Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Baldur (the son of Odin, and the deified idea of Virtue and of Love) dreams that he shall die by an instrument of Nature. But the Gods of Walhalla impose an oath on all things in Heaven and upon Earth, which binds them never to injure his sacred person. All things are pledged, save only the sprouting Mistletoe, which Hertha (the spouse of Odin, and Mother to Baldur) hath contemptuously passed by. Lok (the Evil-Spirit) shapes it into a dart, and with subtle speech persuades Höder (brother to Baldur) to hurl the fatal weapon, and to effect the death of the most beloved among the Gods of Asgard.

The Myth of Baldur (says the Swedish Historian) represents the general dissolution of all things, as a consequence of the first God's death—the Death of Virtue and of Loveliness in the world.

I

My heart is sad, with heaviest care opprest,
My ardent soul is quenched by Sorrow now,
The life-spark glimmers feebly in my breast,
The dews of Death are gathering on my brow;—
Yet come my Harp—too long neglected, Thou!
Whose voice hath soothed me many a time before:
What! though my touch no longer can endow
The song with Inspiration!—yet once more
I would into thy own my soul's deep anguish pour.

II

Here let me sit amongst sequestered bowers
And, unmolested, tune my passionate lay;
Here, in these wilds where Solitude with flowers
Twines votive garlands for the brow of May;
To Her will I complain the livelong day,
Until she hearken to the boon I crave,
And those sweet wreaths, she twines so fresh and gay,

Shall be transferred from Beauty to the Brave,
And offerings culled for Spring shall hang on Baldur's grave.

III

The Warblers of the grove shall list my song,
Nor strive to imitate the plaintive tone;
Silent they sit, a melancholy throng!
To mourn a voice more joyous than their own:
Ah! not the music of his voice alone
But his sweet melody of Thought, which fed
Our minds with purest harmony, is flown:
Love, Hope, and Truth, and Charity lie dead—
The stream will cease to flow when dry the fountain-head.

IV

No more Walhalla's thousand joys beguile
The flagging hours, nor cheat the soul with bliss:
The very Land, dismantled of her smile,
Lies dark and cold in her great heaviness:
Even as the setting Sun is wont to dress
The cloud in borrowed radiance, which must die
When he withdraws—so Baldur's loveliness
Did beautify our Home, which now doth lie
A drear and desolate spot upon the darkened sky!

V

He stole upon my senses like a Dream
Peopled with happy thoughts—serene and mild!
More beautiful a vision ne'er, I deem,
Lit the touched features of the slumbering child!
Then—the vexed waking, strange, confused and wild—
Harsh voices grating on the startled ear:
Lo! the fair image all in ruins piled,
Which never more its beauteous form may rear,
But Memory yet shall bid the mimic show appear.

VI

Once more, once more, he steals upon my sight,
But faint and indistinct the vision glows,
Like new-born Spring which creeps into the light
But half-revealed—an undeveloped rose:
More palpable the form of Beauty grows,
The winds have caught the cloud which o'er him lowers,
The mists dissolving all his charms disclose:
He comes, He comes along the vale—the flowers
Beneath his footsteps spring, and grace the happy bowers.

VII

Even so in life he walked blest Asgard's grove,
A gentle Being, magically fair,
And little deemed the fatal Sisters wove
For him the meshy web of black despair;
But in his slumbers, through the midnight air,
Dread Hela's voice struck wildly on his ear,
And storms swept past, until his troubled hair
Stirred with his dreams, and his frame shook with fear,
As through the gloom was borne his own blood-spotted bier.

VIII

Then soon, where raised upon his glittering throne
Great Odin sits beneath the roof of gold,
Beside the sire reclined the gentle son,
And in a soft lament his vision told;—
Uprose the King of Gods, and frantic rolled
The glowing orbs of his majestic eyes,
As with a mighty voice he bade unfold
Walhalla's doors, and summoned all the skies,
In general synod met, their counsel to advise.

IX

And thus did they decree—“In every sphere
All Nature, Nature animate and dead,
Shall swear an oath our Baldur to revere,
And guard the sacred honours of his head.”
Then far and wide the Gods immediate fled
From all Creation to exact the vow,
And to her realm of Earth fair Hertha sped,
She came—she paused—a smile unbent her brow:
So passed she on and left unpledged the fatal bough!

X

The hawk's glance keenly sweeps along the sky:
Perchance the bramble screens the wily snake:
But through all space pierces the Evil eye,
And crafty Malice lurks 'neath every brake—
Lok, from his covert ambush, stole to take
The leafy prize, while she her Heavenly flight,
Unconscious, winged—and sought him for whose sake
She left her home: cheered by the hopeful sight,
He, happy, smiled, and all forgot the dreams of night.

XI

Oh! blest Forgetfulness! the passions swoon,
And fret no more the heart possessed by thee,
Thou, like a cloud spreading athwart the noon,
Veilest the burning sun of Memory;
And on the heart which droopeth heavily
(Welcome as Evening to the sun-parched rose)
Sheddest the dews of soothing Melancholy,
Till, wrapped in sweet oblivion of all woes,
It rests beneath thy shadow in profound repose.

XII

The Shepherd sleeps beneath the branching tree,
While upon high the storm is gathering;
The bird pours forth its carol blithe and free,
While o'er its head the hawk is hovering;
From Baldur's breast Terror had taken wing,
The memories of his dream had died away,
And Peace arose, upon his path to fling
Her thousand sweets, all redolent of May—
Then burst the storm: then stooped the treacherous bird of prey!

XIII

Thou cursed and envious Spirit!—Oh how foul
Smells the rank deed by treacherous Malice done!
“The falcon hawked at by the mousing owl,”
Virtue by Vice hurled headlong from her throne!
Now to the rocks fast-fettered thou dost groan,
While the fell snake distils his venom slow:
Thus for thy damning crimes shalt thou atone,
Who urged a brother's hand to deal the blow
Which crushed the voice of Truth, and laid Love's image low.

XIV

I stood beside his gentle corse, and wept:
The amorous wind was stirring round his head,
And o'er his brow and lifeless features crept,
As seeking for the Spirit which had fled!
Then heard I a soft voice which moaned and said,
“Virtue hath fallen from the desolate sky!
“The wise, the good, the beautiful is dead!
“Life bound us in one common bond—Oh why
“Should Death tear us asunder?—with him let me die!”

XV

She pressed his bloodless lips unto her own,
She brooked few words of solace or relief,
But with an ever low, continuous moan,
O'er her dead hopes she poured the dirge of grief:
And her frame quivered like an aspen-leaf
Ere the wind shiver it from off the spray:
And lo! a little while—such pangs are brief—
By the snapped rose, the broken lily lay:
Twined in the arms of Death, how beautiful were they!

XVI

The stars of Heaven had faded from their place,
None left of all the many twinkling throng!
The pale Moon hid her melancholy face,
No more did beauty to the Night belong;
The Nightingale forgot to tune her song,
Hushed were the waters of the billowy Ocean,
And, as the hours crept noiselessly along,
Silence whose eloquence, in mute devotion,
Transcends the voice of grief, spake Nature's deep emotion.

XVII

Great Nature, inconsolable, laments:
And like some maiden whose dishevelled hair,
In her great grief, sweeps o'er her lineaments,
Her loveliness is veiled in her despair;
Yet vainly doth she weep, since nought may tear
Our Baldur from dread Mistheim's fetid womb,
Till Time, progressive, all things shall prepare,
And God, the Everlasting, through the gloom
Shall lift his voice and speak the universal doom.

XVIII

Behold! even now 'tis here—round Hydrazil
The winds lie stagnant, yet its branches wave:
The portents are displayed, all things fulfil
Their end—ere long we drop into the grave;
My song hath ceased, yet this last boon I crave,
Since Baldur lives when I no more shall be,
May the kind echoes of some listening cave,
Surviving, say, “His latest melody
“Was dedicate to Love, to Virtue, and to Thee!”

XIX

'Tis done—all Nature groans and cries, 'tis done!
The trumpet sounds, the signal peal is given:
Marred at one potent stroke, the glorious Sun
Shapeless and black and blasted falls from Heaven;
Athwart the gloom the storms of Hel are driven,
The Royal Eagle screams in his distress:
The flames leap up, the seared skies are riven,
The fiery serpents all around me hiss,
The Gulf yawns wide—I sink through the immense abyss!

Epilogue.

Entranced, I heard this song; with sudden shock
I woke, and saw the Moon's pale, placid beam
Looking upon me, as it were to mock
The turbulence of thought that closed my dream;
And long I pondered on the stirring theme,
The fabric of an idol-faith forsooth!
Yet fanciful and lofty: nay, I deem,
Albeit Error heaped with hand uncouth
The shapeless Pile, She built upon the rock of Truth.

Virtue's sweet voice attunes the human soul,
Like a stringed lyre, to exquisite melody:
Her voice, where Life's tempestuous waters roll,
Whispers from Heaven to still the raging sea;
Shall then her Music fail? oh, can it be!
Heaven-born and Heaven-directed, She we know,
Her task fulfilled, shall wing by God's decree
Her Heavenly flight, and leave the world below,
No more by Her illumed, to darkness and to woe!

She to her Father's bosom shall return,
And, when at last the mighty Trump doth sound,
There, like a star, immortal will she burn,
The beauty of her radiance raying round;
Where Faith shrinks back, Error o'erleaps the bound
Of human prescience fixed by God's just laws,
And many a joy, with boldest license crowned,
She from Imagination vainly draws
To picture Heaven. Frail Fancy! know thyself—and pause!

Hela, the Goddess of Death.

Nanna, the spouse of Baldur, perished broken-hearted at his death.

The abode of the Goddess of Death.

The great Ash-tree on which the world was hung.

He was to rise and reign in Gimli, the new Heaven.

The Royal Eagle, which perched upon the throne of Odin.