| |
| THE FROSTY fires of Northern starlight | |
| Gleamed on the glittering snow, | |
| And through the forest’s frozen branches | |
| The shrieking winds did blow; | |
| A floor of blue, translucent marble | 5 |
| Kept ocean’s pulses still, | |
| When, in the depth of dreary midnight, | |
| Opened the burial hill. | |
| |
| Then while a low and creeping shudder | |
| Thrilled upward through the ground, | 10 |
| The Norseman came, as armed for battle, | |
| In silence from his mound: | |
| He who was mourned in solemn sorrow | |
| By many a swordsman bold, | |
| And harps that wailed along the ocean, | 15 |
| Struck by the Skalds of old. | |
| |
| Sudden, a swift and silver shadow | |
| Rushed up from out the gloom,— | |
| A horse that stamped with hoof impatient, | |
| Yet noiseless, on the tomb. | 20 |
| “Ha, Surtur! let me hear thy tramping, | |
| Thou noblest Northern steed, | |
| Whose neigh along the stormy headlands | |
| Bade the bold Viking heed!” | |
| |
| He mounted: like a north-light streaking | 25 |
| The sky with flaming bars, | |
| They, on the winds so wildly shrieking, | |
| Shot up before the stars. | |
| “Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur, | |
| That streams against my breast? | 30 |
| Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight, | |
| Which Helva’s hand caressed? | |
| |
| “No misty breathing strains thy nostril, | |
| Thine eye shines blue and cold, | |
| Yet, mounting up our airy pathway, | 35 |
| I see thy hoofs of gold! | |
| Not lighter o’er the springing rainbow | |
| Walhalla’s gods repair, | |
| Than we, in sweeping journey over | |
| The bending bridge of air. | 40 |
| |
| “Far, far around, star-gleams are sparkling | |
| Amid the twilight space; | |
| And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling, | |
| Has veiled her dusky face. | |
| Are those the Nornes that beckon onward | 45 |
| To seats at Odin’s board, | |
| Where nightly by the hands of heroes | |
| The foaming mead is poured? | |
| |
| “’T is Skuld! her star-eye speaks the glory | |
| That waits the warrior’s soul, | 50 |
| When on its hinge of music opens | |
| The gateway of the Pole,— | |
| When Odin’s warder leads the hero | |
| To banquets never done, | |
| And Freya’s eyes outshine in summer | 55 |
| The ever-risen sun. | |
| |
| “On! on! the Northern lights are streaming | |
| In brightness like the morn, | |
| And pealing far amid the vastness, | |
| I hear the Gjallarhorn: | 60 |
| The heart of starry space is throbbing | |
| With songs of minstrels old, | |
| And now, on high Walhalla’s portal, | |
| Gleam Surtur’s hoofs of gold!” | |
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