn air, to Harold’s sister. The song chosen was on that subject the most popular with the Saxon poets, the mystic life, death, and resurrection of the fabled Phoenix, and this rhymeless song, in its old native flow, may yet find some grace in the modern ear.

THE LAY OF THE PHOENIX. 206 “Shineth far hence—so Sing the wise elders Far to the fire-east The fairest of lands. Daintily dight is that Dearest of joy fields; Breezes all balmy-filled Glide through its groves. There to the blest, ope The high doors of heaven, Sweetly sweep earthward Their wavelets of song. Frost robes the sward not, Rusheth no hail-steel; Wind-cloud ne’er wanders, Ne’er falleth the rain. Warding the woodholt, Girt with gay wonder, Sheen with the plumy shine, Phoenix abides. Lord of the Lleod, 207 Whose home is the air, Winters a thousand Abideth the bird. Hapless and heavy then Waxeth the hazy wing; Year-worn and old in the Whirl of the earth. Then the high holt-top, Mounting, the bird soars; There, where the winds sleep, He buildeth a nest;— Gums the most precious, and Balms of the sweetest, Spices and odours, he Weaves in the nest. There, in that sun-ark, lo, Waiteth he wistful; Summer comes smiling, lo, Rays smite the pile! Burden’d with eld-years, and Weary with slow time, Slow in his odour-nest Burneth the bird. Up from those ashes, then, Springeth a rare fruit; Deep in the rare fruit There coileth a worm. Weaving bliss-meshes Around and around it, Silent and blissful, the Worm worketh on. Lo, from the airy web, Blooming and brightsome, Young and exulting, the Phoenix breaks forth. Round him the birds troop, Singing and hailing; Wings of all glories Engarland the king. Hymning and hailing, Through forest and sun-air, Hymning and hailing, And speaking him ‘King.’ High flies the phoenix, Escaped from the worm-web He soars in the sunlight, He bathes in the dew. He visits his old haunts, The holt and the sun-hill; The founts of his youth, and The fields of his love. The stars in the welkin, The blooms on the earth, Are glad in his gladness, Are young in his youth. While round him the birds troop, the Hosts of the Himmel, 208 Blisses of music, and Glories of wings; Hymning and hailing, And filling the sun-air With music, and glory And praise of the King.”

As the lay ceased, Thyra said:

“Ah, Edith, who would not brave the funeral pyre to live again like the phoenix!”

“Sweet sister mine,” answered Edith, “the singer doth mean to image out in the phoenix the rising of our Lord, in whom we all live again.”

And Thyra said, mournfully:

“But the phoenix sees once more the haunts of his youth—the things and places dear to him in his life before. Shall we do the same, O Edith?”

“It is the persons we love that make beautiful the haunts we have known,” answered the betrothed. “Those persons at least we shall behold again, and whenever they are—there is heaven.”

Harold could restrain himself no longer. With one bound he was at Edith’s side, and with one wild cry of joy he clasped her to his heart.

“I knew that thou wouldst come to-night—I knew it, Harold,” murmured the betrothed.





CHAPTER III.

While, full of themselves, Harold and Edith wandered, hand in hand, through the neighbouring glades—while into that breast which had forestalled, at least, in this pure and sublime union, the wife’s privilege to soothe and console, the troubled man poured out the tale of the sole trial from which he had passed with defeat and shame,—Haco drew near to Thyra, and sate down by her side. Each was strangely attracted towards the other; there was something congenial in the gloom which they shared in common; though in the girl the sadness was soft and resigned, in the youth it was stern and solemn. They conversed in whispers, and their talk was strange for companions so young; for, whether suggested by Edith’s song, or the neighbourhood of the Saxon grave-stone, which gleamed on their eyes, grey and wan through the crommell, the theme they selected was of death. As if fascinated, as children often are, by the terrors of the Dark King, they dwelt on those images with which the northern fancy has associated the eternal rest, on—the shroud and the worm, and the mouldering bones—on the gibbering ghost, and the sorcerer’s spell that could call the spectre from the grave. They talked of the pain of the parting soul, parting while earth was yet fair, youth fresh, and joy not yet ripened from the blossom—of the wistful lingering look which glazing eyes would give to the latest sunlight it should behold on earth; and then he pictured the shivering and naked soul, forced from the reluctant clay, wandering through cheerless space to the intermediate tortures, which the Church taught that none were so pure as not for a whole to undergo; and hearing, as it wandered, the knell of the muffled bells and the burst of unavailing prayer. At length Haco paused abruptly and said:

“But thou, cousin, hast before thee love and sweet life, and these discourses are not for thee.”

Thyra shook her head mournfully:

“Not so, Haco; for when Hilda consulted the runes, while, last night, she mingled the herbs for my pain, which rests ever hot and sharp here,” and the girl laid her hand on her breast, “I saw that her face grew dark and

1 ... 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 ... 170
Go to page:

Free ebook «Harold : the Last of the Saxon Kings — Complete by Lytton (an ebook reader TXT) 📖» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment