The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

Next morn, when they awoke to see
Each other's hands draw lovingly
Each unto each, awhile they lay
Silent, as though night passed away
They grudged full sore: till the King said

Unto the happy golden head
That lay upon his breast: “What thought
By those few hours of dark was brought
Unto thy heart, my love? Did dreams
Make strange thy loving sleep with gleams
O changing days that yet may be?”
She answered, but still dreamily:
“In sleep a little while ago
O'er a star-litten world of snow
I fared, till suddenly near by
A swirling fire blazed up on high;
Thereto I went, and without scathe
Passed through the flame, as one doth bathe
Within a summer stream, and there
I saw a golden palace fair
Ringed round about with roaring flame.
Unto an open door I came,
And entered a great hall thereby,
And saw where, 'neath a canopy
A King and Queen there sat, more fair
Than the world knoweth otherwhere:
And much methought my heart smiled then
Upon that goodliest of all men,
That sweetest of all womankind.
Then one methought a horn did wind
Without, and the King turned and spake:

“‘Wherewith do the hall pillars shake,
O Queen, O love?’

She moved her head,
And in a voice like music said:
‘This is the fame of Ragnar's life,
The breath of all the glorious strife
Wherewith his days shall wear.’

Then he:
‘What is the shadow that I see
Adown the hall?’

Then said the Queen:
‘Our daughter surely hadst thou seen
If thine eyes saw as clear as mine:
Well worth she is our love divine,
And unto Ragnar is she wed,
The best man since that thou art dead,
My King, my love, mine own, mine own.’

“Then the twain kissed upon the throne,
And the dream passed and sleep passed too.”
Therewith the King her body drew
Nearer to him, if it might be,
And spake: “A strange dream came to me.
Upon a waste at dawn I went
And wandered over vale and bent,
And ever was it dawn of day,
And still upon all sides there lay
The bones of men, and war-gear turned
To shards and rust; then far off burned
A fire, and thither quick I passed.
And when I came to it at last
Dreadful it seemed, impassable;
But I, fain of that land to tell
What things soever might be known,
Went round about, and up and down,
And gat no passing by the same;
Until, methought, just where the flame
Burned highest, through the midst I saw
A man and woman toward me draw,
Even as through a flowery wood:
So came they unto where I stood,
And glad at heart therewith I grew,
For such fair folk as were the two
Ne'er had I seen; then the man cried:
“‘Hail to thee, Ragnar! well betide
This dawn of day. Stretch forth thine hand.’

“E'en as he bade me, did I stand,
Abiding what should hap, but he
Turned to the woman lovingly,
And from her bosom's fresh delight
Drew forth a blooming lily white,
And set it in mine hand, and then
Both through the flame went back again.
“Then afterwards in earth I set
This lily, and with soft regret
Watched for its fading; but withal
Great light upon the world did fall,
And fair the sun rose o'er the earth,
And blithe I grew and full of mirth:
And no more on a waste I was,
But in a green world, where the grass
White lily-blooms well-nigh did hide;
O'er hill and valley far and wide
They waved in the warm wind; the sun
Seemed shining upon every one,
As though it loved it: and with that
I woke, and up in bed I sat
And saw thee waking, O my sweet!”
With that last word their lips did meet,
And even the fresh May morning bright
Was noted not in their delight.
Let be—as ancient stories tell
Full knowledge upon Ragnar fell
In lapse of time, that this was she
Begot in the felicity
Swift-fleeting, of the wondrous twain,
Who afterwards through change and pain
Must live apart to meet in death.
But, would ye know what the tale saith,
In the old Danish tongue is writ

Full many a word concerning it,—
The days through which these lovers passed,
Till death made end of all at last.
But so great Ragnar's glory seemed
To Northern folk, that many deemed
That for his death, when song arose
From that Northumbrian Adder-close,
England no due atonement paid
Till Harald Godwinson was laid
Beside his fallen banner, cold
Upon the blood-soaked Sussex mould,
And o'er the wrack of Senlac field
Full-fed the grey-nebbed raven wheeled.