BOTH. Land whose proud and rocky bosom
Braves the sky continually!
Where should strength and valour blossom,
Land of rocks, if not in thee?
BALDER (he springs up, but THOR remains sitting, like one in deep thought). Ha! I will quickly fly from thee for ever,
Thou hated land, where everything so proudly
Upbraids me for my weakness—for my fetters:
Where I, pursu’d by pains of hopeless passion,
The live-long nights among deaf rocks do wander—
Whose echoes sport with Balder’s lamentations,
Each cold, each feelingless, as Nanna’s bosom,
The fair, unpitying savage!
THOR. Son of Odin!
BALDER. Speak, mighty Thor!
THOR. Thou sighest, then—and vainly?
BALDER. Vainly: without a glimpse of hope; bewildered.
What, what have I not promised, vow’d, attempted?
How oft have I, O Thor!—I blush, but hear it—
To tears debas’d myself: my tears have trickled—
Have vainly trickled—before Gevar’s daughter.
THOR. Ha! Gevar’s daughter?
BALDER. Yes, the haughty Nanna.
THOR. Dost mean the daughter of the wise King Gevar,
Who reads the actions of the unborn hero,
The will of Fate, malicious foemen’s projects,
And war and death of warriors in the planets:
Dost mean his daughter?
BALDER. Think’st thou other fathers possess a Nanna?