Sending

So on the floor lay Balder dead; and roundLay thickly strewn swords, axes, darts, and spears,Which all the gods in sport had idly thrownAt Balder, whom no weapon pierced or clove;But in his breast stood fixed the fatal boughOf mistletoe, which Lok the Accuser gaveTo Hoder, and unwitting Hoder threw threw--’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm.And all the gods and all the heroes came,And stood round Balder on the bloody floor,Weeping and wailing; and Valhalla rangUp to its golden roof with sobs and cries;And on the tables stood the untasted meats,And in the horns and gold-rimmed sculls the wine.And now would night have fallen, and found them yetWailing; but otherwise was Odin’s will.And thus the Father of the ages spake:--“Enough of tears, ye gods, enough of wail!Not to lament in was Valhalla made.If any here might weep for Balder’s death,I most might weep, his father; such a sonI lose to-day, so bright, so loved a god.But he has met that doom which long agoThe Nornies, when his mother bare him, spun,And fate set seal, that so his end must be.Balder has met his death, and ye survive.Weep him an hour, but what can grief avail?For ye yourselves, ye gods, shall meet your doom,--All ye who hear me, and inhabit heaven,And I too, Odin too, the lord of all.But ours we shall not meet, when that day comes,With women’s tears and weak complaining cries:Why should we meet another’s portion so?Rather it fits you, having wept your hour,With cold dry eyes, and hearts composed and stern,To live, as erst, your daily life in heaven.By me shall vengeance on the murderer Lok,The foe, the accuser, whom, though gods, we hate,Be strictly cared for, in the appointed day.Meanwhile, to-morrow, when the morning dawns,Bring wood to the seashore to Balder’s ship,And on the deck build high a funeral pile,And on the top lay Balder’s corpse, and putFire to the wood, and send him out to seaTo burn; for that is what the dead desire.”So spake the king of gods, and straightway rose,And mounted his horse Sleipner, whom he rode;And from the hall of heaven he rode awayTo Lidskialf, and sate upon his throne,The mount, from whence his eye surveys the world.And far from heaven he turned his shining orbsTo look on Midgard, and the earth, and men.And on the conjuring Lapps he bent his gaze,Whom antlered reindeer pull over the snow;And on the Finns, the gentlest of mankind,Fair men, who live in holes under the ground;Nor did he look once more to Ida’s plain,Nor toward Valhalla and the sorrowing gods;For well he knew the gods would heed his word,And cease to mourn, and think of Balder’s pyre.But in Valhalla all the gods went backFrom around Balder, all the heroes went;And left his body stretched upon the floor.And on their golden chairs they sate again,Beside the tables, in the hall of heaven;And before each the cooks who served them placedNew messes of the boar Serimner’s flesh,And the Valkyries crowned their horns with mead.So they, with pent-up hearts and tearless eyes,Wailing no more, in silence ate and drank,While twilight fell, and sacred night came on.But the blind Hoder left the feasting godsIn Odin’s hall, and went through Asgard streets,And past the haven where the gods have mooredTheir ships, and through the gate, beyond the wall;Though sightless, yet his own mind led the god.Down to the margin of the roaring seaHe came, and sadly went along the sand,Between the waves and black o’erhanging cliffsWhere in and out the screaming seafowl fly;Until he came to where a gully breaksThrough the cliff-wall, and a fresh stream runs downFrom the high moors behind, and meets the sea.There, in the glen, Fensaler stands, the houseOf Frea, honored mother of the gods,And shows its lighted windows to the main.There he went up, and passed the open doors;And in the hall he found those women old,The prophetesses, who by rite eterneOn Frea’s hearth feed high the sacred fireBoth night and day; and by the inner wallUpon her golden chair the mother sate,With folded hands, revolving things to come.To her drew Hoder near, and spake, and said,--“Mother, a child of bale thou bar’st in me!For, first, thou barest me with blinded eyes,Sightless and helpless, wandering weak in heaven;And, after that, of ignorant witless mindThou barest me, and unforeseeing soul;That I alone must take the branch from Lok,The foe, the accuser, whom, though gods, we hate,And cast it at the dear-loved Balder’s breast,At whom the gods in sport their weapons threw.’Gainst that alone had Balder’s life no charm.Now therefore what to attempt, or whither fly,For who will bear my hateful sight in heaven?Can I, O mother, bring them Balder back?Or--for thou know’st the fates, and things allowed--Can I with Hela’s power a compact strike,And make exchange, and give my life for his?”He spoke: the mother of the gods replied,--“Hoder, ill-fated, child of bale, my son,Sightless in soul and eye, what words are these?That one, long portioned with his doom of death,Should change his lot, and fill another’s life,And Hela yield to this, and let him go!On Balder, Death hath laid her hand, not thee;Nor doth she count this life a price for that.For many gods in heaven, not thou alone,Would freely die to purchase Balder back,And wend themselves to Hela’s gloomy realm.For not so gladsome is that life in heavenWhich gods and heroes lead, in feast and fray,Waiting the darkness of the final times,That one should grudge its loss for Balder’s sake,--Balder their joy, so bright, so loved a god.But fate withstands, and laws forbid this way.Yet in my secret mind one way I know,Nor do I judge if it shall win or fail;But much must still be tried, which shall but fail.”And the blind Hoder answered her, and said,--“What way is this, O mother, that thou show’st?Is it a matter which a god might try?”And straight the mother of the gods replied,--“There is a way which leads to Hela’s realm,Untrodden, lonely, far from light and heaven.Who goes that way must take no other horseTo ride, but Sleipner, Odin’s horse, alone.Nor must he choose that common path of godsWhich every day they come and go in heaven,O’er the bridge Bifrost, where is Heimdall’s watch,Past Midgard fortress, down to earth and men.But he must tread a dark untravelled roadWhich branches from the north of heaven, and rideNine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice,Through valleys deep-ingulfed with roaring streams.And he will reach on the tenth morn a bridgeWhich spans with golden arches Giall’s stream,Not Bifrost, but that bridge a damsel keeps,Who tells the passing troops of dead their wayTo the low shore of ghosts, and Hela’s realm.And she will bid him northward steer his course.Then he will journey through no lighted land,Nor see the sun arise, nor see it set;But he must ever watch the northern Bear,Who from her frozen height with jealous eyeConfronts the Dog and Hunter in the south,And is alone not dipt in ocean’s stream;And straight he will come down to ocean’s strand,--Ocean, whose watery ring infolds the world,And on whose marge the ancient giants dwell.But he will reach its unknown northern shore,Far, far beyond the outmost giant’s home,At the chinked fields of ice, the wastes of snow.And he must fare across the dismal iceNorthward, until he meets a stretching wallBarring his way, and in the wall a grate.But then he must dismount, and on the iceTighten the girths of Sleipner, Odin’s horse,And make him leap the grate, and come within.And he will see stretch round him Hela’s realm,The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead,And hear the roaring of the streams of hell.And he will see the feeble, shadowy tribes,And Balder sitting crowned, and Hela’s throne.Then must he not regard the wailful ghostsWho all will flit, like eddying leaves, around;But he must straight accost their solemn queen,And pay her homage, and entreat with prayers,Telling her all that grief they have in heavenFor Balder, whom she holds by right below;If haply he may melt her heart with words,And make her yield, and give him Balder back.”She spoke; but Hoder answered her and said,--“Mother, a dreadful way is this thou show’st;No journey for a sightless god to go!”And straight the mother of the gods replied,--“Therefore thyself thou shalt not go, my son.But he whom first thou meetest when thou com’stTo Asgard, and declar’st this hidden way,Shall go; and I will be his guide unseen.”She spoke, and on her face let fall her veil,And bowed her head, and sate with folded hands.But at the central hearth those women old,Who while the mother spake had ceased their toil,Began again to heap the sacred fire.And Hoder turned, and left his mother’s house,Fensaler, whose lit windows look to sea;And came again down to the roaring waves,And back along the beach to Asgard went,Pondering on that which Frea said should be.But night came down, and darkened Asgard streets.Then from their loathèd feast the gods arose,And lighted torches, and took up the corpseOf Balder from the floor of Odin’s hall,And laid it on a bier, and bare him homeThrough the fast-darkening streets to his own houseBreidablik, on whose columns Balder gravedThe enchantments that recall the dead to life.For wise he was, and many curious arts,Postures of runes, and healing herbs he knew;Unhappy! but that art he did not know,To keep his own life safe, and see the sun.There to his hall the gods brought Balder home,And each bespake him as he laid him down,--“Would that ourselves, O Balder, we were borneHome to our halls, with torchlight, by our kin,So thou might’st live, and still delight the gods!”They spake, and each went home to his own house.But there was one, the first of all the godsFor speed, and Hermod was his name in heaven;Most fleet he was, but now he went the last,Heavy in heart for Balder, to his houseWhich he in Asgard built him, there to dwell,Against the harbor, by the city-wall.Him the blind Hoder met, as he came upFrom the sea cityward, and knew his step;Nor yet could Hermod see his brother’s face,For it grew dark; but Hoder touched his arm.And as a spray of honeysuckle-flowersBrushes across a tired traveller’s faceWho shuffles through the deep dew-moistened dust,On a May evening, in the darkened lanes,And starts him, that he thinks a ghost went by,--So Hoder brushed by Hermod’s side, and said,--“Take Sleipner, Hermod, and set forth with dawnTo Hela’s kingdom, to ask Balder back;And they shall be thy guides, who have the power.”He spake, and brushed soft by, and disappeared.And Hermod gazed into the night, and said,--“Who is it utters through the dark his bestSo quickly, and will wait for no reply?The voice was like the unhappy Hoder’s voice.Howbeit I will see, and do his hest;For there rang note divine in that command.”So speaking, the fleet-footed Hermod cameHome, and lay down to sleep in his own house;And all the gods lay down in their own homes.And Hoder too came home, distraught with grief,Loathing to meet, at dawn, the other gods;And he went in, and shut the door, and fixedHis sword upright, and fell on it, and died.But from the hill of Lidskialf Odin rose,--The throne from which his eye surveys the world,--And mounted Sleipner, and in darkness rodeTo Asgard. And the stars came out in heaven,High over Asgard, to light home the king.But fiercely Odin galloped, moved in heart;And swift to Asgard, to the gate, he came;And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rangAlong the flinty floor of Asgard streets;And the gods trembled on their golden bedsHearing the wrathful Father coming home,--For dread, for like a whirlwind, Odin came.And to Valhalla’s gate he rode, and leftSleipner; and Sleipner went to his own stall;And in Valhalla Odin laid him down.But in Breidablik Nanna, Balder’s wife,Came with the goddesses who wrought her will,And stood by Balder lying on his bier.And at his head and feet she stationed scaldsWho in their lives were famous for their song;These o’er the corpse intoned a plaintive strain,A dirge,--and Nanna and her train replied.And far into the night they wailed their dirge;But when their souls were satisfied with wail,They went, and laid them down, and Nanna wentInto an upper chamber, and lay down;And Frea sealed her tired lids with sleep.And ’twas when night is bordering hard on dawn,When air is chilliest, and the stars sunk low;Then Balder’s spirit through the gloom drew near,In garb, in form, in feature, as he was,Alive; and still the rays were round his headWhich were his glorious mark in heaven; he stoodOver against the curtain of the bed,And gazed on Nanna as she slept, and spake,--“Poor lamb, thou sleepest, and forgett’st thy woe!Tears stand upon the lashes of thine eyes,Tears wet the pillow by thy cheek; but thou,Like a young child, hast cried thyself to sleep.Sleep on; I watch thee, and am here to aid.Alive I kept not far from thee, dear soul!Neither do I neglect thee now, though dead.For with to-morrow’s dawn the gods prepareTo gather wood, and build a funeral-pileUpon my ship, and burn my corpse with fire,That sad, sole honor of the dead; and theeThey think to burn, and all my choicest wealth,With me, for thus ordains the common rite.But it shall not be so; but mild, but swift,But painless, shall a stroke from Frea come,To cut thy thread of life, and free thy soul,And they shall burn thy corpse with mine, not thee.And well I know that by no stroke of death,Tardy or swift, wouldst thou be loath to die,So it restored thee, Nanna, to my side,Whom thou so well hast loved; but I can smoothThy way, and this, at least, my prayers avail.Yes, and I fain would altogether wardDeath from thy head, and with the gods in heavenProlong thy life, though not by thee desired;But right bars this, not only thy desire.Yet dreary, Nanna, is the life they leadIn that dim world, in Hela’s mouldering realm;And doleful are the ghosts, the troops of dead,Whom Hela with austere control presides.For of the race of gods is no one there,Save me alone, and Hela, solemn queen.For all the nobler souls of mortal menOn battle-field have met their death, and nowFeast in Valhalla, in my father’s hall:Only the inglorious sort are there below;The old, the cowards, and the weak are there,--Men spent by sickness, or obscure decay.But even there, O Nanna, we might findSome solace in each other’s look and speech,Wandering together through that gloomy world,And talking of the life we led in heaven,While we yet lived, among the other gods.”He spake, and straight his lineaments beganTo fade; and Nanna in her sleep stretched outHer arms towards him with a cry; but heMournfully shook his head, and disappeared.And as the woodman sees a little smokeHang in the air afield, and disappear,So Balder faded in the night away.And Nanna on her bed sank back; but thenFrea, the mother of the gods, with strokePainless and swift, set free her airy soul,Which took, on Balder’s track, the way below;And instantly the sacred morn appeared.