Page:Felicia Hemans in the New Monthly Magazine Volume 8 1823.pdf/8

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The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast, As on through the forest the warrior past Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old, The dark place of visions and legends told By the fires of northern pine. The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound, And it seem'd that the depths of those mystic shades From the dreamy gloom of their long arcades Gave warning with voice and sign.

The pines closed o'er him with deeper gloom, As he took the path to the monarch's tomb, The pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright With the arrowy streams of the northern light, But his road through dimness lay! He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood, The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood, Nor paused, till the rock, where a vaulted bed Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead, Arose on his midnight way.

But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath, The threshold-floor of the hall of death, And look'd on the pale mysterious fire, Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire With a strange and a solemn light.* Then darkly the words of the boding strain, Like an omen, rose on his soul again, —"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep. And move not the urn in the house of sleep,        For the viewless have fearful might!"

With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound, They hung o'er the dust of the far-renown'd, Whom the bright Valkyriur's glorious voice Had call'd to the banquet where gods rejoice, And the rich mead flows in light. With a beating heart his son drew near, And still rung the verse in his thrilling ear, —"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep, And move not the urn in the house of sleep,        For the viewless have fearful might!"