The gods in their remorse and their decline, How they were judged and how endured eclipse, Sing through me, Bragi, lord of ancient song, Iduna's lover! Make me, too, thy skald, Who am of thine old race, that in its time In Saxony begot our little clan With its grammarians, bookmen, chroniclers, Mathematicians, and at last one bard. Two hundred years we have been wandering west Through tortured France to these New Saxon shores, Where, among many books, a doorkeeper In Wisdom's Temple and the least of bards, I end our record, our Old Saxon name, Having no man-child. Daughter dear, if thou E'er read thy father's verse—what fathers wrote We seldom con—if from forgotten shelves Thou draw these writings and those other books, Conceived and penned by goodlier wits,—Oh, then Remember thy hereditary lore, Our type, and how at least we followed rede For its own sake, still cherishing the mind! Loki such seed had set in the world's heart As could not but grow up and soon expand In an ill leafage and disastrous fruit. And now, his taunts not blotted from their hearts, The gods that are the Law, became afraid. They knew themselves imperfect, and the bands Of governance from nerveless fingers dropt, As drops the frozen rein in Muscovy From some tired sledger's clasp upon the snow When he that huddles by him is but Death! Law's wholesome mastery on earth had ceased, And universal overthrow drew nigh. All unavailingly Iduna passed Each morn through Walhall's courts, and to the gods Gave the bright Apples of Immortal Youth. That fruitage turned to bitterness and dust In hands whence Immortality had flown, While upon earth truth vanished, as did faith, And Love, that exquisite bond with wife, child, home, Friend, brother, mother, father, ancestry, Sublimed when lovers meet, or parents young Weep o'er the cradle of a small dead babe, Love, the fine mason of immortal life, Was so forgotten that he starved through want, As starves an old hound at some base fool's door. No piety remained, and Man declined To utter brute. He grew so covetous, Ravened so direly and so fought for self, That murder and incendiarism went Disguised as paltry violence. Each hour There rose a sound of someone groaning forth His life upon some threshold. Up to heaven Mounted a stream of agonising sound— Wail of down-trodden wives and bruiséd babes, Of ravished virgins, of eventrate brides Who but at dawn had felt the fluttered hope In earliest quickening, of bondmen old In faithful ancient service smitten down, Of friends in wrangle stabbed at dice or wine, Of just men tortured slow, and of old men By vile heirs choked and hurled across their hearths, Their grey locks dabbled in their poor thin blood! The world into a tavern stocked with thieves Was changed amain, and never pipe was shrilled Or tabour beaten, or wild dance performed, But to the tune of broken locks and noise Of the death-rattle in some innocent throat. Hast thou beheld a just man breathing out The breath of life? In gusts of painful rhythm Those airs that kept him living now exhale. He is a mill-race whence the water speeds Exhausted through the sluices! Yet he lives, And still we nurse a hope that, at the last, Propt in the kind arms of some loving friend, He will return to reason and dear speech. So was it with an agonising world. Hourly incontinence and rapine swelled, And little folk and poor crouched low in death, And babes by smoking cradles crawled and died Athwart starved breasts that gave forth blood for milk. Old the recital, for we know it well In Macedon to-day, or where they burn Negroes to make a squalid demos cheer! And evermore the sun went ranging round High heaven, pursuing his accustomed course, But through dun mist he shone as through a veil, And in high summer shed not any warmth. Then came untoward winter, horrible, A winter full of terrors and despairs, The Fimbul Winter by dead skalds proclaimed. All heaven was grey with infinite falling snow, Flake pressing upon flake, till upturned eyes Were darkened suddenly, and all the lakes And every winding water froze at once Down from the surface to the nether depths, Where sleep unharmed the spotted trout to-day. The water-fowl were clipt where'er they swam, And died, dark forms of grace on leagues of white; The vole, forth-peeping from its gallery, With icicles was pierced, the lithest fish Enclosed where he was gliding and held fast With open eye, till it, too, dimmed in death; In far abysms of wood wild-cat and lynx The bear within his den froze in his sleep; Died, and the urox in the glade grew stark, His great horns poised immovable in death. The fox was frozen with uplifted paw And nostrils spread to scent out hutch or roost. Wolves, hunting in gaunt packs, were stricken dead In act to spring upon some fleeing sledge Or lofty-antlered deer just brought to bay. Sledgers and hunted stag were turned to ice, Exchanging death for death. On his bone skates A thegn was frozen, speeding to his bride. Has he remained in some deep arctic flow, Some hoary berg? Shall we behold him yet, As that poor tottering woman at the foot Of the Alpine glacier once again beheld Her lover, fresh in death, involved in ice, Unchanged as when he lived, who slowly down From the high mountain had made long descent Through three score years, and looked on her once more With open eyes, those eyes she loved in youth? The thegn would find no one of his old world, And even his golden hair and fierce blue eyes Gone from our mixed mirk types. 'Twas then maybe That long-haired elephant was merged in ice, Descending on him in a freezing flood, That formed immediately a cliff of glass. Perfect he froze, upright, upon his march, And no man saw him more at any time, Till the shy Tungoose,'neath Napoleon's star, Hunting, beheld him first, and stood at gaze, Marvelling to see that miracle in ice! Half the thatched homesteads and cross-timbered thorps Scattered abroad in spaces of the woods, Were buried deep and they that in them dwelt Died, as a mouse dies in a huswife's trap. Three years that winter without break endured, Three livelong years by summer never touched, Summer, or sweet breath of the dawn of spring. The interminable firwoods died of frost: The verdure of the world that frost defies In common winters, was charred black by it And rotted: not a tree and not a bush, Thick evergreen and stalk, but perished frozen And blighted to the core. Alone the rich, Alone the sleek and strong, the sharp-faced men And smooth plump women in that Fimbultide Escaped by right of cunning. They escaped— They wrapped their thick furs round them—they went mad! Upon red lips, still dewed with redder wine, The lie ceased not, and great adulteries, And greater murders and enormous deeds Of fierce oppression and incestuous guile, Made of the living few a maniac rout. But all the gods had veiled their eyes and sat Palsied on golden thrones, and every hour There reached them sounds of someone groaning forth His life upon some threshold. Up to heaven Mounted a stream of agonising sound— Cries of down-trodden wives and bruiséd babes, Of ravished virgins, of eventrate brides, Who but at dawn had felt the fluttered hope In earliest quickening, of bondmen old In faithful ancient service smitten down, Of friends in wrangle stabbed at dice or wine, Of just men tortured slow, and of old men By vile heirs choked and hurled across their hearths, Their grey locks dabbled in their poor thin blood! Meanwhile the sons of Fenris, that were wolves Even as their sire, grew into dreadful shapes, Horrible monsters, whom the Giantess, Ancient of Forests, fed with marrow drawn From murdered perjurers' and adulterers' bones, Giving them drink of perished poisoners' blood, And of dead wastrels' who their sires had slain Or brethren. So, in some degenerate age, But differently and without excuse, Mammon feeds full her fat liberticides With marrow of republics, liberties old Nothing can re-create, but for which died The struggling, ragged herdsmen. There lacked not Abundance of the marrow of old sins! Then the shamed gods bethought them of one dead, Whose dim tomb lies close to the gate of Hel, And, through their magic arts not quite forgot, They conjured her within it from deep rest. So they asked Wala, the strange prophetess, 'What mean these signs?' And she, sitting high-propped Upon her tripod, spoke to Odin's face. Mystic and grandiose the rune she said, That old Volüspa-Saga hard to spell, While round her the grouped gods sate, chin on hand, Shadowy, sorrowful, their harps and arms Heaped huge around them. A long while she sang Of that which she had seen and they should see, Of the Creation and the Fire to come. And having ended, she re-veiled her head And was conducted to her tomb by gods. Distraught to golden beds the Powers repaired. Scarce one knew sleep when, at the dawn, came dark. The glory of the sun was blotted out, And over heaven flew evil Women Wise (Witches our boors still call them). Fjalar crowed— That vermeil cock of Asgard. Loud he crowed, Loudly his wings he flapped, as now, at noon, The strange mechanic bird of Strasburg flaps His wings when Peter shall deny his God. And answering him, the Fowl of Helheim sang; His feathers burning redly like a coal, And all in waking earth that descant heard. Then instantly the general terror came. Skiöll and Hati, those enormous wolves, Who chased the chariots of the Light for aye, Bounded at last to grapple with Sun and Moon, And ate them with foamed jaws and slavering tongues. Then fell thick night. Inspissate darkness reigned In heaven and earth, and earth shook through and through, Even as the slumbrous silence when a hound, Darkling beside his master's couch at night, Shakes his rough hide like some dull cracking thong, Then settles suddenly in utter sleep. But sleep forsook that world: rent were all bonds, Broken the links that prisoned rebellious limbs. High-poised in anguish on the three sharp rocks, Upon the steep and solitary ledge, Above the torrent clamouring hoarsely down, Beside the windy Lodge of Many Doors, Loki awoke and cast abroad his chains. This evil godhead in forgotten years Had ta'en to paramour the giantess Signal of Anguish, Angurboda. She A monstrous progeny had brought him forth, The Fenrir Wolf, the Midgard Snake, and Hel, As in just wedlock Sigyn bore him, too, Narwi and Wali—Sigyn faithful still In vigils at the tortured Loki's head, Which she protected from the aspergent snake By Skadi tied above him. Fenris now Rose from his place where Asgard's hills slope down To Midgard or Man's habitable world. Upon that frontier he had stayed since first Tyr led him greatly howling out of heaven, When Odin, mightiest of gods, had hurled The Snake and Hel into blank outer space. Tyr long had fed him: now he slipt his noose, Made by dark elves of six strange mysteries— The echo of the footfalls of a cat, A fishes' breath, the spittle of a bird, A mountain's roots, the talons of a bear, A woman's beard miraculously grown. Gleipnir its name, and after trials three The gods had bound it on him. Now it fell, And with it, too, the sword that held apart His slavering jaws, whence flowed the River Wan, Flood of Regret. He overturned the rock Giöll, the Sounding, and the mighty stone, That held his knotted tether. He was free, For Law relaxed unloosens every bond. He shook himself, this destined Scourge of God, Stretched, and with gambolling white-fanged progeny Cantered to Loki, scenting a great strife. So, upon Exmoor, canter the tall hounds To where the huntsmen meet to chase the stag, Last of primeval sports. But Fenris soon Opened his jaws, whereof his upper one Butted high heaven amain, the nether earth. Wider he would have yawned that dreadful mouth Had space been granted him. Four burning streams Burst from his eyes and nostrils. With him ran Garm, the huge hound that guards the Gnypa Cave In Hel's domain, with jaws distilling blood, The while he gnashes them and snarls at sight Of all the pale and vanishing hosts that come Pilgrims from Midgard's happier table-land, Pilgrims with nothing in their clasp save dust, And, except mould, nothing in mouth and eye! Hel's house-dog he—Hel, that had sunk nine days Past the morasses of the Place of Mists, Hight Nifelheim, to her allotted realm, What time All-Father hurled her into space With the great Serpent. Half her countenance Was white as is a corpse, and the other mirk As is the sepulchre. No living eye Beholds her but at once 'tis glazed in death. Innumerable songs a skald might word Of her huge realm, the Strand of Corpses called, And its terrific gates and all within,— Her Hall hight Space of Tempests, and her Dish Hunger, and Sultr her sharp Knife of Death; Her Butler Slow-foot and her Damsel Sloth; Her Gateway Falling Fate, her Threshold steep 'That which fatigues through suffering,'her Bed Sickness, her Curtain 'Bale that peepeth through.' Of how she, rarely, blossoms in her dark, And opens happy halls to the innocent dead, Who died of age and sickness or mischance, Not in the terror of the throes of war, And how, when Balder came with Nanna fair, He dead in harmlessness, she dead for love, To bide with Hel, she feasted them and blazed Amid her followers on thrones of gold,— Of this some puling modern bard might sing, Intent on good in necessary woe, And eager to spell softness from the flint. But now her followers were for no feast Or blaze of gold, but with her Hound went up To Fenris' side, with him to rend the world And slay the gods themselves. Just then the sea Moved horribly and, in a mighty wall, Quite overflowed the land. It was the Worm Stirring in the deep ocean at the base Of Midgard's rocky zone, where she had lain, Writhed into endless knots and lastly curled With tail in mouth, since Odin cast her down With Hel, her sister, into outer space. And now she rose and reared her frightful head, And lashed impatiently in giant wrath, Longing for that encounter, as a snake, Imprisoned behind glass, at midnight writhes And lashes to and fro incessantly, Awaiting the live things that are his meal! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE PRIMROSE by ROBERT HERRICK INVERSNAID by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS RETRIBUTION by FRIEDRICH VON LOGAU ODE; SUNG BY THE CHILDREN OF THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS by W. T. ADAMS ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 9. TO CURIO by MARK AKENSIDE |