The night hangs pale above me Upon her starry throne, And I know the maid doth love me Who maketh such sweet moan.
From out the mist comes tripping A Mermaiden full fair, Across the white sea skipping With locks of tawny hair.
Her locks with sea-ooze dripping She wrings with a snowy hand; Her dress is thinly clipping Two b.r.e.a.s.t.s which perfect stand.
Oh, she was fair as the heaven On an autumnal eve, And my love to her was given When I saw how she did grieve.
Amort o"er the sea came speeding This sea sprite samite-clad, And my heart for love was bleeding, But its beating I forbade.
On the strand where the sand was rocking She stood and sang an air, And the winds in her hair kept locking Their fingers cool and bare.
Soft in her arms did she fold me, While sweet and low she moaned; Her love and her grief she told me, And the ocean sighed and groaned.
But I stilled my heart"s wild beating, For I knew her love was dim; Full coldly received her greeting, Tho" my life burnt in each limb.
In my ear right sweet she was sighing With the voice of the pink-veined sh.e.l.ls; Her arms "round my neck kept tying, And gazed in mine eyes" deep wells.
With her kisses cold did she woo me, But I dimmed my heart"s wild beat; With the stars of her eyes did she sue me, But their pa.s.sion did mine defeat.
With the cloud of her sea-dipped tresses She veiled her beautiful face;-- And oh! how I longed for her kisses And sighed for her soft embrace!
But out in the mist she went wailing When the dawn besilvered the night, With her robes of samite trailing In the foam-flowers sad and white.
Like a spirit grieved went moaning In a twilight over the sea, And it seemed the night was groaning, And my heart beat wild in me.
But I hushed my heart"s fierce beating, For a Mermaid false was she; Yet I sighed at her faintly fleeting Across the dim, dark sea.
The moon all withered is glowing, The mist and she are gone; My heart to ice is growing, And I sob at the coming dawn.
THE PUNISHMENT OF LOKE.
The G.o.ds of Asaheim, incensed with Loke, A whirlwind yoked with thunder-footed steeds, And, carried thus, boomed o"er the booming seas, Far as the teeming wastes of Jotunheim, To punish Loke for all his wily crimes.
They found him sitting nigh a mountain-force, Which flashing roared from crags of ribbed snow, Lamenting strange and weird in rushing notes Of the old Stromkarl, who therein smote a harp And sang in mystic syllables of runes.
For "tis the wild man"s harp and voice you hear: He sits behind the crackling cataract Within a grotto dim of mist and foam, His long, thin beard, white as the flying spray Flung to the midnight in a sounding cave By the blind fish that leap against the winds; Gemmed with the large dews of the cataract, Swings in the sucking breeze, and swinging beats Time to his harp"s strains quav"ring soft and sad Beneath the talons of his pale, lean hand.
And all the waters, leaping, tingling shake Like shivering stars within the frozen skies, When as the Giants of Frost rule o"er the deep, And nip their buds with fingers h.o.a.r of ice.
Here banished found they mischief-making Loke Beneath the faint arch of young Bifrost sate, His foxy face between large, naked knees; Deep, wily eyes fixed on the darting fish In seeming thought, but aye one corner wan Flashed at the Asas where they cl.u.s.tered fair, Soft on a mountain"s aged locks of snow, Their tawny tresses ruddy in the wind.
Then great-limbed Thor sprang wind-like forth:-- Red was his beard forked with the livid light, That clings among the tempest"s locks of bale, Or fillets her tumultuous temples black.
And drops with wild confusion on the hills; And thro" his beard, like to the storm"s strong voice, His sullen words were strained, and when he spake The oldest forests bowed their crowns of leaves, And barmy skulls of mead half-raised were stayed Within Valhalla, and heroes great were dumb.
As when, the horror of the spear-shock o"er, And all the plains and skies of Thule are gorged With gore and screams of those that fight or die, The Valkyries in their far-glimmering helms Flash from the windy sunset"s mists of red Unto the chalk-faced dead,--whose beaten casques And sea-swol"n shields, with sapless, red-hewn limbs, Wave "mid the dead-green billows, stormy-browed, That roar along the Baltic"s wintry coast, And wail amid the iron-circled coves,-- To cull dead heroes for the hall of shields,-- Where yells the toast and rings the tournament,-- A dumbness falls upon the shattered field; The clinging billows "mid the restless dead Moan o"er their wide-stretched eyes and gla.s.sy sleep; And all the blood-blurred banners, gustless, dark Hard ashen faces waiting for the choice.
The thunderer did Loke shrewd ensnare, Incensed for pristine evil wrought on him.
When erst dark Loke deflowered his spouse, fair Sif The blue eyed, of her golden, baby locks.
Him the Asas dragged beneath a burning mount Into a cavern black, by earthquakes rent When Earth was young to heave her sp.a.w.n of Trolls, The vermin which engendered in the corpse Of Ymer huge, whose flesh did make the world.
Here where the stars ne"er shone, nor nature"s strains Of legendary woodlands, peaks, and streams Ere came, they pinned him supine to the rocks, Whose frigid touch filed at his brittle bones, And tore a groan from lips of quiv"ring froth, That made the warty reptiles cold and huge Hiss from their midnight lairs and blaze great eyes.
Lone in the night he heard the white bear roar From some green-glancing berge that stemmed dark seas With all its moan of torrents foaming down The ice-crags of its crystal mountain crests.
And "neath the firry steep a wild swine shrieked, And fought the snarling wolf; his midriff ripped With spume-flaked ivories where the moss was brok"n Far down within the horror of a gorge; And once he saw souls of dead mortals whirl With red-strown hair within the Arctic skies, And all his stolid face was eddied o"er By one faint smile, which grimly flash"d and pa.s.s"d, And he knew not its stonyness had changed.
And all was rock above him, rock beneath: And all the clammy crawling things that spat Black venom at him from deep dens of rock, And that swart boundless flood of flowing death, Which with its sooty spray clung to a cliff And slid beside his marble gaze, to him Were as the rock that curled above and hung; Were as the rock that spread beneath and pierced; For as to the blind to him were lidless eyes.
And pity "twas not darker than it was, And crammed with terrors populous as Hel"s Or that cursed dome of corpses, Naastrand dire, Whose roofs and walls of yawning serpents slick Hang writhing down, flat heads--reed-beds of snakes-- From whose red, hissing fangs flow slimy streams Of blist"ring venom, gath"ring to a flood, Wherein the basest shades eternal wade And feel the anguish crawling down the neck, Or glue the hair, or glut the dull, dead ear, Or choke the blasted eye until it swims In lurid pain and blazes "gainst the source.
The roar of waters and the wail of pines When whirlwinds roll the granite bowlders down From flinty crags of storm to bellowing seas-- On noisome winds the howls of torture roll, And rising die, cause the live dome to writhe, And swift pour down a tempest steep of woe.
Huge Skade, of Winter daughter, giantess, One twisting serpent hung above Loke"s head, So that the blistering slaver might splash down Upon his chalky face, and torture him,-- For so the Asas willed for his vast crimes.
But Loke"s wife, Sigin, endured not this, And brooked not to behold her husband"s pain.
She sate herself beside his writhen limbs, And held a cup to cull the venomed dew Which flamed the scowling blackness as it fell.
To him she spake, who swelled his breast and groaned E"en as some mighty sea, when "neath its waves The huge leviathan by whalers chased,-- Cleaving thick waters in his spinning flight, The barbed harpoon feasting on his life,-- Rolls up pale mounded billows o"er black fins Far in the North Atlantic"s sounding seas:--
"O Loke! lock those wide-drawn eyes of thine, And let white silver-lidded slumber fall In the soft utterance of my low speech!
And I will flutter all my amber curls To cast wind currents o"er thy pallid brow!-- Drink deepest sleep, for, see, I catch thy doom!-- So pale thy face which glimmers thro" the night!
So pale! and knew I death as mortals know I"d say that he mysterious had on thee Laid hands of talons and so slain thy soul!
So still! and all the night bears down my heart!
So pale!--and sleep is lost to thee and me!-- Sleep, that were welcome in this heavy gloom!-- It clings to me like pestilential fogs!
I seem but clodded filth and float in filth!
It chokes my words and claws them from my tongue To sound as dull confused as the boom Heard thro" the stagnant earth when armies meet With ring of war-ax on the brazen helms, And all the mountains clash unto the sound Of shocking spears that splinter on gray ore!
For by dead banks of stone my words are yelled While yet they touch the tongue to grasp the thought; And all the creatures huddled in their holes Creep forth to glare and hiss them back again!
Yet, for thy love, O Loke, could I brave All trebled horrors that wise Odin may Heap on, and, suff"ring, love thee all the more!
"For thou dost love me, and this life is naught Without thy majesty of form and mind, For, dark to all, alone art fair to me!
And to thy level and thy pa.s.sions all I raise the puny hillock of my soul, Tho" oft it droops below thy lofty height, Far "mid the crimson clouds of windless dawns Reaching the ruby of a glorious crest.
And then aspire I not, but cower in awe Down "mid low, printless winds that take no morn.--
"At least my countenance may win from thee A reflex of that alabaster cold That stones thy brow, and pale in kindred woe!
And when this stony brow of thine is cleft By myriad furrows, tortures of slow Time, And all the beauties of thy locks are past, Now glossy as the brown seal"s velvet fur, Their drifts of winter strown around this cave To gray the glutton gloom that hangs like lead,-- For Idunn"s fruit is now debarred thy lips, And thou shalt age e"en as I age with thee!-- Then will the thought of that dread twilight cheer The burthen of thy anguish; for wilt thou Not in the great annihilation aid Of G.o.ds and worlds, that roll thro" misty grooves Of cycled ages to wild Ragnaroke?
Then shalt thou joy! for all those stars which glue Their blinking scales unto old Ymer"s skull In clots shall fall! and as this brooding night Sticks to and gluts us till we strangling clutch With purple lips for air--and feel but frost Drag laboring down the throat to swell the freight That cuddles to the heart and clogs its life, So shall those falling flakes spread sea-like far In lakes of flame and foggy pestilence O"er the hot earth, and drown all men and G.o.ds.
"But, oh, thy face! pale, pale its marble gleams Thro" the thick night! and low the serpent wreathes And twists his scaly coils that livid hang Above thee alabaster as a shrine!-- Oh, could I kiss the lips toward which he writhes And yield them the last spark of living flame That burns in my wan blood, and, yielding--die!
Oh, could I gaze once more into large eyes Whose liquid depths gla.s.sed domes of molten stars, And see them as they glowed when Morning danced O"er scattered flowers from the rosy hills That lined the orient skies beneath one star!
When first we met and loved among the pines, The melancholy pines that plumed the cliffs And rocked and sang unto the smooth fiords Like old wild women to their sleeping babes!
Then could I die e"en as the mortals die, And smile in dying!--But the reptile baulks All effort to behold, or on white lips To feast the ardor of my vain desire!
Thy face alone shines on my straining sight Like some dim moon beneath a night of mist,-- And now the creatures come to feel at me-- The serpent swings above and darts his fang, And I can naught but hold the cup and breathe."
Then thro" the blackness of the dripping cave Tumultuous spake he, rage his utterance; Large as the thunder when it lunging rolls, Heavy with earthquake and portending ruin, Tempestuous words o"er everlasting seas Dumb with the silence of eternal ice; His eyes in horrid spasms, and his throat, Corded and gnarled with veins of boisterous blood, Swollen with fury, and stern, wintery lips Flaked with rebellious foam and agony For thwarted rage and baulkment of designs.
Rash vaunter of loud wrath, one brawny fist, Convulsed with clenchment in its gyve of ore, Clutched mad defiance and bold blasphemy, Headlong for battle-launching at all G.o.ds That bow meek necks before high Odin"s throne; Yet all unhurled and vain as mists of morn, Or foam wind-wasted on the sterile sands Of rainy seas where Ran, from whistling caves Watching the tempest ravened dragon wreck, Feels "twixt lean miser fingers slippery Already oily gold of Vikings" drowned.
Reverberated, the loud-scoffing rock All his unburdened blasphemies again Flung back a million fold from riotous throats In which demoniac laughter howled and roared, Bellowing tremendous tumult, till his ears, Flooded and gorged with maniac curses, grew Stunned, deaf and senseless, and the rebel words, Erst rolled and thundered in his G.o.dly speech, Recoiled in oaths that, shrunk in serpent loops, Coiled mad anathemas of violence, Voluminous-ringed, about his heart of ice, That now in wasted wrath of bitter foam,-- Which burst and bare big ineffectual groans, Wretched and huge with infinite weariness,-- Spent all its storm of ponderous misery.
Her sorrow found some vent in rain of tears, And all the cave was dumb and dead with night, Unbroken save of Sigin"s heaving sobs, Or the baulked G.o.d"s deep groans where chain"d he lay To see the spotted serpent crisp above And aye gape poison at his lidless eyes.
And when her bowl was brimmed till one more drop Had cast the fifth white o"er the scorching edge, Into the black, deep flood beside she poured Its stagnant torture; one second"s t.i.the the time-- The reptile"s bale blurs all his milky cheek, Burns to his bones; he starting fell, stiff twists The sinewy steel that hugs his ma.s.sive limbs And shrieks so loud within those solitudes, The caverns yawn unto the stormy skies, The orey mountains rock and groan for fear, High spew their fiery thunders, smoke, and stones.