Classic Poem

To punish them, though damned, in whom the light
Of heavenly counsel scarce displaced the dark
Of human ignorance, the rod is slight,
The penalty not extreme. This, to their gain,
Found the gigantic children of the north
In the dim house of Hela entertained
More like death's guests than victims, though at best
With dreary cheer. Their empire, dark and wild,
But not from Pandemonium less remote
Than Paradise, in the uttermost bleak sides
Of that deep region, stands, replete with fear
And howling dangers, but unvexed by fire.
Here pallid heroes act again their deeds
Rehearsed in runes, and emulate the fame
Of the bright Asar, and their state by bards
Imagined, in great Asgard, seat of gods,
Or frozen Utgard, territory wide
Of giants mountain-tall, and strong as winds.
Here Nastrond's snaky marsh, whose waves freeze black,
And thaw in blood, spreads under curdling mists;
Where base and coward lie, forever scared,
For punishment, with terrors ever new.
For the less monstrous, frowning Helheim stands,
Within whose icy halls the dead guests sit,
Unmoved, and mute through noiseless age on age.
But in more temperate air Vingolfa's bower
Shelters the tall blue-eyed, and flowers; both fair,
But without bloom; and Trudvang here in-walls
A space wide for a realm: as high up piled,
Valaskialf rises, roofed with blazing shields,
That spread a golden blush upon the clouds
Hovering on earth's near confines in the north,
And from beneath, like sinking Titan, light
A skiey arc above; so vast it towers
O'er deep Valhalla and its seated throng
Of godlike tenants: and the dome resounds
With fierce festivity and iron din.
Here, with the Asar and Asynior, sit
The Einherier, and Valkyrior virgin-eyed,
Who each her chosen warrior—wooed a-field—
Binds to her breast, with golden tresses wound,
And pure-lipped kisses, for the only love
Of glory, yields: The Beserker, who scorn
Armor, and armed, contemning coward herds
Hid under shields, and crippling from afar
The fair athletic limb with treacherous dint
Of foreign substance, hardened wood or steel—
Crouch naked and apart, and tear their food
Untouched by fire, and drain the brimfull skulls
Of giants, while their insolent wild scorn
For Odin's self, and for the thunderer Thor,
The danger of his hammer scarce restrains.
Beneath the board huge wolves, like house dogs, slink,
Whose hunger glares, alike, on feast and guests;
And haunting ravens flit above, with song
Dissonant; or the dusky favorites perch,
And wing the foodfull hand imbrued with war.
Then rise the throng with frowns, who late like friends
Sat side by side, and spoke each other's praise,
And to the field rush stormful; where each day
The Valkyrior choose the brave, and to the rest
Leave widowhood. Yet oft to him that falls
Comes the impartial maid, as when at first
She marked his red cheek in the pallid field:
Who as he fell—stooping with arms dispread
Under her smiling locks of shadowy gold
Down from her checked, ethereal, snowy steed—
Beheld her, and forgot defeat and shame;
Nor heard the taunts of his too numerous foe
The dying warrior, on whom Glory's self,
Incarnate, seemed to smile, and bend her rays.
Now, on his broad-winged sandals, to this bourne
Of souls heroic, Perseus, from the bow
Of their great purpose sent who ruled his speed,
Came like an arrow; nor once paused in all
His spacious flight, till far pursued, as when
A ship from the equatorial—through half
The heavenly—circle, down the polar sky
Sails till she hits the impenetrable cold.
At length his swift feet stayed upon the edge
Of the steep gulf Gingungagap, that yawns
From shore to shore, as wide as that which laves
Swart Afric's forehead, and the pillared feet
Of Europe, her pale sister, on each hand.
No element, however, that which parts
Bleak Niffelheim from Muspelheim contained,
For oared or wafted way, with transport large,
Like that which from old Carthage to the wall
Of Roman empire, and to Afric back,
Defeating and defeated nations bore;
But in its stead a void and dismal depth,
Whose dumb abyss afflicted more the ear
Than that when roars, with side-redoubled sound,
The inwashing sea 'gainst Calpe's windy stroke.
No other means of passage here appeared,
Than a faint rainbow, that, by what dim light
Strays hither from the earth, upon an arch
Of mist, foundationless, stands built, and spans
The dreadful space. Still he who boldly treads
Will find it firm, but with one fear he sinks
Into the steep vacuity, unstayed
By foot or grasping hand. Let him who knows
What glory is, bethink him if his feet
Have not o'erpassed this bridge, in Sagas called
Bifrost, that leads to the abode of gods.
O'er this, as on a solid arc of rock,
Or mortised timber firm, undaunted strode
The mighty courier; and before him found,
Upon the farther coast, a barrier huge
Of icy mountains, upon either side
Stretched like a sheer precipitous wall, whose top
Rose inaccessible to sight. But he
Like wind or flame, aloft, unbaffled, sprang;
And, like an eagle on a mountain's side,
Upright ascended, with ethereal step
Scaling the dizzy steep: availed him then
The wingèd gift compelled, for their one eye
And single tooth, from Ceto's hoary brood.
Now on the breathless peak he stood, and cast
On all sides round his armèd image down,
That from the icy cliffs gleamed out infract.
And far across a plain, and o'er wide seas,
And deep-sunk vales in which the glassy mist
Stood undistinguishable from lake or sea,
In the inferior horizon, he beheld
The top of huge Valaskialf and the tower
Of godlike Odin; that, far-off, appeared
A natural mountain, overshaped by art.
Soon on that side, precipitant, like a star,
Or meteor, he fell from peak to peak
Just touched with winged and scarce alighting feet,
And reached the level vale; through which so swift
Half ran, half flew the wing-dight, glorious child
Of golden Jove, the mist on the cold air
Blown from his nostrils—and that half concealed
His burnished armor, and the nymph's clear gift,
The sun-forged helm whose day-like beams could make
Invisible whoever wore it, at his will—
Behind him shone in the clear ether, stained
By his irradiant voyage, like the wake
Of a swift orient ship when it seems one
With that of the great sun, that sinks astern.
At length Valaskialf's gates and solemn porch
Stood wide and deep before him, only kept
By Cerbèrean Fenris, who, too late,
Uproused his gaunt and monstrous corpse to bay
The foreign step. Before the snaky head
By the intruding Gorgophont displayed,
Fixed stood the stony glare in his wide eyes,
The huge portcullis of his craggy jaw
Stood open, and the warning howl, unheard,
Still swelled his rigid throat. So on he passed
And in Valhalla at the banquet stood
Unseen, beneath the wondrous helm, by eye
Of any god; who wondered not the less
At the fixed stare, and long, affrighted howl
Of spectral ban-wolf, and the ominous croak
Of wheeling ravens, with the instant scream
Of joyful vultures from their bannered perch
Along the wall. Then runic Bragur, moved
With frenzied portent, loosed his robes and hair,
And to his shrieking harp loud raved the song
Of Ragnarok, oft heard in Odin's hall
With imitative din. Profuse of death
The rune, sung with a battle's sound, and shrill
With desolation, fit to please the ear
Of dreaming horror: and its theme the great
And final war in which all gods and men,
And beasts, and giants join; till in the end
The gloomy Surtur from the heart of night,
To their destruction by Alfader doomed,
Leaps, armed with flames, and burns the day's clear light,
And stars, and sun, and earth and heaven away.
Came to the fearful strain as fearful pause,
And, at the moment, the all-golden child
Of Danäe from his mystery flashed out
Upon their wonder; fair as Mars he towered,
Thus godlike tall, and terrible in arms.
Amazed the winking giants sat, and scarce
The clear sheen of his complete mail could bear,
And dazzling, sunny crest; each, meantime, drew
The breath through his stretched nostrils back
Into his breast, distended with affright;
Irresolute all, if they at once should fall
And worship, or strike dead the intruding guest:
Who spake—well guarded between sight and sound,
Bright apparition and smooth speech, to leave
No interval. “I come to lead you, gods,
To Ragnarok: no more the mimic war
Ye need to wage; now real danger sounds
To utterance of conflict, and the last
Occasion now of glorious strife, soon past,
Trumpets the universe to arms. The field
Awaits you where the Jötuns join their powers
Against our race, and Surtur sits aloof,
But doubt not shall avenge us, when the blow
Of God Alfader breaks the chain of fate.”
At this, like magic scene, throughout the hall,
At once, the crowded banquet to a host
Of warriors turned. He from his side forth drew
His adamantine sword, a beam of day
Tempered in deepest night, and waved them forth:
And from the towered and ample port, whose height
They threatened with their stature, crowd on crowd,
In thousands on thousands, rolled, as from a bay
Returning, when, at once, the land wind blows
And tide makes out, the many-murmured sea
Gluts through a gulf, pressed by the storm behind.

A smoother way, though in attempt and aim
Of equal enterprise, the wandering chief
Of Saïs found, than tasked the bright and swift
Son of the golden rape; yet passed a wide,
Abrupt, and dismal interval of life
In man, or plant, or reptile, which itself
Had seemed fraternal in that total death,
And solitude without an eremite
To feel it solitary. On he fared
O'er plains like great Sahara, only marked
And measured by the sky, but more immense
And sea-like smooth and drear; and seas o'erpassed
Like that which rots without a breaking wave
Upon its desert shore, and spreads above
Ingulfed Pentapolis, but rolls not out,
Nor in, at all her gates; with patient feet
Ascended mountains self-revealed, whose tops
Burned, from their base, like stars at distant heights
In the immense of gloom; then under earth,
Through caverns within caverns wound his way
In close ravines, across the gloomy roar
Of subterranean waters, and deep gulfs
That yawned immeasurable; his only guide
Down these sunk mountains, and inverted heights,
The star that crowned his forehead, and inwove
His sable locks with gold, and flushed his eyes,
Replete with eager fire. At length emerged
Into an ample region in the main
And common cavern of that lower world,
He sees what distant seemed like hills, and rocks
That fragmentary lie, confusedly heaped
Where left by some great deluge or of sea
Or sliding earth, with thundering glaciers borne
From higher regions, and whose awful shapes
Hint of old worship, fabling to the eye
As if for sacrifice by giants piled.
Instant he lingered,—and breathed, half aloud,
The Titans! but none moved; some on the arm
Leaned far, with head depressed, or raised; some lay
Recumbent, and half buried, where the soil
Had grown around them and the frequent rain
Of fire and ashes strown the unmoving bulk,
Incrusted, that it almost seemed a mound
Grotesque with human shape. With noiseless awe
The ambassador advanced, as if to rouse
Them loth, though for that purpose sought;
And, nearer now, the bright surmounting star,
That lamped his wondering eyes and wary feet,
Bronzed with its light archaic, wondrous shapes,
Things fabulous-vast and rude, that nature seemed
Striving itself to art, in head or group
Of half formed sculpture struggling from the rock,
Or art Memnonian, to nature turned
In gradual process, broken and deformed
Under the noiseless hammer of strong Time:
These, near, with human shadows broke his gleam;
And others, in the distance, half revealed,
Lay undefined, like fragments of the night
With which the path of morning is forewrit.
None looked, or turned, or deigned to mark who came
With unaccustomed light; nor might his look
Have awed them into audience if seen,
Though, as he stood to gaze, his measure seemed
A cedar's shadow in the evening sun.
But soon thus proemed his Egyptian tongue:
“O wonder never raised by gods or men!
And see I then the more than men or gods,
Of that old world the citizens, here doomed
To this inert yet glorious rest of power
Deemed dangerous to Destiny itself?
The creatures of a greater time, and doom
Proportioned! less than your once selves, yet oh,
How greater than the greatest of our world!
I from the later born of our one race,
And common mother, Earth, have hither sped
Ambassador, in their need against the power
Of ruined—not ruling—gods, to seek your aid,
Sought now, rest sure, where Destiny not fears
Your, but for her, omnipotent avail.”
At this Hyperion roused himself, and ope'd
His sunless eyes, assaying sight of whom
He thus bespoke. “Art thou from earth, O voice?
Then tell me if the sun still rolls through heaven:
An age, old with more ages, and I saw him not;
Nor his translucent ray has washed these orbs
With dewy light, and purged their thickening gloom:
And fear has much possessed me that he comes,
'Mid his long journey sunk in age or sleep,
From Ocean's doors no more, nor comes the moon,
That in his shadow walks, nor banded stars.”
“I come not from the earth,” the voice returned,
“Yet doubt not that her green demesne is still
The journey of the sun,—but from the heart
Of this Tartarean deep, where gods with men,
Or gods with gods more truly, wage once more
The ancient war: but weaker now the foe,
We stronger far; yet not too strong to ask
The aid of your great potency—for right.
We also for a fallen Saturn fight,
And his old cause, against revolted sons;
Whom, for more shame, he finds in his defeat
Unfaithful; though his first dethronement found,
With that Hesperian Saturn, no sweet isle
Beyond the ocean, where soft nymphs support
His hoary head, loosed from its golden load,
And bed him in their bosoms, in his ear
Whispering the while old tales that make him dream
Himself still master of the earth and air.”
This heard Prometheus, where he lay supreme
Upon his rock, from which a tree, of those
Unsightly roots that rude and sparsely grow,
But never verdurous, in that clime, had forced
Its tough gnarled bole and split the stone;
As if from his indomitable life,
One nature in the rock and him, it grew,
Fed by the excess and bounty of his strength.
And thus he spake, but took no greater heed
Of any presence there, than if the voice
Had fallen from the air, or out of heaven.
“Who speaks of war to us! who have subdued
All strength in armies lodged, or single arm,
Omnipotence himself have dared, and chained
With his own chain—these bands that bind us fast;
And by existence here in this dark pit
And closet of the earth, still check his power,
Limit his infinite, and imprison Jove
In his imperial domain. To act—
Strong should he be who acts, or weak, advanced,
Or overthrown—is weakness, and shows need.
But he is strong who with Omnipotence
Or wills without constraint, or else defies,—
And I defy. Then let the eternal power
That knits the universe with his strength, and feels
It through, and wields it as one moves his limbs,
Hurl himself on me, I stir not this arm,
Yet in the end shall conquer: let him break
His aggregated thunders, storm on storm,
Through deafened ages, till he lose, at last,
The reckoning of his blows, it is to me
But one concussion, heard, not felt, or felt,
Unpained; for I am all one thought, one will,
And that is to defy.” He spake, like one
Silent thenceforth, and all the Titans groaned
A stern response, as at the skiey fall
Of region-thunder neighbored mountains raise
A deep and sullen clamor, long prolonged.
Yet the sage emissary to despair
Gave not his purpose, but inspired to act,
Unconscious whence the courage came or thought
For such adventure, instantly advanced
To the great atheist, and with his staff
Caducean, charmed, unlinked his chain, and freed
The sleeping force of sinewy neck and limb.
Awhile with the strange motion of free power,
Restored from so long lapse that it seemed given,
And passionate incipience of thought
As to what might proceed of