Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TRAGEDY OF ASGARD: THE RE-BUILDING, by VICTOR GUSTAVE PLARR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TRAGEDY OF ASGARD: THE RE-BUILDING, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Then searching in the long grass at their feet
Last Line: Upon the story of earth's destinies!
Subject(s): Goddesses & Gods; Immortality; Mythology; Mythology - Norse; Nature


Then searching in the long grass at their feet
The gods re-found the golden amulets
Of the ancient Aesir, emblems of old might,
And set them on their brows, and took in hand
Miölnir to work magic in the world
And be a consecration from the past.
And Balder rose and built two other heavens.
Audlang, the one, shone bright o'er Ida's Plain,
And farther off, remoter in the blue
Of the sweet skies, another, Widblain called.
And over Gimli's Cavern there arose
A hall more wonderful than Balder's house
Breidablik, the Wide Aspect, that was burnt.
Gold decked the new hall brightlier than suns:
It shone magnificent in heaven on high.
And thither paced the six, and sat on thrones
And looked on the green world. Loki long since
Had cheated Heaven when Asgard's wall he built,
But now no base chicane the stone-work flawed,
No giant threatened Heaven. Soon were prepared
Mansions for spirits just. On high was set
The House of Brimir and on Nida-fiöll,
Among the mountains, of red gold was raised
The glittering House of Sindri. There should dwell
Spirits of gentle conduct, there survive
The juries of the just, to lift aloft
Perpetually the wine-cup and the mead.
But down upon the Shore of the Dead Men
Another hall arose of shape immense
And aspect terrible. Toward the north,
Inhospitable and tempestuous,
Its open doors look out. 'Tis strangely wrought
Of serpents' backs, like wattles interwoven,
And all the snakes' great hissing heads are turned
Toward its dark recesses, and breathe forth
Venom, whereof long sinuous rivers creep
Up hall and down. And, as great Wala saith,
The perjured and the banished murderer
Within its thick meandering shall crawl.
Then Balder, sitting with the gods enthroned
In the new hall o'er Gimli's Cavern high,
Turned to his fellows and prophetic spake,
The sunlight falling on his clement brow :—
'In yon bright world no living creature walks
That has the gift of immortality.
Come, brethren, let us found the Race of Men,
And from two parents the great earth re-fill
With laughter and the happy toils of hands,
And love and fortitude! I wot of two
Who shall engender all the tribes of men,—
The fierce and skilful peoples of the South,
They who build temples and make laws for man;
The subtle dark-haired people of the West,
Nations of bards, and they who conquer them,
Laborious, northern, fair-tressed, blue-eyed folk,
Who in their several branches shall possess
Yon earth in wisdom and in temperate rule.
I mark their ships new-launched on many seas!
I mark their bloodless conquests! I respire
The breath of their large dawn!' Ah, Balder fair,
Regin the unfathomable blinded thee
With viewless hand across thy prophet eyes!
Thou saw'st not modern Prussias, Viking broods
Not yet evolved from berserk darkness old,
The crapula of progress in far lands!

In the deep quiet valley, where of yore
Urd's Fountain flowed, and Odin counsel took
With Mimir's Head, there was a tumulus,
An old grey barrow covered o'er with heath,
Hoddmimir called, which clove as Balder waved
Miölnir over it and brought to light
A sleeping youth and maiden. The Sun's kiss
Upon their breathing lips awakened them.
They rose: they sure had slept not many hours.
It seemed so short a span since, tired with play
And wandering in the sunny fields of Youth,
They had sunk down to sleep. They had not felt
The darkness, and the winter, and the fire,
But, fed with dew, had dreamed away the void.
Now, hand in hand, they wandered through the world,
Which was the same as the old, yet lovelier.
And as a traveller with his life-work done
And death not distant may at last attain
To the fulfilment of an ancient dream,
And find himself one eve descending swift
The long bright segments of the road that leads
Down into Piedmont's plains of ruddy light;
Up from his pillow his tired head he lifts
And gazes on the marvel of the South,
So opulently sunlit, so august;
Marks the red plain's illimitable grace,
The farms with Roman archways, the far peaks
Scarped exquisitely on the purple skies,
The vineyards, the grey oliveyards astir
In the suave airs, the poplars, the curved streams
Like silvern sickles rounding far and far;
And sighs and in a whisper says, 'At last!
After the toil of years, the hope deferred,
The cheating of my heart with dreams in books,
The darkness, I attain! 'Tis Italy!
The Fimbul Winter held me yesterday:
In Paris an east wind careering blew,
And London choked me sourly ere I left
With that thick fog which is the Poet's shroud.
I shiver and remember. How have I
Lived all these years amid those squalid mists?'
The sunny freshness fans his hollow cheek:
He looks abroad, experiencing such rest,
Such peace, such consolation, 'tis as though
He entered into Heaven while yet he lived!
So now the pair, Life and Desire-of-Life,
The youth and maiden, went slow-wandering down
Into the golden plains and that new world,
And saw the meadows stocked with grazing kine,
The lamb at play, the hare upon the heath,
The wolfless forests void of Fenrir's brood,
The thick grass full of many-coloured snakes
That glided fangless by. They drank the scents
Of myriad flowers and felt their pensive brows
Fanned by the breath of Immortality,
Which they had nowise dreamt of overnight.

Now, as the god concluding his grand theme
To Snorri Sturlesson exclaimed,—Enough!
Since ev'n if thou shouldst question me at large,
I know not, Man, what thou shouldst hear beside.
For never have I known one further pressed
Upon the story of Earth's destinies!





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