*

A memory, or prediction? Ripples stir

And ponder o’er the briny world what drank

The great flame, drowning nine realms cruelly burnt

In time so distant, past or future age;

 

The welt’ring spumes, they lash with thrashing throes

As continents so grand, and mountain spines,

Great crags kept secret as the waters rolled,

Once more are born to blazing rays of light.

 

Ascend, ye tors! And burst your water-tomb

To reach again where moon and day-orb race,

Those deities new-born from ancient doom:

The drowsy countenance, and dazzling face!

 

Of rays is birthed a daughter of hot Sun

In glowing heaven; and where touch her feet

On sopping earth, rich grass and herbs grow up 

With magic birth, sans planting, sans the seed.

 

Again the eagle’s caw proclaims his reign

At crown of earth, and ’neath a waterfall

Erupting in white drops, swoops he amain

To clutch the struggling salmon in his claws. 

 

I know one grove Surt’s sword could not devour,

A holt far distant from the gods’ demise:

Hoddmimir’s wood, where in that direful hour

One man and woman hid, while all else died:

 

The morning dew their fragile lives sustained;

And now this couple tread their world anew,

Lif and Lifthrasir, o’er the wheated plains,

The middle-earth where Embla’s family grew

 

In days long gone; but now her salvaged race

Fast multiplies and thrives, in peace to live

On golden lands emergèd from the waves,

Consuming fruits kind Mother Earth does give.

*

* * *

*

A region I see in the wondrous skies

Where rain’s conceived, beyond man’s keenest glimpse,

Hight Never-Cold, where noon-warm hills and heights

Of puffy cumulus with bronze rays wink.

 

What mansion’s seated on those clouds, a gem

On richest cloth? Brimir’s the heroes’ hall,

Where poems are sung, and wars are lived again,

And women’s love is joyfully recalled.

 

Far endless lengths beneath, in shadows dwell

Dim mountains, ink-dark wilderness sublime,

Where daylight flickers only briefest spells,

And next to nothing thrives in freezing clime.

 

A red-gold roof, a domicile that glows,

A crackling hearth that keeps the chill at bay:

In rarest dreams, I’ve seen amid the cold,

Bleak wastes such life, keeping evil away.

 

Oh hail to dwellers of that blessèd house,

Where every wight of virtue lives for aye,

And sups from horns, and groggily does drowse

With blissful dreams their paradise provides.

*

* * *

*

Fair Ithavoll, I view thee stretch beyond

Far flick’ring fulgent flair of solar beams;

A dream-like field, where once rich Asgard’s lawns

Beneath the prior sun steadfastly gleamed –

 

Who walks among thy ways? ’Tis Baldur bright,

Returned from dismal cell, from Helheim’s chains,

From grievous cavern – out such realms of night

He strode through quiet: milk-white sparkling swain

 

Trekking the black paths, dreary mountain trails,

Ascending steep slopes of an eerie calm

Where water-drops echoed among the vales,

And eyes did watch the god as up he clomb;

 

But now on grass-tufts smooth he takes his ease;

And brother Hod sits by him: He from death

As well hath journeyed – sweet fraternity

Once more lives ’twixt those gods who in their rest

 

Spoke not in Hel’s abode, tragic and grim,

Keeping harsh silence, each with mournful look:

The one forgiving not that javelin,

The other not the vengeance Vali took;

 

But hurts are healed, and sight’s restored to eyes

Of god who blindly threw: Love cleans the wounds

That festered in below-lands; now all sighs

Are breaths of bliss t’have quit that wretched tomb

 

Of rancor. Oh, what golden pieces they

Discover midst the grasses! And a board

Of checkered pattern’s found that happy day:

So noble game play brothers ’mid the sward.

 

See Modi, Magni come to greet their kin!

These sons of Thor, holding aloft that maul

Their father swung as raucous, thund’rous din

Resounded from the storm clouds’ brooding pall.

 

In corner of the fields discovered they

The hammer that a thousand jötnar crushed

And coiling sea-snake on the land dismayed

Before o’erwhelmed beneath the flood’s swift rush.

 

Amidst the gods that magic weapon’s placed:

A relic of the bloody times of yore,

A surety for the young of Buri’s race,

A seal against return of foes and war.

 

Right soon Vidar and Vali join as well:

Now Hod forgives that god was spawned t’him slay;

All six of younger deities now tell

Of ages not so shining and so gay:

 

Long speak they of those days like distant dreams

When fathers fought with wolf and serpent huge:

Grand deeds of battle, blood pouring in streams,

Courageous hearts that swelled as chaos loosed;

 

But now a sparkling mildness pervades,

And new-sprung love’s the spirit that’s imbued

Throughout, from world’s welkin to its waves,

A tender freshness, universal youth.

 

But who doth rule such realm harmonious?

What heart’s so nobly pure that princely crown’s

Not glorious more than cheeks’ so brilliant blush,

Or splendor beaming from a luminous brow?

 

A god not known before to all the world,

Not men nor Aesir: figure ’mid the clouds,

Glimpsed in the rainstorms where the breezes whirl,

A fleeting figment – but to all things bound,

 

A lord of souls and hearts, not battle-thanes:

Both living in all things, and nowhere seen.

So cousins on the field cast up their gaze

And lend their hearts to one amid gold gleam

 

Of rising morning. Life, oh endless Life:

Thou hast thy victory at all things’ end!

And claimest scepter, maugre wrath and strife –

And donnest crown, exalting gods and men.

*

*