THE BLUE CLOSET.* The Damozels. Lady Alice, lady Louise, And ever the great bell overhead Boomed in the wind a knell for the dead, Though no one tolled it, a knell for the dead. Lady Louise. Sister, let the measure swell Not too loud; for you sing not well If you drown the faint boom of the bell; And ever the chevron2 overhead Alice the Queen, and Louise the Queen, From day to day and year to year; Will he come back again, or is he dead? O! is he sleeping, my scarf round his head? 20 Or did they strangle him as he lay there, With the long scarlet scarf I used to wear? To break the locks of the doors below, Float from the opened lips of Louise; They Sing All Together How long ago was it, how long ago, 30 He came to this tower with hands full of snow? 1 "Praise ye, youths." The beginning of the socalled Irish version of the familiar hymn, Te Deum Laudamus. 2 A V-shaped device. Written for a picture (a water-color) by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The romantic theme, the mediaeval remoteness, the color and sound, the sharpness of detail with the vagueness of general outline and setting, are all in the early Pre-Raphaelite manner. See Eng. Lit., pp. 370, 374. 50 And ever the great bell overhead, And the tumbling seas mourned for the dead; For their song ceased, and they were dead! FROM THE EARTHLY PARADISE Of Heaven or Hell I have no power to sing, But rather, when aweary of your mirth, 7 Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter, The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover. FROM SIGURD THE VOLSUNG* OF THE PASSING AWAY OF BRYNHILD Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious sun, And the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done; Dreamer of dreams, born out of my due time, For out in the people's meadows they raise a Why should I strive to set the crooked straight? To those who in the sleepy region stay, 28 Folk say, a wizard to a northern king At Christmas-tide such wondrous things did show, That through one window men beheld the spring, And through another saw the summer glow, So with this Earthly Paradise it is, 1 According to Greek legend, false dreams come through the gate of ivory, true dreams through the gate of horn. bale2 on high, The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie; * The Volsunga Saga is an older, Norse version of the legend which appears in German literature as the Nibelungenlied, and which has been made familiar in modern times by Wagner's opera Der Ring des Nibelungen. It is the great Teutonic race epic. Sigurd (Siegfried, in the German version) is the grandson of Volsung, who was a descendant of Odin. Brynhild was originally a Valkyrie, one of Odin's "Choosers of the Slain," maidens who rode on white cloud-horses and visited battle-fields to select heroes for Odin's great hall, Valhalla. Sigurd wakened Brynhild from an enchanted sleep to the doom of mortal life and love, and they plighted troth. But their love was thwarted at the court of the Niblung princes, Gunnar, Hogni, and Guttorm, and their sister Gudrun, the children of Giuki. Through the witchcraft of Grimhild, Gudrun's mother, Sigurd is made to lose all memory of Brynhild and to marry Gudrun. Moreover, he is made to assist in bringing about the marriage of Brynhild to Gunnar. Later, as a result of rivalry, Guttorm surprises and slays Sigurd, but is himself slain by Sigurd's sword, the "Wrath." Then follows the portion of the tale here given-the pathetic story of the means taken by Brynhild to rejoin Sigurd. Morris's metrical rendering of the entire legend extends to about ten thousand lines. 2 funeral pile Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour | While many a word of mocking at his speechof sweet spice, less face was cast.''s Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs Then I heard a voice in the world: for the broken troth, of untold price: 'O woe The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts | And the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and the of the mighty horn From the topmost tower out-wailing o'er the woeful world are borne. But Brynhild lay in her chamber, and her women went and came, And they feared and trembled before her, and none spake Sigurd's name; 10 But whiles they deemed her weeping, and whiles they deemed indeed That she spake, if they might but hearken, but no words their ears might heed; Till at last she spake out clearly: "I know not what ye would; For ye come and go in my chamber, and ye seem of wavering mood To thrust me on, or to stay me; to help my heart in woe, Or to bid my days of sorrow midst nameless folly go. None answered the word of Brynhild, none knew of her intent; But she spake: "Bid hither Gunnar, lest the sun sink o'er the bent,+ And leave the words unspoken I yet have will to speak."' Then her maidens go from before her, and that lord of war they seek, 20 And he stands by the bed of Brynhild and strives to entreat and beseech, But her eyes gaze awfully on him, and his lips may learn no speech. And she saith: "I slept in the morning, or I dreamed in the waking-hour, And my dream was of thee, O Gunnar, and the bed in thy kingly bower, And the house that I blessed in my sorrow, and cursed in my sorrow and shame, The gates of an ancient people, the towers of a mighty name; King, cold was the hall I have dwelt in, and no brand burned on the hearth; Dead-cold was thy bed, O Gunnar, and thy land was parched with dearth: Sorrow of Odin the Goth! '7 Then I saw the halls of the strangers, and the hills, and the dark-blue sea, Nor knew of their names and their nations, for earth was afar from me, But brother rose up against brother, and blood swam over the board, And women smote and spared not, and the fire was master and lord. Then, then was the moonless mid-mirk, and I woke to the day and the deed The deed that earth shall name not, the day of its bitterest need. 40 Many words have I said in my life-days, and little more shall I say; Ye have heard the dream of a woman, deal with it as ye may; For meseems the world-ways sunder, and the dusk and the dark is mine, Till I come to the hall of Freyia,s where the deeds of the Mighty shall shine.'' So hearkened Gunnar the Niblung, that her words he understood, And But he said: "I have hearkened, and heeded thy death and mine in thy words: he knew she was set on the death-stroke, and he deemed it nothing good; I have done the deed and abide it, and my face shall laugh on the swords; But thee, woman, I bid thee abide here till thy grief of soul abate; Meseems nought lowly nor shameful shall be the Niblung fate; 50 And here shalt thou rule and be mighty, and be Queen of the measureless Gold,9 And abase the Kings and upraise them; and anew shall thy fame be told, And as fair shall thy glory blossom as the fresh fields under the spring."' Then he casteth his arms about her, and hot is the heart of the King For the glory of Queen Brynhild and the hope of her days of gain, But I saw a great King riding, and a master 5 A prophecy of Gunnar's fate at the hands of of the harp, Atli, the Eastern King, who afterward married Gudrun. And he rode amidst of the foemen, and the 6 That is, their time of need, when punishment 30 began to overtake them. 7 The sorrows of the race of Odin. swords were bitter-sharp, But his hand in the hand-gyves smote not, and 8 The goddess of love. his feet in the fetters were fast, 9 The hoard of the Niblungs, the won from Dwarfs, or smiths who dwelt in the caverns of the earth. The curse attached to this treas ure brought sorrow on all who shared in it. And he clean forgetteth Sigurd and the foster- | Or the souls of Kings departed midst the battle brother slain; and the wrack? 80 But she shrank aback from before him, and Yet this shall be easier to thee than the turncried: "Woe worth the while10 ing Brynhild's heart; For the thoughts ye drive back on me, and the She came to dwell among us, but in us she had memory of your guile! no part; The Kings of Earth were gathered, the wise of Let her go her ways from the Niblungs, with men were met; her hand in Sigurd's hand. On the death of a woman's pleasure their glo- Will the grass grow up henceforward where her rious hearts were set,11 60 And I was alone amidst them-ah, hold thy peace hereof! Lest the thought of the bitterest hours this little hour should move." feet have trodden the land?'' "O evil day!" said Gunnar, "when my Queen must perish and die!'' "Such oft betide,'' saith Hogni, "as the lives of men flit by; He rose abashed from before her, and yet he But the evil day is a day, and on each day lingered there; groweth a deed, Then she said: "O King of the Niblungs, And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful what noise do I hearken and hear? Why ring the axes and hammers, while feet of tale shall speed. Lo, now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass, All sheathed the maidens brought it, and | Are swift on the kingly threshold, and Bryn feared the hidden blade, hild's bleed they meet. But the naked blue-white edges across her knees Low down o'er the bed he hangeth and heark she laid, eneth for her word, And spake: "The heaped-up riches, the gear And her heavy lids are opened to look on the my fathers left, Niblung lord. All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from And she saith: "I pray thee a prayer, the last battle reft, word in the world I speak, All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor, That ye bear me forth to Sigurd, and the hand my hand would seek; And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of The baie for the dead is builded, it is wrought Brynhild's store." 110 They brought them 'mid their weeping, but none put forth a hand To take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land: There they stand and weep before her, and some are moved to speech, And they cast their arms about her and strive with her and beseech That she look on her loved-ones' sorrow and the glory of the day. It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands away, And she said: "Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the gold In remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old." Then she spake: "Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him? For new things are mine eyes beholding and the Niblung house grows dim, 120 And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speak When the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak." Then upright by the bed of the Niblungs for a moment doth she stand, And the blade flasheth bright in the chamber, but no more they hinder her hand Than if a god were smiting to rend the world in two; Then dulled are the glittering edges, and the bitter point cleaves through The breast of the all-wise Brynhild, and her feet from the pavement fail, And the sigh of her heart is hearkened 'mid the hush of the maidens' wail. Chill, deep is the fear upon them, but they bring her aback to the bed, fuli wide on the plain, But ere ye leave us sleeping draw his Wrath from out the sheath, And lay that Light of the Branstock* and the blade that frighted death Betwixt my side and Sigurd's, as it lay that while agone, When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone: How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind? How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find? How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ring Clash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my King?'' Then she raised herself on her elbow, but again her eyelids sank, And the wound by the sword-edge whispered, as her heart from the iron shrank, 150 And she moaned: "O lives of man-folk, for unrest all overlong By the Father were ye fashioned; and what Now at last, O my beloved, all is gone; none hope amendeth wrong? else is near, Through the ages of all ages, never sundered, shall we wear. Searce more than a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell, Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell; And her hand is yet on the hilts, and sidelong Another name for Sigurd's sword. The Brandroopeth her head. 130 Then there cometh a cry from withoutward, and Gunnar's hurrying feet stock was a great oak tree about which was built the ancestral home of the Volsungs. The sword, sent by Odin, was drawn from the Branstock by Sigurd's father. It was later broken into pieces, but reforged as Bram, or the Wrath of Sigurd. |