Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/136

98 And on the top lay Balder's corpse, and put

Fire to the wood, and send him out to sea

To 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 away

To Lidskialf, and sate upon his throne,

The mount, from whence his eye surveys the world.

And far from heaven he turned his shining orbs

To 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 back

From 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 placed

New 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 gods

In Odin's hall, and went through Asgard streets,

And past the haven where the gods have moored

Their ships, and through the gate, beyond the wall;

Though sightless, yet his own mind led the god.