Tegners Drapa

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

    I heard a voice, that cried,
    "Balder the Beautiful
    Is dead, is dead!"
    And through the misty air
    Passed like the mournful cry
    Of sunward sailing cranes.

    I saw the pallid corpse
    Of the dead sun
    Borne through the Northern sky.
    Blasts from Niffelheim
    Lifted the sheeted mists
    Around him as he passed.

    And the voice forever cried,
    "Balder the Beautiful
    Is dead, is dead!"
    And died away
    Through the dreary night,
    In accents of despair.

    Balder the Beautiful,
    God of the summer sun,
    Fairest of all the Gods!
    Light from his forehead beamed,
    Runes were upon his tongue,
    As on the warrior's sword.

    All things in earth and air
    Bound were by magic spell
    Never to do him harm;
    Even the plants and stones;
    All save the mistletoe,
    The sacred mistletoe!

    Hoeder, the blind old God,
    Whose feet are shod with silence,
    Pierced through that gentle breast
    With his sharp spear, by fraud
    Made of the mistletoe,
    The accursed mistletoe!

    They laid him in his ship,
    With horse and harness,
    As on a funeral pyre.
    Odin placed
    A ring upon his finger,
    And whispered in his ear.

    They launched the burning ship!
    It floated far away
    Over the misty sea,
    Till like the sun it seemed,
    Sinking beneath the waves.
    Balder returned no more!

    So perish the old Gods!
    But out of the sea of Time
    Rises a new land of song,
    Fairer than the old.
    Over its meadows green
    Walk the young bards and sing.

    Build it again,
    O ye bards,
    Fairer than before!
    Ye fathers of the new race,
    Feed upon morning dew,
    Sing the new Song of Love!

    The law of force is dead!
    The law of love prevails!
    Thor, the thunderer,
    Shall rule the earth no more,
    No more, with threats,
    Challenge the meek Christ.

    Sing no more,
    O ye bards of the North,
    Of Vikings and of Jarls!
    Of the days of Eld
    Preserve the freedom only,
    Not the deeds of blood!