Classic Poem

PART IV.

A ghost along the Hell Way sped:
The Hell shoes shod his misty tread;
A phantom hound beside him sped.

Beneath the spandrels of the Way
Worlds rolled to night—from night to day;
In Space's ocean suns were spray.

Grouped worlds, eternal eagles, flew;
Swift comets fell like noiseless dew;
Young earths slow budded in the blue.

The waves of space, inscrutable,
With awful pulses rose and fell,
Silent and godly—terrible.

Electric souls of strong suns laid
Strong hands along the awful shade
That God about His God-work made.

Ever from all ripe worlds did break
Men's voices, as when children speak,
Eager and querulous and weak;

And pierced to the All-worker thro'
His will that veiled Him from the view:
“What hast Thou done? What dost Thou do?”

And ever from His heart did flow,
Majestical, the answer low—
The benison—“Ye shall not know!”

The wan ghost on the Hell Way sped,
Nor yet Valhalla's lights were shed
Upon the white brow of the Dead.

Nor sang within his ears the roll
Of trumpets calling to his soul;
Nor shone wide portals of the goal.

His spear grew heavy on his breast;
Dropped, like a star, his golden crest;
Far, far the vast Halls of the Blest!

His heart grown faint, his feet grown weak,
He scaled the knit mists of a peak
That ever parted grey and bleak,

And, as by unseen talons nipped,
To the deep abysses slowly slipped.
Then, swift as thick smoke strongly ripped

By whirling winds from ashy ring
Of dank weeds blackly smouldering,
The peak sprang upward, quivering;

And, perdurable, set its face
Against the pulsing breast of space.
But for a moment; to its base

Refluent rolled the crest, new sprung,
In clouds with ghastly lightnings stung;
Faint thunders to their black feet clung.

His faithful hound ran at his heel;
His thighs and breast were bright with steel;
He saw the awful Hell Way reel.

But far along its bleak peaks rang
A distant trump—its airy clang
Like light through deathly shadows sprang.

He knew the blast—the voice of love
(Cleft lay the throbbing peak above)
Sailed light, winged like a silver dove.

On strove the toiling ghost, his soul
Stirred like strong mead in wassail bowl
That quivers to the shout of “Skoal!”

Strode from the mist, close-curved and cold
As is a writhing dragon's fold,
A warrior with shield of gold.

A sharp blade glittered at his hip;
Flamed like a star his lance's tip;
His bugle sang at bearded lip.

Beneath his golden sandals flew
Stars from the mist, as grass flings dew,
Or red fruit falls from the dark yew.

As under sheltering wreaths of snow
The dark blue north flowers richly blow,
Beneath long locks of silver glow

Clear eyes that, burning on a host,
Would win a field at sunset lost,
Ere stars from Odin's hand were tost.

He stretched his hand, he bowed his head;
The wan ghost to his bosom sped—
Dead kissed the bearded lips of Dead.

“What dost thou here, my youngest born?
Thou, scarce yet fronted with life's storm,
Why art thou from the dark earth torn?

“When high Valhalla pulsed and rang
With harps that shook as grey bards sang,
'Mid the loud joy I heard the clang

“Of Death's dark doors; to me alone
Smote in thine awful dying groan—
My soul recalled its blood and bone.

“Viewless the cord which draws from far,
To the round sun, some mighty star;
Viewless the strong knit soul cords are.

“I felt thy dying gasp—thy soul
Toward mine a kindred wave in roll;
I left the harps, I left the bowl,

“I sought the Hell Way—I, the blest—
That thou, new death-born son, should rest
Upon the strong rock of my breast.

“What dost thou here, young, fair and bold?
Sleek with youth's gloss thy locks of gold;
Thy years by flowers might yet be told.

“What dost thou at the ghostly goal,
While yet thy years were to thy soul
As mead yet shallow in the bowl?”

His arm about the pale ghost cast,
The warrior blew a clear, loud blast;
Like frightened wolves the mists fled past.

Grew firm the Way; worlds flamed to light
The awful peak that thrust its height
With swift throbs upward; like a flight

Of arrows from a host close set,
Long meteors pierced its breast of jet.
Again the trump his strong lips met,

And, at its blast, blew all the day
In broad winds on the awful Way;
Sun smote at sun across the gray.

As reindeer smite the high-piled snow
To find the green moss far below,
They struck the mists, thro' which did glow

Bright vales; and on a sea afar
Lay, at a sunlit harbour bar,
A galley gold-sailed like a star.

Spake the pale ghost as onward sped,
Heart pressed to heart, the valiant dead
(Soft the green paths beneath their tread):

“I loved—this is my tale—and died.
The fierce chief hungered for my bride:
The spear of Gisli pierced my side.

“And she—her love filled all my need;
Her vows were sweet and strong as mead;
Look, father! doth my heart still bleed?

“I built her round with shaft and spear;
I kept her mine for one brief year—
She laughed above my blood-stained bier!

“Upon a far and ice-peaked coast
My galleys by long winds were tost:
There Gisli feasted with his host

“Of warriors triumphant. He
Strode out from harps and revelry,
And sped his shaft above the sea.

“Look, father! doth my heart bleed yet?
His arrow Brynhild's arrow met—
My galleys anchored in their net.

“Again their arrows meet—swift lies
That pierced me from their smiling eyes.
How fiercely hard a man's heart dies!

“She false—he false! There came a day
Pierced by the fierce chief's spear I lay—
My ghost rose shrieking from its clay.

“I saw on Brynhild's golden vest
The shining locks of Gisli rest—
I sought the Hell Way to the Blest.

“Father, put forth thy hand and tear
Their twin shafts from my heart, all bare
To thee—they rankle death-like there.”

Said the voice of Evil to the ear of Good,
 “Clasp thou my strong right hand,
Nor shall our clasp be known or understood
 By any in the land.

“I, the dark giant, rule strong on the earth;
 Yet thou, bright one, and I
Sprang from the one great mystery—at one birth
 We looked upon the sky.

“I labour at my bleak, stern toil, accursed
 Of all mankind; nor stay
To rest, to murmur ‘I hunger!’ or ‘I thirst!’
 Nor for my joy delay.

“My strength pleads strong with thee; doth any beat
 With hammer and with stone,
Past tools, to use them to his deep defeat,
 To turn them on his throne,

“Then I, of God the mystery—toil with me,
 Brother; but in the sight
Of men who know not, I stern son shall be
 Of Darkness—thou of Light!”