"O Loke! lock those wide-drawn eyes of thine, And let white silver-lidded slumber fall In the soft utterance of my low speech! And I will flutter all my amber curls To cast wind currents o'er thy pallid brow!-- Drink deepest sleep, for, see, I catch thy doom!-- So pale thy face which glimmers thro' the night! So pale! and knew I death as mortals know I'd say that he mysterious had on thee Laid hands of talons and so slain thy soul! So still! and all the night bears down my heart! So pale!--and sleep is lost to thee and me!-- Sleep, that were welcome in this heavy gloom!-- It clings to me like pestilential fogs! I seem but clodded filth and float in filth! It chokes my words and claws them from my tongue To sound as dull confusèd as the boom Heard thro' the stagnant earth when armies meet With ring of war-ax on the brazen helms, And all the mountains clash unto the sound Of shocking spears that splinter on gray ore! For by dead banks of stone my words are yelled While yet they touch the tongue to grasp the thought; And all the creatures huddled in their holes Creep forth to glare and hiss them back again! Yet, for thy love, O Loke, could I brave All trebled horrors that wise Odin may Heap on, and, suff'ring, love thee all the more!
"For thou dost love me, and this life is naught Without thy majesty of form and mind, For, dark to all, alone art fair to me! And to thy level and thy passions all I raise the puny hillock of my soul, Tho' oft it droops below thy lofty height, Far 'mid the crimson clouds of windless dawns Reaching the ruby of a glorious crest. And then aspire I not, but cower in awe Down 'mid low, printless winds that take no morn.--
"At least my countenance may win from thee A reflex of that alabaster cold That stones thy brow, and pale in kindred woe! And when this stony brow of thine is cleft By myriad furrows, tortures of slow Time, And all the beauties of thy locks are past, Now glossy as the brown seal's velvet fur, Their drifts of winter strown around this cave To gray the glutton gloom that hangs like lead,-- For Idunn's fruit is now debarred thy lips, And thou shalt age e'en as I age with thee!-- Then will the thought of that dread twilight cheer The burthen of thy anguish; for wilt thou Not in the great annihilation aid Of gods and worlds, that roll thro' misty grooves Of cycled ages to wild Ragnaroke? Then shalt thou joy! for all those stars which glue Their blinking scales unto old Ymer's skull In clots shall fall! and as this brooding night Sticks to and gluts us till we strangling clutch With purple lips for air--and feel but frost Drag laboring down the throat to swell the freight That cuddles to the heart and clogs its life, So shall those falling flakes spread sea-like far In lakes of flame and foggy pestilence O'er the hot earth, and drown all men and gods.