And learn a suitor thus sincere to prize.

Thus doth the mountain’s summit wrapt in snow

Melt by degrees before the summer’s glow,

And to a plant gives birth, which scents the gale,

More fragrant than the lily of the vale.”

Thus spoke the god, and sat him down beside

The brook to weep; the waters onward glide,

And, as they flow, receive the lover’s tears,

While mirror-like the stream his beauteous image bears.

But Skirnir, who in missions from the god