l creatures weep, and
Baldur shall return!_"

But with them they brought not hope, but despair. All things, living
and dead, had wept, save one only. A giantess who sat in a dark cave
had laughed them to scorn. With devilish merriment she mocked:

"Neither in life, nor yet in death,
Gave he me gladness.
Let Hel keep her prey."

Then all knew that yet a second time had Baldur been betrayed, and
that the giantess was none other than Loki, and Loki, realising the
fierce wrath of Odin and of the other gods, fled before them, yet
could not escape his doom. And grief unspeakable was that of gods and
of men when they knew that in the chill realm of the inglorious dead
Baldur must remain until the twilight of the gods had come, until old
things had passed away, and all things had become new.

Not only the gods, but the giants of the storm and frost, and the
frost elves came to behold the last of him whom they loved. Then the
pyre was set alight, and the great vessel was launched, and glided out
to sea with its sails of flame.

"They launched the burning ship!
It floated far away
Over the misty sea,
Till like the sun it seemed,
Sinking beneath the waves,
Baldur returned no more!"

Yet, ere he parted from his dead son, Odin stooped over him and
whispered a word in his ear. And there are those who say that as the
gods in infinite sorrow stood on the beach staring out to sea,
darkness fell, and only a fiery track on the waves showed whither he
had gone whose passing had robbed Asgard and the Earth of their most
beautiful thing, heavy as the weight of chill Death's remorseless hand
would have been their hearts, but for the knowledge of that word. They
knew that with the death of Baldur the twilight of the gods had begun,
and that by much strife and infinite suffering down through the ages
the work of their purification and hallowing must be wrought. But when
all were fit to receive him, and peace and happiness reigned again on
earth and in heaven, Baldur would come back. For the word was
_Resurrection_.

"So perish the old Gods!
But out of the sea of time
Rises a new land of song,
Fairer than the old."

Longfellow.

"Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive."

Emerson.

BEOWULF

"He was of mankind
In might the strongest."

Longfellow's Translation.

Whether those who read it be scholars who wou