University of Virginia Library

‘Mother!’ he said, and on that mother's face
Fixing the brightness of his starry eyes,
He kiss'd her, smiling. E'en as sunlight falls
Upon the whiteness of some western cloud,
Irradiating and illuming it,
His beauty smote her sadness: silently
She trembled; and her large immortal orbs
Were raised to heaven. For a space she stood
O'er-master'd by that splendour, but at last,
While softly from her forehead and her cheeks
The loving rapture ebb'd, and once again
Her face grew alabaster calm and cold,
Her soul found speech.

‘O Balder! best beloved!
God of the sunlight and the summer stars,
White Shepherd of the gentle beasts and birds,
Benign-eyed watcher of all beauteous things,
Thou know'st me! thou rememberest! thou art here,
Supreme, a god, my Son!—Within thine eyes
Immortal innocence and mortal peace
Are blent to love and gentleness divine;
And tho' I left thee in these woods a babe,
Fair and unconscious as a fallen flower,
And tho' I have not watch'd thy beauty grow,
I come again to seek thee, and behold
Thou know'st me—thou rememberest! thou art here,
Supreme, a god, my Son! Blest be those powers
To whose lone keeping I committed thee!
The heavens have shone upon thee, and the boughs
Have curtain'd thee for slumber, and the rain
Hath smooth'd thy soft limbs with its silvern fingers,
And gently ministrant to thee have been
The starlight and the moonlight and the dew,
And in their seasons all the forest flowers;
And from the crimson of divine deep dawns
And from the flush of setting suns, thy cheeks
Have gather'd such a splendour as appals
The vision, even mine. Balder! beloved!
Speak to me! tell me how thy soul hath fared
Alone so long in these green solitudes.’

She ceased, and Balder smiled again, and took
Her hand and held it as he answer'd her;
And ne'er was sound of falling summer showers
On boughs with lilac laden and with rose,
Or cuckoo-cries o'er emerald uplands heard,
Or musical murmurs of dark summer dawns,
More sweet than Balder's voice. ‘O Mother, Mother,’
It answer'd, ‘when I saw thee from afar,
Silent, stone-still, with shadow at thy feet,
I knew thee well, for nightly evermore
I have seen thy shape in sleep.’ And while the face
Of the great goddess kindled once again
With its maternal love ineffable,
He added, ‘Thou shalt read me all my dream!
For in a dream here have I grown and thriven,
With such dim rapture as those lilies feel
Awakening and uprising mystically
From darkness to the brightness of the air;
And growing in a dream I have beheld
All things grow gladder with me, sun and star,
Strange fronds, and all the wonders of the wood;
Till round me, with me, soul and part of me,
This world hath kindled like an opening rose.
And happy had I been as any bird
Singing full-throated in the summer light,
But for some dark and broken images
Which come to me in sleep—yea come each night
When from the starlight and the silvern moon
I fade with closëd eyes. But thou art here,
And in the love of thy celestial looks
I read the answer to the mystery
Of my dim earthly being.’

As he spake,
Across the goddess' face and thro' her frame
There pass'd the wind of an old prophecy,
Bending her downward as a storm-swept bough.
‘In sleep! what shapes have come to thee in sleep?’
She cried, and Balder answer'd, ‘It were long
To tell thee all, my Mother! but meseems
I have dream'd nightly of mysterious forms
White-brow'd like thee and very beautiful—
Strange spirits, each more bright than is a star,
In robes of linen and of whitest wool,
And some all raimentless as leaf or flower,
And in their nakedness the more divine.’
Then Frea smiled and answer'd, ‘That is well—
These, Balder, are thy sisters and my kin,
Less beautiful than thou, yet very fair.’
And Balder said, ‘Ofttimes mine eyes have seen
Great shapes caparison'd in burning gold,
Tall as the tallest pine within these woods,
Who flash'd red brands together, or upheld
Bright cups of ruby, gazing on each other!’
And Frea smiled and said, ‘That too is well—
Those, Balder, are thy brethren and thy peers,
Great gods, yet less than thou.’ Then Balder's voice
Sank lower, saying, ‘Three times in my sleep
I have seen my Father!’

Frea's cheek was blanch'd,
And pressing one white hand upon her heart,
‘How seem'd he in thy sleep?’ the goddess sigh'd,
‘Frown'd he or smiled he? speak!’ And Balder said,
In solemn whispers, sinking ever lower,
‘My soul perceived a darkness and a sound
Of many voices wailing, and I seem'd
As one that drifts upon a sunless water,
Amid the washing of a weary rain—
Wet were my locks and dripping, and my limbs
Hung heavily as lead—while wave by wave
I floated to some vapour-shrouded shore.
At last, wash'd in upon the slippery weeds,
I saw before me on a mountain top
One brooding like a cloud; and as a cloud
At first he seem'd, yet ever as I look'd
Grew shapen to an image terrible,
With eyes eternal gazing down at mine.
And as I rose a voice came from the cloud
Like far-off muffled thunder, crying “Balder!
Come hither, my son Balder!”—when in fear
I scream'd and woke, and saw the daylight dance
Golden upon the forests and the meres.’

He ceased; and utter pity fill'd his soul
To see across his beauteous Mother's face
The scorching of unutterable pain;
Then thrice the troubled goddess raised her eyes
And gazed up northward where the rose-red shafts
Of dawn were trembling on the cloud-capt towers
Of Asgard; thrice the sorrow master'd her;
But soon her strong soul conquer'd, and she forced
A strange sad look of calm. ‘If that be all,
Take courage—and I do conjure thee now,
Fear not thy Father. If that Father ever
Hath cherish'd dread of thee, the loveliness
Of thy completed godhead shall disarm
His wrath,—yea, win his love.’ Her gentle hand
Clasp'd his with more than mortal tenderness,
And in his eyes she gazed again and drank
The solace of his beauty while the dawn
Encrimson'd both and all the heavens and air,
But Balder trembled shrinking to her side,
And cried, with quick eyes glancing all around,
‘Mother, that is not all!’

‘O speak no more,’
The goddess said, ‘if aught else terrible
Thine eyes have vision'd or thy sense hath dream'd,
Speak, speak, no more!’ but Balder answer'd, ‘Mother!
A weight is on my heart, and I must speak.
Last night I dream'd the strangest dream of dreams!
Methought I in the summer woodland walk'd
And pluck'd white daffodils and pansies blue,
And as I went I sang such songs as sing
The spirits of the forest and the stream;
And presently the golden light went in,
But balmy darkness follow'd, for the rain
Patter'd with diamond dews innumerable
On the green roof of umbrage overhead.
I stood and waited, listening. Then methought
I heard a voice from far away—thy voice
It seem'd, my Mother—murmur three times “Balder!”
And as it ceased, there pierced the wood's green heart
A shriek so sharp and shrill that all my blood
Turn'd cold to listen! Suddenly I felt
My brow was damp with chilly drops of rain,
And looking up I saw that every leaf
Had wither'd from the branches overhead,
Leaving them black against a sunless heaven
Of dark and dreary gray. Again I heard
Thy voice moan “Balder,” and methought the boughs
Toss'd their wild arms above and echoed “Balder,”
When lo, the black and miserable rain
Came slower and slower, wavering through the dark,
Till every drop was as a flake of white
Falling upon the ground as light as wool!
And terror seized me, and I felt my heart
Cold as a stone, and from my hands the flowers
Dropt, wither'd, with that whiteness on the ground.
I tried to stir, and could not stir; I sought
To shake the chilly flakes from off my neck,
But could not; and each time I sought to cry.
My cries were frozen in my throat. Now mark!
O mark, my mother, for these things are strange!
As thus I stood, mine eyes were 'ware of One,
A Shape with shadowy arms outspread like wings,
Which, hovering o'er me even as a hawk,
Fix'd on my face its fatal luminous eyes.
O Mother, that wan shape! The forest holds,
In form of beast or bird or glittering snake,
No likeness of its awful lineaments!
For ever as its features seem'd to take
Clearness and semblance, they did fade away
Into a swooning dimness; and it seem'd
Now shapen and now shapeless, blowing amid
The wonder of that wan and sunless shower.
Yet ever as I gazed it gazed again,
And ever circling nearer seem'd in act
To swoop upon me with cold claws and clutch
The heart that flutter'd wildly in my breast.
At last that look became too much to bear:
Answering at last thy scream, I scream'd aloud;
And as I scream'd, I woke—and saw again
The sunlight on the forests and the meres.’

Now ev'n as Balder spake the goddess' face
Was like a shrouded woman's: once again
She gazed at heaven, and her eyes were glazed
With agony and despair, for now she knew
That shape which Balder had beheld in dream
Was he whom mortal man have christen'd Death.
At last she spake, and all her proud soul flash'd,
Rebuking its own terror. ‘Unto all,
Yea even unto gods upon their thrones,
Such shadows come in sleep; thy Father even
Hath had his visions, and I too have mine;
But be of comfort since thou art my Son,
For he who hover'd o'er thee in thy dream
Is impotent against the strength of gods.
Haunter is he of this sad nether sphere,
And on the little life of bird and beast,
And on the life of flowers and falling leaves,
His breath comes chill, but to the Shapes divine
He is as wind that bloweth afar below
The silence of the peaks.’

Ev'n as she spake,
On her bright Balder gazed not, but with eyes
Fix'd as in fascination, cried aloud
‘Look! look!’—and pointed.

Close to that bright spot
Whereon they stood in the full flame of day,
The forest open'd, flashing green and gold,
Sparkling with quick and rapturous thrill of leaves
And rainbow-flush of flowers. Upon a bough
That reach'd its heavy-laden emerald arm
Into the summer light beyond the shade,
There clung, with panting breast and fluttering wings,
A trembling ringdove whose soft iris'd eyes
Were fix'd like Balder's on some shape of dread
Just visible in the shadow, lying low
Under the scented umbrage of the wood.
A Form, yet indistinct as the green sheen;
A Face, yet featureless; a head with eyes
Now faint as drops of dew, now strangely bright
As lustrous gems. Crouch'd on the under-grass,
It watch'd in serpent fashion every thrill
Of that bright bird; while all around, the air
Was mad and merry with the summer song
Of choirs that sat alive on leafy boughs,
Singing aloud!

Then came a hush, wherein
Every faint pulse of life in those great woods
Was heard to beat; and then the fated bird
Cooing and quivering fluttered from the bough,
And 'mid the summer sheen beyond the shade,
With one last dying tremor of the wings,
Lay stricken still. . . . Among the darkening leaves
There was a stir, as creeping thro' the gloom,
Scarce visible, fixing eyes on that dead dove,
Forth from his lair the form began to crawl.
And Balder sicken'd, and his sense grew cold.
But with a queenly gesture Frea rose,
And pointed with her white imperious hand
Into the forest. Suddenly the shape
Was 'ware of that pale goddess and her son
More beauteous and insufferably bright.
A moment in the dimness of his lair
He paused, uprearing, as in act to spring,
A head half human, with a serpent's eyes;
Then, conscious of some presence that he feared,
All swift and silent, like a startled snake,
He faded back into the shadowy woods.