nought,
When the harps of God-home tinkle, and the Gods are at stretch to
hearken:
Lest the hosts of the Gods be scanty when their day hath begun to
darken.

(P. 82.)

In Book II we have other great speeches that the poet has put into the
mouth of his characters with little or no justification in the original
saga. Chap. XIV of the saga contains Regin's tale of his brothers, and
of the gold called "Andvari's Hoard," and that tale is severely brief
and plain. The account in the poem is expanded greatly, and the
conception of Regin materially altered. In the saga he was not the
discontented youngest son of his father, prone to talk of his woes and
to lament his lot. In the poem he does this in so eloquent a fashion
that almost we are persuaded to sympathize with him. Certainly his lines
were hard, to have outlived his great deeds, and to hear his many
inventions ascribed to the gods. The speech of the released Odin to
Reidmar is modeled on Job's conception of omnipotence, and it is one of
the memorable parts of this book. Gripir's prophecy, too, is a majestic
work, and its original was three sentences in the saga and the poem
_Gripisspa_ in the heroic songs of the _Edda_. Here Morris rises to the
heights of Sigurd's greatness:

Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!
O hope of the Kings first fashioned! O blossom of the morn!
Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North!
One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth!

(P. 111.)

Those who have read William Morris know that he is a master of nature
description. The "Glittering Heath" offered a fine opportunity for this
sort of work, and in this piece we have another departure from the saga,
Morris made hundreds of pictures in this poem, but the pages describing
the journey to the "Glittering Heath" are packed with them to an
extraordinary degree. Here is Iceland in very fact, all dust and ashes
to the eye:

More changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor.

We confess that there is something in the scene that holds us, all shorn
of beauty though it is. We do not want to go the length of Thomas Hardy,
however, who, in that wonderful first chapter of _The Return of the
Native_ has a similar heath to describe. "The new vale of Tempe," says
he, "may be a gaunt waste in Thule: human souls may find themselves in
closer and closer harmony with external things