Classic Poem

PART III.

The shouting of Gisli, the chieftain,
Rocked the blue hazes, and, cloven
In twain by sharp prow of the west wind,
To north and to south fled the thick mist.

As in burnished walls of Valhalla,
In cleft of the mist stood the chieftain,
And up to the blue shield of Heaven
Flung the loud shaft of his laughter.

Smote the mist with shrill spear the swift wind;
Grey shapes fled like ghosts on the Hell Way;
Bayed after their long locks hoarse Gylfag;
Stared at them, triumphant, the eagles.

To mate and to eaglets the eagle
Shrieked, “Gone is my foe of the deep mist,
Rent by the vast hands of the kind gods
Who know the knife-pangs of our hunger!”

Shrill whistled the wind as his dun wings
Strove with it feather by feather;
Loud grated the rock as his talons
Spurned slowly its breast; and his red eyes

Like fires seemed to flame in the swift wind—
At his sides the darts of his hunger;
At his ears the shrieks of his eaglets;
In his breast the love of the quarry.

Unfurled to the northward and southward
His wings broke the air, and to eastward
His breast gave its iron; and godward
Pierced the shrill voice of his hunger.

Bared were his great sides as he laboured
Up the steep blue of the broad sky,
His gaze on the fields of his freedom;
To the gods spake the prayers of his gyres.

Bared were his vast sides as he glided,
Black in the sharp blue of the north sky,
Black over the white of the tall cliffs,
Black over the arrow of Gisli.

THE SONG OF THE ARROW .

What know I,
As I bite the blue veins of the throbbing sky,
To the quarry's breast,
Hot from the sides of the sleek, smooth nest?

What know I
Of the will of the tense bow from which I fly?
What the need or jest
That feathers my flight to its bloody rest?

What know I
Of the will of the bow that speeds me on high?
What doth the shrill bow
Of the hand on its singing soul-string know?

Flame-swift speed I,
And the dove and the eagle shriek out and die.
Whence comes my sharp zest
For the heart of the quarry? The gods know best.

Deep pierced the red gaze of the eagle
The breast of a cygnet below him.
Beneath his dun wing from the eastward
Shrill chanted the long shaft of Gisli;

Beneath his dun wing from the westward
A shaft shook that laughed in its biting—
Met in the fierce breast of the eagle
The arrows of Gisli and Brynhild.