ROBERT WILLIAMS BUCHANAN (1841 - 1901)

{Balder The Beautiful 1877}

                                                                                                                                                                   271

V.

ALFADUR.

THE rune is woven, the spell is spoken,
And lo! the dream of the gods is broken,
     And each pale throne is shaken.
They rise, they tremble against the sky,
They shriek an answer to Balder’s cry
     And white as death they waken!
Gods they glimmer in frozen mail,
Their faces are flashing marble pale,
They rise erect, and they wave their hands,
They scatter the shifting snows as sands,
     And gaze in the face of the Father! . . .

. . . Blacker, blacker, the night is growing,
Faster, faster, the snow is snowing—
Silently looming thro’ the storm,                                                                    [2:3]
Towers the one gigantic Form,
And all around with a trumpet sound                                                            272
     The wintry winds are blowing.
The light of doom is in his eyes, his arms spread wide for slaughter,
He sits ’mid gleams of burning skies and wails of wind-blown water,
Behind the outline of his cheeks the pale aurora flashes,
He broods ’mid moveless mountain peaks and looks thro’ fiery lashes:
On heaven and earth that round him float in whirls of snowy wonder,
He looks, and from his awful throat there comes the cry of thunder!

                     “BALDER! BALDER!”

                               . . . “He cries on me—
He standeth yonder, and beckoneth!”
“He looketh around, but he cannot see!
Answer him back with a gentle breath,
     Now the air is still!” . . .

                                   “I am here, I am here!”
. . . The cry went up to the godhead drear,                                                  273
Like the cry of a lamb in the midst of the snow,
When the voices of tempest have sobbed their fill,
     And the clouds are still
For a little space, and the winds lie low.
Then rose in answer a wail so loud
It roll’d as thunder from cloud to cloud,
And the gods arose in a wingëd crowd,
As oft ’mid desolate mountain-peaks,
With clangour of wings and hungry shrieks,
     Great flocks of eagles gather.
Tearing asunder their frozen mail,
Smiting their breasts with a woful wail,
Looming with faces spectral pale,
     They gazed in the eyes of the Father!
Then even as mighty eagles spread
Their wings and soar, they arose and fled!
Crossing the gleam of the fiery north,
Facing the dark drift hurrying forth,
     They flew on flashing pinions;
As wild clouds scatter’d across the sky,
They wing’d their way with a thunder-cry. . . .
But moveless there, when the rest had flown,                                               274
The Father sat on his silent throne,
Dreary, desolate, all alone,
     In the midst of the white dominions.

                     “BALDER! BALDER!”

                                   “He looks on me!
He stirreth now, with a sound like the sea,
And he calleth aloud!”

                                     “Then move no limb,
But crouch in thy place and answer him;—
Cry once more full loud and clear,
Now he pauseth again!” . . .

                                     “I am here, I am here!”

Again the thunder rolling near,
Again the tumult of wind and ocean;
Around the throne with a serpent motion
     The meteor snakes appear.
White in the midst He stands, the Spirit of God the Master,
Waving his wild white hands, urging his snows on faster;                               275
But ever darker yet the troubled air grows o’er him,
And still with fierce face set he searcheth night before him,
And then again, all blind, with black robes blown asunder,
He gropeth down the wind, and calls aloud in thunder,

                         “BALDER, BALDER.”

                           . . . “I see him now,
The wrath of heaven is on his brow—
He stands in the circle of meteors white,
His white feet glimmer like cold moonlight—
I can feel his breath!”

                                 “Now hold my hand—
Rise erect on thy feet and stand—
Make answer!”

                           “My Father, I am here!”

As an infant’s cry, so faint, so clear,
As a young lamb’s cry, so soft, so low,
Cometh the voice from the waste of snow,—                                                276
And silence deep as the sleep of ocean,
Stillness with no stir, no motion,
     Follows the sound of the cry. . . .
Terrible, desolate, the Form
Stands and broods in the midst of the storm,
Beneath him wolves of the fierce frost swarm,
     But quiet and hush’d they lie.
With his robe wind-rent and his form wind-blown
     He gazeth round and round.
He seeth a snow amid the snow
     And heareth a human sound.

“BALDER! BALDER!”

                             “O Father dear,
Turn thine eyes and behold me here—
Ev’n Balder thy Son!”

                             “I see thee not—
Only a gleam on a darken’d spot,
And the ray of the light in thy hand!”

                               “Ay me,                                                                      277
No light I carry that thou mayst see.
What wouldst thou, Father?”

                               “Why hast thou risen?
We deem’d thee dead, and we slept in peace—
We deem’d thee dead with the snow for prison,
     That the old sad fear might cease.
We deem’d thee dead, and our hearts were light,
For nevermore would thy beauty blight
         The spirit of Me thy Father!”

Then answer’d Balder, “O Father dear,
Turn thine eyes, and behold me here—
Why hatest thou me?”

                                 “We hate thee all
For thy summer face, for thy soft footfall,
For thy beauty blended of star and flower,
For thine earthly love, for thine heavenly dower;
For the rune that was written, the rune that was read,
We cursed thee all, but our curse was said
Deepest and best when we read that rune
By thy love for men!”

                                       As the rising moon                                                278
Creeping up from a cloudy place,
A glory grew upon Balder’s face—
Again he murmur’d, “O Father dear,
Turn thine eyes and behold me here—
Why hatest thou me?”

                         “We hate thee most
By the rune that was written, the rune that was lost,
By the doom that above thee hung sharp as a sword,
When thy feet stood there and thy voice implored
For pity of men; and we loved thee least
For loosing the yoke of man and beast,
For making the hearts of mortals tame,
For calming wild hawk-like men who came
To thy beck as doves; then we loathed to see
The light of thy name upon flower and tree,
The peace of thy name upon hill and vale,
The love of thy name on the faces pale
Of maidens and men; yea, for all these things,
For all thy life and the light it brings,
We have hated and hate thee unto death.”

But Balder answereth back and saith,                                                           279
“Why hatest thou me?”

                         “For this the most!
Because thy coming is as the ghost
Of the coming doom that shall strike us dead.
For the rune was written, the rune was read,
And we knew no rest till we bought our breath
With the gentle boon of thy willing death.
Why hast thou risen? how hast thou risen?
We gave thee the frost and the snow for prison,
We heard thy sigh and we let thee die,
Yet thou criest again with a human cry
From the gates of life! . . . But I stoop at last
To sweep thee hence with my bitterest blast
Out to the heavens of pitiless air,
Where nevermore with a human care
         That face of thine
May trouble the eyes of the gods divine!
Out ’mong the wingëd stars, deep down the dark abysses,
Beyond the black tomb’s bars, far from the green Earth’s kisses,
As dust thou shalt be cast, as snow thou shalt be drifted,                         280
Seized by my fiercest blast thou shalt be now uplifted.
Call on all living things that stir in sun or shadow—
White flowers, sweet forms with wings, wild deer, or lambs o’ the meadow;
Call on the moonlight now that mingled in thy making;
To heaven uplift thy brow, where the pale spheres are waking;
On water, air, and fire, on snow and on wind and on forest,
Call with a wild desire, now when thy need is sorest!
Call now on flower or bird to fill the plight they gave thee!
Call, let thy voice be heard, and see if Earth can save thee!”

Behind the back of the Shadow hoar,
There grew a trouble, a sullen roar,
Roar as of beasts that prepare to come,
Trouble like surges that flash to foam;
Faster and faster the drift whirl’d round,
Deeper and direr grew the sound,
And the four fierce winds are blowing!                                               281
Yet brighter, calmer grew Balder’s face,
Till a light and a glory fill’d the place,
And he rose his height, like a lily white,
Like a lily white in the heart of the night,
     With the flakes around him snowing!

[Notes:
Alterations in the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
v. 2, l. 3: Silently looking thro’ the storm, ]

                                                                                                                                                                   282

VI.

THE BRETHREN.

“FATHER, Father, why hatest thou me,
Whom the green Earth loves, and the circling sea,
And the pure blue air, and the light of the sun,
And the birds of the air, and the flowers each one?
Hatest thou me thro’ my love for these?
For the swift deep rivers, the fronded trees,
The golden meres and the mountains white,
The cataracts leaping from height to height,
And the deer that feed on the snowy steeps
Where the rainbow hangs and the white mist creeps?
Hatest thou me the most of all
     For my care of mortals whom thou hast made,
My blessing on lovers whose soft footfall
     Soundeth still in the flowery shade?
Father, Father, hatest thou me,
Because of my light on humanity?
Because with a holy anointing balm                                                               283
I have heal’d their hearts and kept them calm;
Because I have sown in forest and grove
The roses of beauty, the lilies of love,
That men might gather, and sweeten away
The taint of the perishable clay?
Father, Father, listen to me—
I will not call upon bird or tree,
I will not call upon lamb or dove,
On the flowers below or the stars above;
I will call aloud, and thine ears shall know,
I will call aloud in the midst of the snow,
On a mortal thing of mortal breath
Who has gazed and smiled in the eyes of Death,
Who has loosen’d his shroud and his feet made free
To follow and find me over the sea.
. . . . My brother Jesus, hearest thou me!”

Sweet as a star that opens its lids of silver and amber,
     Soft as a lily that rises out of a water still,
Pure as a lamp that burns in a virgin’s vestal chamber                                   284
     When winds with folded wings sleep on the scented sill,
Pale as the moving snow, yet calmer, clearer, and whiter,
     Holding the light in his hand, and flashing a ray blood-red,
Robed in a silvern robe that ever grew stranger and brighter,
     Robed in a robe of the snow, with a glory around his head,
Christ now arose! and upstanding held the cold hand of his Brother,
     Turning his face to the storm like the wrath of some beautiful star,—
And the sound of the storm was hush’d, and pale grew the face of that Other,
     He, Alfadur supreme, most direful of all gods that are!

     “BALDER! BALDER!”

                                     “O Father, I listen!”                                                285

“What shape is this whose sad eyes glisten
Bright as the lamp he is uplifting?
Round and o’er him snows are drifting,
Yet as a still star shineth he,
Pale and beautiful like thee.
Who is this that standeth there
Even as a mortal man,
Thin and weary and wan,
A lanthorn in his hold,
His feet bloody and bare,
And a ring of brightest gold
     Round his hair?”

“O Father, ’tis he and none other
     Who woke me from my tomb;
The Christ it is, my Brother,
     Tho’ born of a woman’s womb.
He has conquer’d the grave, for lo!
     He died and he rose again!
He comes to the silence of snow,
     From the beautiful regions of rain;
And his hair is bright with a peaceful light                                                     286
As the yellow moon’s on a summer night,
And the flesh on his heart is heapen white
     To cool an immortal pain!”

Blacker, blacker the night is growing,
Deeper, deeper the snow is snowing. . . .
As the rigid wave of the ocean-storm
Towereth the gigantic Form,
And he lifts his hand with a cold command,
     And the shrill winds answer blowing!
A ghastly gleam is on his cheeks, his white robes roll asunder,
He raises up his arms and shrieks in his old voice of thunder,
“The rune was writ, the rune is read—Son, thou hast slain thy Father,
The frames are quick that late were dead, and from the grave they gather,
The pale One cometh heavenly eyed, as in thy dreams, O Mother!
He wakes, he stands by Balder’s side as brother smiles by brother.
O gods, these live, and must we die? these bloom, and must we wither? 287
Cry with a loud exceeding cry on Death and send him hither!
Come, come, O Death! I call on thee—come hither, fleeter, faster!
Thou hunter of humanity, thou hound of me thy Master!
Slay thou these twain, that we may live, who feed thy  throat with slaughter,
And blood to quench thee gods will give, shed free as torrent water!
Come thou this night, O Death divine, come quickly or come never,
And the great Earth shall all be thine for ever and for ever!”
The snows are blowing, the Earth is crying,
The eagles of storm are shrieking and flying;
Thunder-cloud upon thunder-cloud
Piled, and flashing and roaring aloud,
Roll from the north, and the winds rush forth,
     And the billows of heaven are breaking.
Hand in hand the Brethren stand,                                                                 288
Fair and bright in the midst of the night,
Fair and bright and marble white,
     Quiet as babes awaking. . . .
But who is he that stirring slow,
Wrapt in winding-sheet of snow,
Riseth up from the Christ’s feet?
His golden hair all white with sleet,
His eyes all dim, his face snow-pale,
He stands erect in the drifting gale!
Tall and terrible loometh he,
Facing the blast like a frozen tree!
“Death, Death!” the god shrieks now—
Death, Death, is it surely thou?
Death, Death!” and the god laughs loud,
Answer’d by every thunder-cloud,
While the snows are falling faster,—
“Death, Death, there is thy prey!—
Take them and tear them and rend them away,
As flakes of snow, as drops of spray,
In the name of Me thy Master!” . . .
Like two lilies crown’d with gold,                                                                 289
Very beauteous to behold,
     Blown in summer weather,
Like two lambs with silvern feet,
Very beauteous and sweet,
Held together with a chain
In some sacrificial fane,
     The Brethren cling together.
Ever fairer still they grow
While the noise of storm sinks low,
And the Father’s snow-white hand
Pointeth at them as they stand,
And the silent shape of Death
Creepeth close and shuddereth!
See, O see, the light they wear,
On their heads and o’er their hair,
Falleth on the Phantom now,
Lying softly on his brow. . . .
Death, O Death, can this be thou?

                                                                                                                   290

VII.

FATHER AND SON.

NOW hark, one crieth!
                                   “My servant Death,
Kneeling there with hushëd breath,
Listen, ere I bid thee go!”
Death makes answer out of the snow,
“I hear!”

             The Christ hath risen his height,
Large and strange in a lonely light,
And he lifts his hand and makes the sign
Of the blessed cross on his breast divine,
And the thrones of the white gods flash like fire,
And sink in earthquake around the Sire,
     Shaken and rent asunder!
Then he lifts his hand and he makes the sign
Once again on his breast divine,
And the mountains of ice around the throne                                         291
Are troubled like breakers rolling on
     To the sound of their own thunder!

“Father! Father!” Balder cries,
With arms outstretch’d and weeping eyes,
“Father!”—but lo! the white Christ stands,
Raising yet his holy hands,
And cries, “O Death, speed on! speed on!
Conquer now and take thy throne—
Now all the gods have taken flight,
Reign thou there one starless night
     In the room of him, the Father!”

Slowly over the icy ground,
Slow and low like a lean sleuth-hound,
Without a breath, without a sound,
     The phantom form is crawling.
He makes no shadow, he leaves no trace,
Snow on snow he creepeth apace,
Nearer, nearer, the fixëd Face
     Veil’d with the flakes still falling.
“Father! Father!” Balder cries . . .                                                       292
Silent, terrible, under the skies,
Sits the God on his throne, with eyes on his Son
     Whose gentle voice is calling!
As the cuckoo calls in the heart of the May
     Singing the flowers together,
As the fountain calls thro’ its flashing spray,
As a lamb calls low ’mid a mountain-cloud,
As a spirit calls to a corpse in its shroud,
     The Son cries on the Father!

                                                                                                         293

VIII.

TWILIGHT.

THE wind is blowing, the skies are snowing,
     The ice is rent and the rocks are riven,
But morning light in the north is growing,
     Crimson light of the altars of heaven.
Silent, still, amidst the storm,
Sitteth there the formless Form,
Hearkening out of his hoary hair,
Waiting on in a dark despair,
     While the burning heavens flame o’er him! . . .
Suddenly, wild and wing’d and bright,
Towering to heaven in shroud of white,
A phantom upriseth against the light
     And standeth vast before him. . . .
Is it a Shadow, or only the snow?
The skies are troubled, the light burns low,
     But stars still gather and gather.
Is it a Shadow, or only the snow,                                                        294
Uprising there in the blood-red glow,
Ever towering higher and higher,
In a robe of whiteness fringed with fire,
Outstretching wings without a cry
From verge to verge of the burning sky,
     With eyes on the eyes of the Father?

Now Balder crieth, “What shape comes there,
Terrible, troubling the heavens and air?
Is it Norna the arctic swan,
The bright and bodiless Skeleton,
Bird-shaped, with a woman’s breasts and eyes,
Whose wings are wide as the world and skies?
Is it Norna, or only the snow,
Moving yonder against the glow,
Ever towering higher and higher,
Ever outspreading pinions dire
And looking down in a dumb desire,
     With eyes on the eyes of the Father!”

It is not Norna, it is not the snow.
The skies are troubled; the light burns low;
     Yet stars still gather and gather.
“Father! Father! awaken, awaken!                                                     295
One bends above thee with bright hair shaken
Over thy throne like a falling flame;
One toucheth thy cheek and nameth thy name,
In a voice I hear, in a tone I know;
It is not Norna, it is not the snow,
     By the face and the voice and the tone.
Vaster than these and vaster than thou,
Touching the stars with a shining brow,
Flickering up to the twinkling shades
Where the wild aurora flashes and fades,
Spreading its wings from east to west,
As an eagle that looks on a hawk in its nest
     It hungereth over thy throne!
Father! my Father!”
                                 “He cannot hear—
Hide thy face, for the hour is near—
Hush!” . . . .
     . . . Who shrieks in the heart of the night? . . .
Terrible, desolate, dumb and blind,
     Like a cloud snow-white
Struggling and rent in the claws o’ the wind,                                        296
The Father hath risen with no sound
’Mid the wild winds wavering around,
     And his stirring deepens the storm.
The ice is shaken beneath his tread,
The meteors burn around his head,
But faster, thicker, out of the skies,
Blotting his shape from Balder’s eyes,
     The wild flakes waver and swarm.
Now face to face in the blood-red gleam,
Like clouds in the sunset, like shapes in a dream,
Face to face, with outstretch’d hands
Like lightning forks that illume the lands,
Face to face, and sight to sight,
Like vulture and eagle fierce for fight,
They rise and they rise against the skies,—
Alfadur with his fiery eyes,
     And the other vaster Form!

It is not Norna, but stranger and brighter,
It is not the snow, but wilder and whiter;
     Ever greater yet it grows                                                               297
     Wrapt about with whirling snows,
     Ever it dilateth on,
     Till, a crimson Skeleton,
     With his head against the sky
     Where the pale lights flicker and die,
     Strange, he stands, with orbs of fire
     Looking down upon the Sire.
     See, O see upon his brow
     Strangest lustre liveth now,
     On his neck and round his frame
     Twines a snake of emerald flame. . . .
     Death, O Death, can it be thou?

“Father, father! I cannot see—
The heavens are bright, but the world is white,
The wings of the wan Form cover thee—
Around and around, with no sigh, with no sound,
Like the mists of a cloud, like the folds of a shroud,
     They enwrap thee,—and hide thee from me!”

                                                                                                         298

IX.

A CROSS AND A LILY.

“IT is over! O Balder, look up and behold!”

“Not yet, for I sicken—my sense shrinketh cold,
And I fear the strange silence that cometh at last!
All is hush’d—all is dead—the dew now is shed
Warm as tears on my hand, but the tempest hath pass’d,
     And the sounds of the tempest are fled!”

“Arise!”
               “I am risen!”
                                   “Behold!”
                                                   “All is white,
But the darkness hath gone, and the stars of the night,
And down from the north streams the dawn flowing free;
But I see not my Father!”
                                   “Again!”
                                                   “Woe is me!
His throne standeth there white and cold, and thereon                          299
Sits another I know, as a King on a throne,
Yea, sceptred and crownëd . . . and vaster tenfold
He seems than the Spirit who sat there of old,
For his form ’gainst the heavens looms fiery and fair,
And the dew of the dawn burneth bright on his hair;
And we twain unto him are as birds in the night
That sit gazing up at a great snowy height
Where the starlight is coming and going like breath.”

“So strange and so changed, yet ’tis he, even Death,—
Best and least, last and first. He hath conquer’d his own.
All gods are as sand round his feet tempest-blown,
And lesser yet greater, more weak yet more wise,
Are we who stand here looking up in his eyes.
All hail now to Death, since the great gods are dead!”

“Woe is me—it was written, and lo! it is read!”

“Come together, and bless him!”
                                         “My Father?”
                                                         “The same.
On his throne I will mark with a finger of flame                                   300
A cross and a lily for thee and for me!”

They pass o’er the ice, and a sound like the sea
Grows under their footprints; and softly they come
Where Death, with his eyes fix’d on heaven, sitteth dumb;
And they pause at his feet, while far o’er them he looms
With his brow ’mong the stars and the amethyst glooms,
Yea, they pause far beneath, and with finger divine
The white Christ hath made on the snow for a sign
The cross and the lily . . . then rising he stands,
And looketh at Death with uplifting of hands.

Still as a star he shineth, brightly his eyes are burning,
     White as a dove he seems in the morning’s dewy breath,
Lifting again his face with a smile of loving and yearning,
     He looketh gently up at the godlike shape of Death;
And the hair of Death is golden, the face of Death is glowing,               301
     While softly around his form he folds his mighty wings,
And vast as the vast blue heavens the fair faint form is growing,
     But the face that all men fear is bright with beautiful things.
Ev’n so the Brethren wait where the darkest snows are drifted,
     Small as two doves that light in a wilderness alone,
While bright on the blood-red skies, with luminous head uplifted,
     In a dream divine upgazing, Death sitteth upon his throne.

                                                                                                         303

IX.

THE LAST BLESSING.

                                                                                                         305

IX.

THE LAST BLESSING.

I.

THE WAKING OF THE SEA.

“ALL that is beautiful shall abide,
     All that is base shall die.”
Hark! birds are singing far and wide,
     Under the summer sky. . . .

Southward across the shining Bow
     The blessed Brethren came;
They wore soft raiment of the snow
     And sandals shod with flame.

And golden lights and rippling rains
     Were on the frozen sea,
The bergs were melting from their chains,
     The waters flashing free.

The white Christ lifted hands above                                                    306
     That silent wakening Deep,                                                          [4:2]
And the unseen depths began to move
     With motions soft as sleep.

Then on an isle of ice he stept,
     Leading his Brother mild,
And blest the waters as they slept,
     And lo, they woke and smiled!

Around him on the melting sea
     The glittering icebergs stirred,
And glimmer’d southward silently,
     Like things that lived and heard.

Then, like a ship on the still tide
     That slowly leaveth land,
His own white isle began to glide
     At lifting of his hand.

Silently as a flock of sheep
     The bergs stirred in the sun,
Shepherded gently down the Deep
     By that immortal one.

For as he raised his snow-white hand,                                                307
     They crept full softly by,—
Or paused and stood, as fair flocks stand
     Under the shepherd’s eye.

Far, far away into the north
     They stretch’d in legions white,
Trembling and changing, creeping forth
     Out of a crimson light.

And all the colours of the Bow
     Down their bright sides were shed;
Above the sky was gold; below,
     The sea all rippling red!

[Notes:
Alterations in the 1884 edition of The Poetical Works of Robert Buchanan:
v. 4, l. 2: The silent wakening Deep, ]

                                                                                                         308

II.

FROM DEATH TO LIFE.

BRIGHT Balder at his brother’s feet
     Lay looking on the sea,
And sea-birds hover’d white and sweet
     Around him, silently.

And white bears crawl’d out of the Deep
     To see him, and were blest;
And black seals with their young did creep
     Upon the berg to rest.

Brighter and fairer all around
     The kindling waters shone;
And softly, swiftly, with no sound,
     The white flocks glided on.

And far away on every side
     The glittering ice-blink grew,—
Millions of bergs like ships that ride
     Upon the waters blue.

“O Balder, Balder, wherefore hide                                                      309
     Thy face from the blue sky!”
The voice was music, but it cried
     Like any human cry.

“O Balder, Balder,” the white Christ said,
     “Look up and answer me.”
Bright Balder raised his golden head,
     Like sunrise on the sea.

“O Brother, I was weeping then
     For those whom Death o’erthrew.
Shall I, whose eyes have mourn’d for men,
     Not mourn my brethren too?”

The white Christ answer’d back, and cried,
     Shining under the sky,
“All that is beautiful shall abide,
     All that is base shall die.

“And if among thy sleeping kin
     One soul divine there be,
That soul shall walk the world and win
     New life, with thee and me.

“Death shall not harm one holy hair,                                                     310
     Nor blind one face full sweet;
Death shall not mar what Love made fair;
     Nay, Death shall kiss their feet!”

Then Balder rose his heavenly height,
     And clear as day smiled he;
His smile was bright as noonday light
     Upon the sparkling sea.

Turning his face unto the north,
     He utter’d up a prayer,
He saw the great Bridge stretching forth,
     But never a god walk’d there.

He pray’d for those great gods o’erthrown
     And cast in Death’s eclipse,
He named the goddesses each one,
     And blest them with his lips.

And lo! from bright’ning far-off lands
     He saw glad spirits gleam,
Gazing to sea, and waving hands,
     And singing in a dream;

And far away where earth and air                                                       311
     Mingled their gentle lights,
There stood one marble form most fair
     Upon the cloudless heights.

Against the calm and stainless blue
     It stood divinely dim,
And lo, his mother’s form he knew,
     And felt her eyes on him!

Silent she paused, serene and crown’d,
     Amid a summer sheen,
And cataracts flash’d their lights around,
     And woods grew dewy green.

Softly he sail’d beyond her sight
     Upon the summer sea,
And once again with hands snow-white
     He blest all things that be.

And brighter, brighter, as he blest,
     The loosen’d Ocean grew,
And all the icebergs rock’d at rest
     Upon the waters blue.

Along the melting shores of earth                                                        312
     An emerald flame there ran,
Forest and field grew bright, and mirth
     Gladden’d the flocks of Man.

Then glory grew on earth and heaven,
     Full glory of full day!
Then the bright rainbow’s colours seven
     On every iceberg lay!

In Balder’s hand Christ placed his own,
     And it was golden weather,
And on that berg as on a throne
     The Brethren stood together!

And countless voices far and wide
     Sang sweet beneath the sky—
“All that is beautiful shall abide,
     All that is base shall die!”

THE END.

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