"I sleep not in the moonlight, because it entices me out and upwards. It lifts me by force from my couch, and upwards to itself. With closed eyes, they say, I wander then away on the narrowest ridges of the roof; and far away, through forest and mountain, I see what shall happen in the future, and the distance.
"Carefully they guarded me, therefore, in the king's hall. But here, the clear moon looks freely through the rifts in our cottage roof.
"And I saw, seven nights ago, a ship, with a swan on the prow, that drew nearer and nearer. On the deck lay sleepless a dark-bearded man, with a noble countenance. 'Halfred,' his two friends called him.
"And ever nearer floated the sailing Swan. But when, one cloudy night, the moon shone not upon my pillow, and my eyes could not see the ship, and the man, then yearning seized upon me for that noble countenance. And I laid my pillow and my head, since then, ever carefully under the full flood of the moonlight. And night after night I gazed again on that lofty forehead and these palid temples.
"But still more beautiful and lordly art thou, than thy dream picture; and never have I seen a man to equal thee."
"But thou," cried Halfred, seizing both the singer's hands, "art like Baldur in spring beauty, gentle boy.
"Never have I seen such perfect charm in youth or in maiden. Like sunshine upon chilled limbs, like Chios wine through parched throat, flows thy beauty through my eyes deep into my soul. Thou art as the blackbird's song and the wood flowers: as the evening star in golden clouds; thou art as the most wonderful song which ever resounded from the lips of a Skald; thyself, as thou livest and movest, thou art pure poetry.
"O Thoril, golden boy, how gentle thou art! how thou hast quickened my grief-worn heart. O Thoril, leave me never again!
"Take up once more thy magic harp; uplift once more that sweet song, which has awakened my soul from the sleep of death.
"O come, let me lay my heavy head upon thy knee, and gaze in thy sunny wondrous face, while thou tunest thy harp, and playest and singest."