English

Bring all the flowers beneath the sun,
That shut their leaves when the light is gone —
For mine is the breath of the crimson rose,
Mine is every bud that blows;
O turn from the dark dull night to me,
For mine is the beauty of earth and sea —
Thy spirit shall be clear as day,
Thy smile shall be the morning ray,
Whose light, wherever it may fall,
Sheds love and blessedness o'er all.
Thy soul shall feel the soft caress
Of unimagined happiness;
For all the roses that combine
To veil the ills of life, are mine:

Mine is the sceptre of the sky,
And mine the starry worlds on high:
Those fountains of eternal light,
Which feed the immeasurable void
With life and splendour undestroyed,
And tell that God is infinite.
Thou knowest how the midnight sky,
Fills the weak heart with purity;
How all the dreams of wrath and sin,
That lurk the soul's lone caves within,
To make its peace their prey — take flight
Before the blessed breath of night.

I am the queen of earth and sea,
Who shall dispute the palm with me?
I am lovely as of yore,
When, upon the clouded shore
Of an abysmal sea, I stood,
Enkindled by the breath of God.
All things then, that hate the light —
All the gloomy brood of night,
Fled before me, as I blest
The raging deep with peace, and rest.
Then — the proud giant of the sun,
Leapt forth his glorious race to run,
And the breathing world her course begun:
How beautiful it was, to see
Beneath my beams, all things that be

They met in the hour of the dim twilight,
The hour, that is neither day, nor night;
Like two proud queens, they met on high,
In that neutral space of the summer sky,
Where the evening star, when the day is done,
Shines through the haze of the sunken sun.
The first was darkly pale — with eyes
Deeper than are the midnight skies,
Pale, as an Indian monarch's bride,
The burning pyre beside;
Yet lovely, as the seraphim,
When pitying tears their splendour dim,
Tears shed in heaven itself, to see

I.

The W AKING OF THE S EA .

" A LL that is beautiful shall abide,
All that is base shall die."
Hark! birds are singing far and wide,
Under the summer sky. . . .

Southward across the shining Bow
The blessed Brethren came;
They wore soft raiment of the snow
And sandals shod with flame.

And golden lights and rippling rains

I.

" Balder ! Balder!"

And Palder said,
Turning round his gentle head,
" I hear!"

" And thou, my servant Death,
Kneeling low with hushid breath,
While my hand is on thy hair!"

Death made answer, kneeling there,
" I hear!"

" At last the cold snows cease,
The white world is hush'd in peace,
The sky is clear, the storm has gone,
Stars are rising to light us on —
In the north the moon grows gray, —
Take my hand and come away!"

I.

How long he lay in that strange trance of night
Might Balder never know;
Silently fell the waifs of stainless white,
And deeper grew the snow.

While out of heaven the falling flakes were shed,
The dark hours grew to days;
And round and round a red moon overhead
Went circling without rays.

There were no stars, only that cheerless thing
Treading the wintry round;
There was no light, save snow-flowers glimmering
Without a sound.

Darkness of doom is shed on Balder's eyes,

I .

The A LTAR OF S ACRIFICE .

" Look!" Ydun said; and pointed.

Far in the night
She had led Balder, — o'er the darken'd dales,
And by the silence of black mountain tarns,
And thro' the slumber of primaeval woods, —
Till she had come unto an open plain
Cover'd with ragged heath and strewn with stones
As with the broken fragments of some world
Upheaven, rent by earthquake. And the waste
All round was lonely and illimitable,
A tract of stone and heath without a tree,

I .

He sought him on the mountains bleak and bare
And on the windy moors;
He found his secret footprints everywhere,
Yea, ev'n by human doors.

All round the deerfold on the shrouded height
The starlight glimmer'd clear;
Therein sat Death, wrapt round with vapours white
Touching the dove-eyed deer.

And thither Balder silent-footed flew,
But found the phantom not;
The rain-wash'd moon had risen cold and blue
Above that lonely spot.

Then as he stood and listen'd, gazing round

I.

" BALDER IS HERE ."

O who cometh sweetly
With singing of showers? —
The wild wind runs fleetly
Before his soft tread,
The sward stirs asunder
To radiance of flowers,
While o'er him and under
A glory is spread —
A white cloud above him
Moves on thro' the blue,
And all things that love him
Are dim with its dew:
The lark is upspringing,
The merle whistles clear,
There is sunlight and singing,
For Balder is here!

He walks on the mountains,
He treads on the snows;