132 The Seven Years of Seeking

peril of wreck, through flying sea-smoke and
plagues of hail, they heard a strange un-
earthly music rising and falling in the blast.
Some said it was Angels sent to strengthen
them; others said it was wild birds which
they had seen flying past in flocks; but
Serapion said, “If it be Angels, blessed be
God ; if it be birds, yet even they are God’s
Angels lessoning us how we shall praise
Him, and sing Him a new song from the
ends ofthe earth.’ Then he raised his voice,
singing the psalm
Laudate Dominum de celis,

Praise ye the Lord from the heavens: praise Him

in the heights,

and the Sea-farers sang it with earnest voices
and with hearts lifted up, and they were
greatly encouraged.

It was in these latitudes stormy and cold
that, to their thinking, the Sea-farers won
nearest to the Earthly Paradise. For, far
in the sides of the north as, in the red sun-
light, they coasted a lofty land white with
snow-fields and blue with glacier ice, they en-
tered a winding fjord, and found themselves