But from his side bounded a shape as light82
As forms that glide through Elfheim's limber air;
Swift to the shrine—where on those robes of white
The gloomy hell fires scowl'd their sullen glare,
Through the death-chaunting choir,—she sprang,—she prest,
And bow'd her head upon the victim's breast;
And cried, "With thee, with thee, to live or die,83
With thee, my Geneviève!" The Elders raised
Their hands in wrath, when from as stern an eye
And brow erect as theirs, they shrunk amazed—
And Harold spoke, "Ye priests of Odin, hear!
Your gods are mine, their voices I revere.
"Voices in winds, in groves, in hollow caves,84
Oracular dream, or runic galdra sought;
But ages ere from Don's ancestral waves
Such wizard signs the Scythian Odin brought,
A voice that needs no priesthood's sacred art,
Some earlier God placed in the human heart.
"I bow to charms that doom embattled walls:85
To dreams revealing no unworthy foe;
A warrior's god in Glory's clarion calls;
Where war-steeds snort, and hurtling standards flow;
But when weak women for strong men must die,
My Man's proud nature gives your Gods the lie!
"If—not yon seer by fumes and dreams beguiled,86
But Odin's self stood where his image stands,
Against the god I would protect my child!
Ha, Crida!—come!—thy child in chains!—those hands
Lifted to smite!—and thou, whose kingly bann
Arms nations,—wake, O statue, into man!"
For from his lair, and to his liegeman's side,87
Had Crida listening strode: When ceased the Thane,
His voice, comprest and tremulous, replied,—
"The life thou plead'st for doth these shrines profane.
In Odin's son a father lives no more;
Yon maid adores the God our foes adore."
"And I—and I, stern king!"—Genevra cries,88
"Her God is mine, and if that faith is crime,
Be just—and take a twofold sacrifice!"
"Cease," cried the Thane,—"is this, ye Powers, a time
For kings and chiefs to lean on idle blades,—
Our leaders dreamers, and our victims maids?
"Be varying gods by varying tribes addrest,89
I scorn no gods that worthy foes adore;
Brave was the arm that humbled Harold's crest,
And large the heart that did his child restore.
To all the valiant Gladsheim's Halls unclose;[4]
In Heaven the comrades were on Earth the foes.
"And if our Gods are wrath, what wonder, when90
Their traitor priests creep whispering coward fears;
Unnerve the arms and rot the hearts of men,
And filch the conquest from victorious spears?—
Yes, reverend elders, one such priest I found,
And cheer'd my bandogs on the meaner hound!"
"Be dumb, blasphemer," cried the Pontiff seer,91
"Depart, or dread the vengeance of the shrine;
Depart, or armies from these floors shall hear
How chiefs can mock what nations deem divine;
Then, let her Christian faith thy daughter boast,
And brave the answer of the Teuton host!"