CANTO XVI.
THE NUPTIALS OF SKADA.
While captive pined Iduna, Valhalla seem’d a grave;[60]
A fruitful isle was swallow’d by the remorseless wave;
In each nook of the palace, each god, morose, alone,
Sat looking straight before him, as motionless as stone.
No longer the Einherier, eight hundred at a time,
In the arena skirmish for Odin’s prize sublime;
They now no longer sally from Trudvang’s brazen port,
To give wounds and receive them, in Hildur’s[61] fav’rite sport.