The Sword Of The Tomb : A Northern Legend
'Voice of the gifted elder time!
Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme!
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose,
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes;
Voice of the buried past!
'Voice of the grave! 'tis the mighty hour,
When night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,
And the spell I have sung hath laid repose
On the billow and the blast.'
Then the torrents of the North,
And the forest pines were still,
While a hollow chant came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.
'There shines no sun 'midst the hidden dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour'd,
But the warrior may come to the silent board
In the shadow of the night.
'There is laid a sword in thy father's tomb,
And its edge is fraught with thy foeman's doom;
But soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!'
Then died the solemn lay,
As a trumpet's music dies,
By the night-wind borne away
Through the wild and stormy skies.
The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior pass'd,-
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old,
The dark place of visions and legends, told
By the fires of Northern pine.
The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground
Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound;
And it seem'd that the depths of those awful shades,
From the dreary gloom of their long arcades,
Gave warning, with voice and sign.
But the wind strange magic knows
To call wild shape and tone
From the grey wood's tossing boughs
When night is on her throne.
[...] Read more
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
