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II. The Light on the Snow.

O Death, Death, press thy hand so lean and bare
Upon thy beating heart!
O Death, raise up thy head and scent the air
With nostrils cold apart!
Awaken from thy trance, O Death, and rise,
And hearken with thine ears! . . .
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Death stirs, and like a snake with glistening eyes
His luminous head uprears. . . .
Awaken! listen! Far across the night,
And down the drifts of snow,
There stirs a lonely light,—a blood-red light
That moveth to and fro.
Sniall as a drop of dew, most dim to sight,
It glimmereth afar. . . .
O Death, it cometh hither,—growing bright
And luminous as a star.
O Death, pale Death,
What do thine eyes behold?
What lonely star flasheth afar
Across the wintry wold?
The world is folded in its shroud of white;
The skies are smother'd deep;
There is no lamp at all in heaven, to light
Death Balder's sleep.
There is no lamp at Balder's head, no star
Outlooking from the cloud;
White is the snow-drift woven near and far,
And white is Balder's shroud.
O death, pale Death, across the lone white land
No heavenly rays are shed,—
Yet still thou-gazest, clutching Balder's hand,
At yonder gleam blood-red. . . .
It crawleth as a snail along the ground,
Still far and faint to see,
O Death, it creepeth surely, with no sound,
Across the night, to thee.
O gentle Death,
Why dost thou crouch so low?
A star it seems, a star that travelleth
From snow to snow.
Nearer it cometh, and across the night
Its beams fall crimson red,
The drifts beneath it glimmer and grow bright
Like cheeks lamp-lit and dead.
O gentle Death,
Hither it cometh slow;—
A Shadow creepeth with the same, O Death
From snow to snow.
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