University of Virginia Library

III. PART III.

II.

Long time the Sea-King tranced lay,
Till starting up as from a rapturous dream,
“And she, alas! hath fled,”
Ragnar bewildered said;
“And with that strange unearthly scream,
Swift as the sun's departing beam
Hath vanished away.”
And, as he spake he gazed around,
And on his wondering sight,
Burst a bright flood of light;
And on his ear there broke a tide of mingled sound.

III

Then through his doubting soul,
Strange thoughts, and speculations roll,
When glancing back on his past history;
And to his inward eye
Appear again the raging sea,
The ship, the men, their destiny,
That man of wonder, and the threatening sky.
And then the Maël-Strom and his passage down;
The dreadful waters whirling high;
Their fearful frown;
And his own gradual stupor; and the cry
That roused him from it;—to his inward sense
Were vividly revealed, as with a light intense.

IV.

“And am I then a spirit?” Ragnar said,
“And did I hear that oft repeated cry?
Thrice happy thus, if numbered with the dead,
I may behold, with an unclouded eye,
That beauteous spirit ever hovering nigh.”
Farewell ye smiling scenes; thou pictured earth;
My faithful warriors; region of my birth;—
All, all that once was dear I could forego,
If to be near her were my happy lot:
Come pain, or pleasure, happiness or woe,
Her presence is my bliss,—it matters not.”
He said, and gazing once again around,
There burst again upon his dazzled sight,
That glorious, and transcendent light,
And once again his ear drank in that liquid sound.

V.

Never before had human vision seen
Such bright unmingled splendour, as the scene
Which Ragnar gazed upon presented to his view.
Not like your paltry palaces of wood
That glorious fabric stood;—
Far, far above him there was reared
A lofty ceiling, that appeared
A roof of silver, glittering, bright, and sheen;
Reflecting beams of light,
Upon the wondering sight,
In such continued and resplendent streams,
That the fair queen of night,
And sun more glorious, and more bright,
Would in that fabric hide their darkened beams,
Lost in transcendent light.

VI.

From blazing basements all of burnished gold,
Thin spiral shafts of inwrought gems arise:
What rich devices rare and old
Break on the Sea-King's feeble eyes!
The wond'rous capitals defy his gaze,
And pour a stream of ever varying rays.
The bright entablature, the cornice gay,
Bask in the beams of one eternal day.
The erubescent garnet, there is seen,
The azure sapphire, and the jasper green;
The yellow topaz, with its golden glare,
And purple amethyst, all beaming there.
But from the lucent roof, the pendant lights
Diffused a radiance glorious to behold;
Revealing strange unwonted sights
Which never could be told.—
Those lights, no earthly power could raise;
No earthly power could quench their blaze!

VII.

“Where am I then?” at last the Sea-King said,
“And if the boiling waters with their gloom
Ushered me from the living to the dead,—
This is my tomb!
Where then if it be even so
Are all death's terrors, and the land of woe?
Perchance this is Valhallah? and yet here
No feasting heroes, no bright arms appear.—
Ye Gods where am I? hath my spirit fled,
Or am I yet unnumbered with the dead?”
He spoke; and shortly all around
Seemed animate with music; and a sound
As of ten thousand choral voices chaunting near
Broke on his listening ear;
Anon, the ambient air
Throbb'd with a thrill of music, while he grew
Faint with excess of rapture; and his view
Presented to his mind a thousand figures fair,
That seemed to flit before his dazzled eye,
Chaunting this song, to their sweet melody.

THE SONG.

XII.

Just as this song died on the listening ear,
There came a mighty rushing sound
Drawing nearer and more near;
Until at last the golden gates
Of that fair submarine palace open stood;
And then that bright and gorgeous light
Became extinguished; and the deepest night
Wrapt all the hall around.
Ragnar started to his feet
Prepared his coming fate to meet,
When on his wondering sight
Burst the red and glaring light:—
And he beheld the roaring sea
Flinging at him its foaming spray,
And dashing round the gates impatiently,
Like a fierce monster gloating o'er its prey.

XIII.

And while that red and boding light advanced,
And on the angry waters glanced,
The doors self-moving closed again,—
For ever shutting out the raging main.
And as the light approached, Ragnar beheld
The aged wanderer of the watery plain;
And he might view
That old man's features, sickly blue,
And of a pale and deathly hue,
When the red glare
Of that mysterious lamp fell on them. And his hair
Seemed like a stream of silver on the wind,
Curling, and floating far behind.

XIV.

At last before the fierce Sea-King he stood.
“Thrice welcome to these halls” he said;
“These halls that lay beneath the surging flood,
Are open to the living and the dead.
Living and dead, have both been here ere now,
Yet none so welcome, brave Sea-King, as thou!
But follow me,—mayhap that I can show
Thy feeble sense, what thou mayest wish to know.”

XV.

He led him on through many a gloomy vault,
Until at length they came
Where twice five thousand steps descended,
And polished marble was their frame:
Above, the flickering flame
Revealed the damp and dripping roof:
It was a reeking rock of darkest gloom,
Against the inroads of the sea scarce proof.
And as they downward wended,
It seemed that they descended
Into the bowels of a yawning tomb;
For damp and noxious steams came through the air,
And hung like halos round the lamp-light's lurid glare.

XVI.

For hours, the two pursued their downward way,
Threading the windings of this vault of night;
When on the startled sense there sprang a light
Issuing from the dreary vaults below,
Like scathing lightning, blue and bright
Upstarting from the world of woe.

XVII.

Now the last step they reach, and now they tread
The echoing pavement of the marble floor.
The Sea-King starts, oh sight of dread!
Oh sight of horror, and of woe!
A thousand skeletons of human dead
Stand in a ghastly row:
Each side as far as eye can reach they stand,
The red torch glaring in their fleshless hand!
“What meaneth this?” the Sea-King cried,
“O heed them not” the old man said,
“These harmless stand on either side,
And wait upon the mighty dead.
Between these lifeless ranks we go
To reach the vaults that lie below.”

XVIII.

And so they passed between those ghastly ranks;
It was a hideous sight
To see the red and glaring light
Dancing upon their naked bones,
All bleached, and bare, and bright!
But still they onward pass'd
Towards the vaults beneath;
And suddenly, there came a cold and chilling blast,
Which met them like the noxious breath,
Sent from the humid lungs of death,
To poison those on whom it may be cast.
On,—on,—and ever on they go,—
Until at last
The farthest of the skeletons is past,
And they descend into the vaults below.

XIX.

The glaring light was but a spark
In that vast chamber, that tremendous tomb;
The space just round it was illumed,
But all beside was dark,
A vast, a limitless expanse of gloom.
Above, could nought be seen, but a thick air
Hung like a funeral mantle there;
And all around
Was inessential night,
A weary void unto the sight
A dreary dark profound.
Still on they went, until at last
They came unto a door, well barred and fast.

XX.

The old man drew the bolt,—a lofty dome
Brighter than jasper, blazed upon the dazzled sight.
The vaulted arches rang
To Ragnar's martial clang:—
And from the roof there hung a silver light,
That shed soft beams
In silent streams
For ever burning bright.
But the place was chill and cold, and the busy air
Swept through the vault with a doleful sound;
And ever, as he wondering gazed around,
Ragnar beheld the steady glare
Of the lamp, reflected in the shining niches there.

XXI.

It was a wondrous place I ween;
And the roof, and floor, and walls, were sparkling sheen.
Not brighter blaze the fields
Of those renowned and golden shields
That hang in Asgard's ever glistening halls,
Than, burst upon the sight
With a clear crystalline light
Those icy, lucent, and transparent walls.

XXII.

“What meaneth this?” the hero said,
“I can behold with an unflinching eye
That fearful land, of horror and of dread,
The darksome regions of the ignoble dead,
Where spirits mean, in Hela's palace lie.
And aye uncurtained
Are things of deep and dreadful mystery,
And aye the scroll of destiny
Is by mine eye,—by far too daring, read.”

XXIII.

The old man spake;—“these walls through which are seen
The dreary regions of the poor and mean,
Are formed of purest crystal, by no power
That may exist but for an hour!
Look round thee Ragnar,—say is not thy breath
Tainted with charnel airs, and damps of death?
Where now thou art, this blazing room
Is now,—nay rather was,—the wizard Orvar's tomb.”

XXIV.

“Two hundred years ensepulchred he lay,
Yet was his body free from all decay.
Two hundred years were past,—and he arose
From his deep slumber, and his long repose;
For his spirit had fled
From the house of the dead,
Despite of threats, despite of pains,
Despite of Hela's threefold chains.
For that wondrous wizard knew right well,
A direful and tremendous spell,
Which, were he but to name,
The vap'rous halls of Niflheim fell,
And all in heaven, or earth, or hell
Would be consumed in flame.
He told them this, and they let him go
From that silent land of weary woe.”

XXV.

“His spirit swifter in its flight
Than a beam shot through the depth of night,
Rejoined the body sleeping in this tomb;
Life thus infused,—upon his sight
Burst the clear translucent light
That, quenchless, blazed within this room.
Proudly he gazed around;—
And through the dark profound
Ascended to his ancient halls:—
No foot had in his absence dared to tread
The mansion of the mighty dead;
But, dome, and column, arch and walls,
Were just as when his spirit fled!”

XXVI.

“He yielded up his vital breath,
And trod the path of woe,
And sought the dreary realms of death,—
The dreary realms below,—
That he might add fresh knowledge to his store;
That he might search and know,
The secrets of that hidden shore;
And well, right well were all his toils repaid,
He pondered well those mysteries o'er and o'er
While in the land of shade.”

XXVII.

“He wandered here, he wandered there,
And aye he wandered everywhere;
He sought the ever-blest abodes
Of mighty heroes, and of Gods.”

XXVIII.

“Asgard, Vingolf, and Valhalla,
Each bright inviting, happy bower,
With all the dreary cells below
Were open to his searching eye,
That read their every mystery;
When from the world of woe
Th' obedient Demons let him go,
For aye they knew his might, they feared the wizard's power.

XXIX.

“He knew too of thy coming here,
He sees the fate that hangeth o'er thee;
He gives thee now a welcome cheer,—
For Orvar stands before thee.”
The Sea-King started, “art thou he?”
In troublous accents then he said,
“Who triumphed o'er mortality,
Obeyed by powers of air, and sea,
The living and the dead?”
He straightway answered “I am he.”
“But not for this I brought thee here,
Look round thee Ragnar far and near,—
For now the veil is rent, and thou mayest see
Th' uncurtained picture of futurity!”