Viking Tales of the North
Fridthjof's Saga
Page 3
Those days ere life’s dark struggles had begun, —
When all existence was so glad, so fresh, so one
As is the woodland songster’s dream
When summer eve’s warm breezes gently stream
Lulling each drowsy flow’ret’s head,
Rocking that songster’s own soft leaf-green bed?
Ah! then, thou asa-born, –- thou moving image fair
Of glorious Valhal! — still in thy spirit pure
Did Balder’s life endure!
To th’ child the god lives ever, and whene’er
A new-born infant sees the day,
Hel, that goddess grim, restores her prey.
That night’s dark Hoder, Balder’s brother blind,
Is born and waxeth strong as he;
For blind is ev’ry evil born, as bear cubs be.
Night is the cloak of evil; but all good
Hath ever clad in shining garments stood.
The busy Loke, tempter from of old,
Still forward treads incessant, and doth hold
The blind one’s murder-hand, whose quick-launch’d spear,
Pierceth young Balder’s breast, that sun of Valhal’s sphere!
And hungry roameth, hill and valley round,
The sword’s grim wolf, while dragons wildly swim
O’er redly-flowing billows; for pale Virtue
Sits hopeless, strengthless, shadow-like, with Hel,
All dead amongst the dead, and Balder’s house,
Once tow’r’d so high, now lies a black’ning ruin.
The lower course of man’s existence; — both
Are great Allfather’s thoughts, and alter never.
What hath been, as what shall be, knoweth well
The mystic vala’s chant; that chant the sweet-ton’d,
Soft, cradle-lullaby of infant time
It’s death-dirge also pealeth. Yes! the records
Of wide Heimskringla echo vala’s song,
And man therein his own sad story readeth.
Grasp ye the sense, or no?
Nay, youth undaunted, meet my gaze and turn not pale!
Th’ atoner wanders round our earth, and death he’s hight.
All time is, in itself, a troubled streamlet
From vast eternity; all earthly life
From great Allfather’s throne hath fall’n atonement
Restores us thither back, all cleans’d and pure.
Yet, th’ asas ev’n have fall’n; and Ragnarok
Is their great day of reconcilement. Ah!
A bloody day ‘twill be, on Vigrid’s boundless,
Wild, death-strewn plain — for there shall th’ asas perish!
But unaveng’d they fall not; no! all evil
Dies there an endless death, while goodness riseth
From that great world-fire, purified at last,
To a life far higher, better, nobler than the past.
Of faded stars, and earth sinks in the deep,
Fairer and newly-born her flow’r-crown’d head
Again shall rise above the crystal flood,
And younger stars shall hold, with purer lustre,
Their silent course above the new creation.
The new-born asas, and the pure-made race of men;
And those fair golden runic-tablets lost, alas!
In time’s young dawning — Valhal’s children, reconcil’d,
‘Mong Ida-valley’s fragrant grass shall find once more.
Thus is the death of fallen goodness only
Its reconcilement, its fierce furnace proof, —
Another birth to a far other life,
Which backward flies whence first it emanated,
And innocently playeth, infant-like
On parent-knee upborne. Ah! after all,
The best, the happiest, noblest, of existence
Beyond the tomb we find, — that green-deck’d portal
Of Gimle’s paradise. Yes! low, and with but ill
Deep-stained is what we meet beneath heav’n’s star-lit hill.
Dim antetype of that still higher, — the last day’s fire!
Imperfect and yet sweet it is!
Like minstrel harmonies
When deep-skilled skald with ready finger sweeps
The waking harp,
And broken chords doth strike, and keeps
Now low, now sharp,
Tuning the quiv’ring strings
With dream-like fragment echoings,
Till, high upborne at last on music’s wings,
With full tones richly peal’d, entranced he sings
Of exploits and of heroes brave;
Awaking from their grave
The mighty forms of old, —
While, charmed, is beaming eyes behold
All Valhal’s glories, all great Odin’s pillar’d gold!
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