Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/142

104 Home, and lay down to sleep in his own house;

And all the gods lay down in their own homes.

And Hoder too came home, distraught with grief,

Loathing to meet, at dawn, the other gods;

And he went in, and shut the door, and fixed

His sword upright, and fell on it, and died.

But from the hill of Lidskialf Odin rose,—

The throne from which his eye surveys the world,—

And mounted Sleipner, and in darkness rode

To Asgard. And the stars came out in heaven,

High over Asgard, to light home the king.

But fiercely Odin galloped, moved in heart;

And swift to Asgard, to the gate, he came;

And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rang

Along the flinty floor of Asgard streets;

And the gods trembled on their golden beds

Hearing the wrathful Father coming home,—

For dread, for like a whirlwind, Odin came.

And to Valhalla's gate he rode, and left

Sleipner; and Sleipner went to his own stall;

And in Valhalla Odin laid him down.

But in Breidablik Nanna, Balder's wife,

Came with the goddesses who wrought her will,

And stood by Balder lying on his bier.

And at his head and feet she stationed scalds

Who in their lives were famous for their song;

These o'er the corpse intoned a plaintive strain,

A dirge,—and Nanna and her train replied.

And far into the night they wailed their dirge;

But when their souls were satisfied with wail,

They went, and laid them down, and Nanna went

Into an upper chamber, and lay down;

And Frea sealed her tired lids with sleep.

And 'twas when night is bordering hard on dawn,