Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
The Norseman’s Ride
By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)T
Gleamed on the glittering snow,
And through the forest’s frozen branches
The shrieking winds did blow;
A floor of blue, translucent marble
Kept ocean’s pulses still,
When, in the depth of dreary midnight,
Opened the burial hill.
Thrilled upward through the ground,
The Norseman came, as armed for battle,
In silence from his mound:
He who was mourned in solemn sorrow
By many a swordsman bold,
And harps that wailed along the ocean,
Struck by the Skalds of old.
Rushed up from out the gloom,—
A horse that stamped with hoof impatient,
Yet noiseless, on the tomb.
“Ha, Surtur! let me hear thy tramping,
Thou noblest Northern steed,
Whose neigh along the stormy headlands
Bade the bold Viking heed!”
The sky with flaming bars,
They, on the winds so wildly shrieking,
Shot up before the stars.
“Is this thy mane, my fearless Surtur,
That streams against my breast?
Is this thy neck, that curve of moonlight,
Which Helva’s hand caressed?
Thine eye shines blue and cold,
Yet, mounting up our airy pathway,
I see thy hoofs of gold!
Not lighter o’er the springing rainbow
Walhalla’s gods repair,
Than we, in sweeping journey over
The bending bridge of air.
Amid the twilight space;
And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling,
Has veiled her dusky face.
Are those the Nornes that beckon onward
To seats at Odin’s board,
Where nightly by the hands of heroes
The foaming mead is poured?
That waits the warrior’s soul,
When on its hinge of music opens
The gateway of the Pole,—
When Odin’s warder leads the hero
To banquets never done,
And Freya’s eyes outshine in summer
The ever-risen sun.
In brightness like the morn,
And pealing far amid the vastness,
I hear the Gjallarhorn:
The heart of starry space is throbbing
With songs of minstrels old,
And now, on high Walhalla’s portal,
Gleam Surtur’s hoofs of gold!”