’Tis not an age for songs as sung of old:

The skald is mute, the poet goes unloved.

None sups th’inspiring mead All-Father stole,

And Bragi’s harp rests on its shelf unstrummed.

 

So too in silence sleep the glorious ones

In tombs of sky that span above the soul.

Yet still through life remembrance of them runs:

The valkyries’ shouts sound in the thunder’s roll.

 

Oh list awhile, if ye would hear a tale

Of Odin’s sacrifice, or trickster’s schemes

And Thund’rer’s rage – or of the god bewailed,

Who saw his doom foretold in direful dreams.