Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/149

Rh But northward Hermod rode, the way below;

And o'er a darksome tract, which knows no sun,

But by the blotted light of stars, he fared.

And he came down to ocean's northern strand,

At the drear ice, beyond the giants' home.

Thence on he journeyed o'er the fields of ice

Still north, until he met a stretching wall

Barring his way, and in the wall a grate.

Then he dismounted, and drew tight the girths,

On the smooth ice, of Sleipner, Odin's horse,

And made him leap the grate, and came within.

And he beheld spread round him Hela's realm,

The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead,

And heard the thunder of the streams of hell.

For near the wall the river of Roaring flows,

Outmost; the others near the centre run,—

The Storm, the Abyss, the Howling, and the Pain;

These flow by Hela's throne, and near their spring.

And from the dark flocked up the shadowy tribes;

And as the swallows crowd the bulrush-beds

Of some clear river, issuing from a lake,

On autumn-days, before they cross the sea;

And to each bulrush-crest a swallow hangs

Swinging, and others skim the river-streams,

And their quick twittering fills the banks and shores,—

So around Hermod swarmed the twittering ghosts.

Women, and infants, and young men who died

Too soon for fame, with white ungraven shields;

And old men, known to glory, but their star

Betrayed them, and of wasting age they died,

Not wounds; yet, dying, they their armor wore,

And now have chief regard in Hela's realm.

Behind flocked wrangling up a piteous crew,

Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn,—