The Complete Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan :: :: University of Virginia Library

Far in the night
She had led Balder,—o'er the darken'd dales,
And by the silence of black mountain tarns,
And thro' the slumber of primæval woods,—
Till she had come unto an open plain
Cover'd with ragged heath and strewn with stones
As with the broken fragments of some world
Upheaven, rent by earthquake. And the waste
All round was lonely and illimitable,
A tract of stone and heath without a tree,

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Save where against the blood-red northern sky
A mountain like the great white hand of Earth
Pointed at highest heaven. Far out beyond
The shadow of the snowy mountain, rose
Columns gigantic of red granite rock
Scarr'd with the tempest, hung with slimy moss,
And looming in the cold and spectral light
Like living shapes of gods; and some by storm
Were cast upon the ground and lay full length
Like giants slain, but most stood poised on end,
Not tottering, with their shadows wildly cast
Southward, along the sward. High in the midst
Stones fashion'd as an altar were upraised,
And on the altar was a coffin'd space
Wherein a man full-grown might lie his length
And with his pleading eyes upon the stars
Make ready for the sacrificial knife.

‘Look!’ Ydun said; and Balder look'd; and saw,
Crouching upon the altar, one that loom'd
Like to a living shape. And Ydun said,
‘That is thy Father's altar, and thereon
Blood-offering brighter than the life of lambs
Is scatter'd by his priests; at sunset here
A virgin died, and all the desert air
Is sweeter for her breath; and those black birds
That hover o'er the altar moaning low
Are hungry to come near her and to feed,—
But he who lieth yonder hath not fed
His own immortal hunger. There he broods
Still as a star above her, with one hand
Placed on her lifeless breast!’

Then Balder felt
His godhead shrink within him like a flame
A cold wind bloweth, and for pity's sake
His eyes divine were dim; but, creeping close,
Within the shadow of a shatter'd column,
He gazed and gazed. And lo, the sight he saw
Was full of sorrow only eyes divine
Could see and bear. Upon the altar-stone
Lay stretchëd naked and most marble white
That gentle virgin, with the slayer's mark
Across her throat, her red mouth open wide,
And two great sightless orbs upraised to heaven,
And he who clung unto her, like a hawk
With wings outstretch'd, and dim dilated eyes
Feeding upon the sorrow of her face,
Was he whom Balder o'er the world had sought
And had not found. Ne'er yet, by sea or shore,
Not ev'n within the silence of the woods
When his sad eyes beheld him first of old,
Had Balder to that spirit terrible
E'er crept so nigh or seen its shape so well.
Shadow it seem'd, and yet corporeal,
But thro' the filmy substance of its frame
The blood-red light of midnight penetrated;
And dreadfully with dreadful loveliness
The features changed their shining lineaments,
Now lamb-like, wolf-like now, now like a maid's
Scarce blossom'd, now deep-wrinkled like a man's,
Now beautiful and awful like a god's,—
But never true to each similitude
Longer than one quick heart-beat.

Thus it hung,
So fascinated by the form it watch'd,
It saw not, heard not, stirr'd not, though the birds
Shriek'd wildly overhead. Ev'n as one cast
Into a trance mesmeric, it prolong'd
The famine of its gaze until its face
Was fixëd as a star. Then Ydun crept
Close unto Balder, whispering, ‘Remember
That rune I read thee! touch him in his trance,
And name him by his mystic human name,
And as I live his lips shall answer thee
In human speech!’ So speaking, Ydun smiled
And vanish'd, leaving Balder all alone
To look and watch and wait. . . .

. . . Then on his soul,
Beholding that great trance of Death, there came

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Most fatal fascination. For a space
He could not stir. Upon the sacred grove
Lay darkness; only on the altar stone
The naked victim glimmer'd beautiful,
And terrible above her linger'd Death;—
When suddenly beyond the snow-white peak
Rose round and luminous and yellow as gold
The full-orb'd moon; by slow degrees its beams
Stole down the shrouded mountains, till they fell
Prone on the altar, turning all things there
To brightness:—so that Death himself was changed
From purple into silvern;—that dead maid
To silvern too from marble;—the great grove,
With all the columns looming black therein,
New-lit with lunar dawn. Then as the light
Touch'd and illumed him, for a moment Death
Stirr'd, ev'n as one that stirreth from a sleep,
And trembled, looking upward; and behold!
His face grew beautiful thro' golden hair,
His eyes dim heavenly blue, and all his looks
Strange and divinely young! . . .

. . . Then, ere that trance
Was wholly shaken from him, Balder rose,
And crept unto the altar with no sound;
And ere the shape could stir or utter cry,
He clutch'd him with one quick and eager hand;
And tho' his hand was frozen as it touch'd,
Ere Death could fly he gazed into his eyes
And named him by his mystic human name.
. . . And Death gazed back with looks so terrible,
They would have wither'd any living man;
But Balder only smiled and wove his rune,—
And in a little space the shape was charm'd,
Looking and listening in a nameless fear.