Broke from the horror of his glazing look;52
His breath that died in hollow gusts away,
Seized by the grasp of unseen tempests, shook
To its rack'd base the spirit-house of clay;
Till the dark Power made firm the crushing spell,
And from the man burst forth the voice of hell.
"The god—the god! lo, on his throne he reels!53
Under his knit brows glow his wrathful eyes!
At his dread feet a spectral Valkyr kneels,
And shrouds her face! And cloud is in the skies,
And neither sun nor star, nor day nor night,
But in the cloud a steadfast Cross of Light!
"The god—the god! hide, hide me from his gaze!54
Its awful anger burns into the brain!
Spare me, O spare me! Speak, thy child obeys!
What rites appease thee, Father of the Slain?[2]
What direful omen do these signs foreshow?
What victim ask'st thou? Speak, the blood shall flow!'
Sunk the Possest One—writhing with wild throes;55
And one appalling silence dusk'd the place,
As with a demon's wing. Anon arose,
Calm as a ghost, the soothsayer: form and face
Rigid with iron sleep! and hollow fell
From stonelike lips the hateful oracle.
"A cloud, where Nornas nurse the thunder, lowers;56
A curse is cleaving to the Teuton race;
Before the Cross the stricken Valkyr cowers;
The Herr-god trembles on his column'd base;
A virgin's loss aroused the Teuton strife;
A virgin's love hath charm'd the Avenger's life;
"A virgin's blood alone averts the doom;57
Revives the Valkyr, and preserves the god.
Whet the quick steel—she comes, she comes, for whom
The runes glow'd blood-red to the soothsayer's rod!
O king, whose wrath the Odin-born array'd,
Regain the lost, and yield the Christian maid!"
As if that voice had quicken'd some dead thing58
To give it utterance, so, when ceased the sound,
The dull eye fix'd, and the faint shuddering
Stirr'd all the frame; then sudden on the ground
Fell heavily the lumpish inert clay,
From which the demon noiseless rush'd away.
Then the grey priests and the grey king creep near59
The corpselike man; and sit them mutely down
In the still fire's red vaporous atmosphere;
The bubbling caldron sings and simmers on;
And through the reeks that from the poison rise,
Looks the wolf's blood-lust from those cruel eyes.
So sat they, musing fell;—when hark, a shout60
Rang loud from rank to rank, re-echoing deep;
Hark to the tramp of multitudes without!
Near and more near the thickening tumults sweep;
King Crida wrathful rose: "What steps profane
Thy secret thresholds, Father of the Slain?"
Frowning he strode along the lurid floors,61
And loud, and loud the invading footsteps ring;
His hand impetuous flings apart the doors:—
"Who dare insult the god, and brave the king?"
Swift through the throng a bright-hair'd vision came;
Those stern lips falter with a daughter's name!