Page:The poetical works of Matthew Arnold, 1897.djvu/156

118 And led the way on Sleipner; and the rest

Followed, in tears, their father and their king.

And thrice in arms around the dead they rode,

Weeping; the sands were wetted, and their arms,

With their thick-falling tears,—so good a friend

They mourned that day, so bright, so loved a god.

And Odin came, and laid his kingly hands

On Balder's breast, and thus began the wail:—

"Farewell, O Balder, bright and loved, my son!

In that great day, the twilight of the gods,

When Muspel's children shall beleaguer heaven,

Then we shall miss thy counsel and thy arm."

Thou camest near the next, O warrior Thor!

Shouldering thy hammer, in thy chariot drawn,

Swaying the long-haired goats with silvered rein;

And over Balder's corpse these words didst say:—

"Brother, thou dwellest in the darksome land,

And talkest with the feeble tribes of ghosts,

Now, and I know not how they prize thee there—

But here, I know, thou wilt be missed and mourned.

For haughty spirits and high wraths are rife

Among the gods and heroes here in heaven,

As among those whose joy and work is war;

And daily strifes arise, and angry words.

But from thy lips, O Balder, night or day,

Heard no one ever an injurious word

To god or hero, but thou keptest back

The others, laboring to compose their brawls.

Be ye then kind, as Balder too was kind!

For we lose him, who smoothed all strife in heaven."

He spake, and all the gods assenting wailed.

And Freya next came nigh, with golden tears;

The loveliest goddess she in heaven, by all

Most honored after Frea, Odin's wife.