is waning; dimly can I see
The helmeted Valkyries close to me.
Ten more I slay! How strange the thought of fear,
With Woden's mounted messengers so near!
The darkness comes; I feel my spirit rise;
A kind Valkyrie bears me to the skies.
With conscience clear, I quit the earth below,
The boundless joys of Woden's halls to know.
The grove of Glasir soon shall I behold,
And on Valhalla's tablets be enroll'd:
There to remain, till Heimdall's horn shall sound,
And Ragnarok enclose creation round;
And Bifrost break beneath bold Surtur's horde,
And Gods and men fall dead beneath the sword;
When sun shall die, and sea devour the land,
And stars descend, and naught but Chaos stand.
Then shall Alfadur make his realm anew,
And Gods and men with purer life indue.
In that blest country shall Abundance reign,
Nor shall one vice or woe of earth remain.
Then, not before, shall men their battles cease,
And live at last in universal peace.
Through cloudless heavens shall the eagle soar,
And happiness prevail forevermore.

--H. P. LOVECRAFT

_Author's Note._

The writer here endeavours to trace the ruthless ferocity and incredible
bravery of the modern Teutonic soldier to the hereditary influence of
the ancient Northern Gods and Heroes. Despite the cant of the
peace-advocate, we must realise that our present Christian civilisation,
the product of an alien people, rests but lightly upon the Teuton when
he is deeply aroused, and that in the heat of combat he is quite prone
to revert to the mental type of his own Woden-worshipping progenitors,
losing himself in that superb fighting zeal which baffled the conquering
cohorts of a Caesar, and humbled the proud aspirations of a Varus.
Though appearing most openly in the Prussian, whose recent acts of
violence are so generally condemned, this native martial ardour is by no
means peculiar to him, but is instead the common heritage of every
branch of our indomitable Xanthochroic race, British and Continental
alike, whose remote forefathers were for countless generations reared in
the stern precepts of the virile religion of the North. Whilst we may
with justice deplore the excessive militarism of the Kaiser Wilhelm and
his followers, we cannot rightly agree with those effeminate preachers
of universal brotherhood who deny the virtue of that manly strength
which ma