s that truth--of all your realms
Faithfullest to Odin far!'
'Nay, minstrel, sing,'
Once more, not wroth, they clamoured. He replied:
'Hear then my song; but not those songs ye sing:
I have against you somewhat, Wessex men!
Ye are not as your fathers, when, in youth,
I trod your coasts. That time ye sang of Gods,
Sole theme for manlike song. On Iceland's shores
We keep our music's virtue undefiled:
While summer lasts we fight; by winter hearths,
Or ranged in sunny coves by winter seas,
Betwixt the snow-plains and the hills of fire,
Singing we feed on legends of the Gods:
Ye sing but triumphs of the hour that fleets;
Ye build you kingdoms: next ye dash them down:
Ye bow to idols! O that song of mine
Might heal this people's wound!'
Then rose the bard
And took his harp, and smote it like a man;
And sang full-blooded songs of Gods who spurn
Their heaven to war against that giant race
Throned 'mid the mountains of old Joetunheim
That girdle still the unmeasured seas of ice
With horror and strange dread. Innumerable,
In ever-winding labyrinths, glacier-thronged,
Those mountains raise their heads among the stars,
That palsied glimmer 'twixt their sunless bulks,
O'er-shadowing seas and lands. O'er Joetunheim
The glittering car of day hath never shone:
There endless twilight broods. Beneath it sit
The huge Frost-Giants, sons of Oergelmir,
Themselves like mountains, solitary now,
Now grouped, with knees drawn up, and heads low bent
Plotting new wars. Those wars the Northman sang;
And thunder-like rang out the vast applause.
That hour Birinus whispered one close by:
'Not casual this! Ill spirits, be sure, this day,
And impious men will launch their fiercest bolts
To crush Christ's Faith for ever!'
Jocund songs
The bard sang next: how Thor had roamed disguised
Through Joetunheim, and found the giant-brood
Feasting; and how their king gave challenge thus:
'Sir, since you deign us visit, show us feats!
Behold yon drinking horn! with us a child
Drains it at draught.' The God inclined his head
And swelled his lips; and three times drank: yet lo!
Nigh full that horn remained, the dusky mead
In mockery winking! Spake once more the king: