Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 8 1823/The Sword of the Tomb
"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,
When a hollow chaunt came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.
"There shines no sun through the land of 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 nignt-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 past
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 mystic shades
From the dreamy 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.
The pines closed o'er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch's tomb,
The pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the northern light,
But his road through dimness lay!
He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood,
The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood,
Nor paused, till the rock, where a vaulted bed
Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead,
Arose on his midnight way.
Then first a moment's chill
Went shuddering through his breast,
And the steel-clad man stood still
Before that place of rest.
But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath,
The threshold-floor of the hall of death,
And look'd on the pale mysterious fire,
Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire
With a strange and a solemn light.*[2]
Then darkly the words of the boding strain,
Like an omen, rose on his soul again,
—"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep.
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!"
But the magic sword and shield
Of many a battle-day
Hung o'er that urn reveal'd
By the tomb-fire's waveless ray.
With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound,
They hung o'er the dust of the far-renown'd,
Whom the bright Valkyriur's glorious voice
Had call'd to the banquet where gods rejoice,
And the rich mead flows in light.
With a beating heart his son drew near,
And still rung the verse in his thrilling ear,
—"Soft be thy tread through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might!"
And many a Saga's rhyme,
And legend of the grave,
That shadowy scene and time
Call'd back to daunt the brave.
But he raised his arm—and the flame grew dim,
And the sword in its light seem'd to wave and swim,
And his faltering hand could not grasp it well—
From the pale oak-wreath with a clash it fell
Through the chamber of the dead.
The deep tomb rung with the heavy sound,
And the urn lay shiver'd in fragments round,
And a rush, as of tempests, quench'd the fire,
And the scatter'd dust of his warlike sire
Was strewn on the champion's head.
One moment—and all was still
In the slumberer's ancient hall,
When the rock had ceased to thrill
With the mighty weapon's fall.
The stars were just fading, one by one,
The clouds were just tinged by the early sun,
When there stream'd through the cavern a torch's flame,
And the brother of Sigurd the valiant came
To seek him in the tomb.
Stretch'd on his shield, like the steel-girt slain
By moonlight seen on the battle-plain,
In a speechless trance lay the warrior there,
But he wildly woke when the torch's glare
Burst on him through the gloom.
"The morning-wind blows free,
And the hour of chace is near;
Come forth, come forth with me;
What dost thou, Sigurd, here?"
"I have put out the holy sepulchral fire,
I have scatter'd the dust of my warrior-sire!
It burns on my head, and it weighs down my heart,
But the winds shall not wander without their part
To strew o'er the restless deep!
"In the mantle of Death he was here with me now,
There was wrath in his eye, there was gloom on his brow,
And his cold still glance on my spirit fell
With an icy ray and a withering spell—
Oh! chill is the house of sleep!"
"The morning wind blows free
And the reddening sun shines clear,
Come forth, come forth with me,
It is dark and fearful here!"
"He is there, he is there, with his shadowy frown,
But gone from his head is the kingly crown,
The crown from his head, and the spear from his hand—
They have chased him far from the glorious land
Where the feast of the gods is spread!*[3]
"He must go forth alone on his phantom-steed,
He must ride o'er the grave-hills with stormy speed,
His place is no longer at Odin's board,
He is driven from Valhalla without his sword!
But the slayer shall avenge the dead!"
That sword its fame had won
By the fall of many a crest.
But its fiercest work was done
In the tomb, on Sigurd's breast.F. H.
- ↑ * The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish Poet, Ochlenschlager.
- ↑ * The sepulchral fire, supposed to guard the ashes of departed heroes, is frequently alluded to in the Northern Sagas.
- ↑ * Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Northern Mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre.