chriemhild.
83
Behold the nucleus of the old song's glory.
This is the picture of Chriemhild to keep;
For you can only finish the mad story,
To shudder and to weep.
This is the picture of Chriemhild to keep;
For you can only finish the mad story,
To shudder and to weep.
Link not her name with Etzel's barbarous splendor,
Nor the bold Nibelung race she snared to death:
Embalm her memory, womanly and tender,
In love's most sacred breath!
Nor the bold Nibelung race she snared to death:
Embalm her memory, womanly and tender,
In love's most sacred breath!
You happier women of these later ages,
With white hands by her hideous guilt unsoiled,—
Had she read forward her own history's pages,
Like you she had recoiled.
With white hands by her hideous guilt unsoiled,—
Had she read forward her own history's pages,
Like you she had recoiled.
Who hears, in that young, rapturous inspiration,
When every thought takes up its harp and sings,
The undertone of demon-visitation
Muttering beneath Love's wings?
When every thought takes up its harp and sings,
The undertone of demon-visitation
Muttering beneath Love's wings?
Mean jealousies her queenly bosom fluttered,
Wakening to war the monstrous brood of crime,
Dragon with fiend, until her tale is uttered,
A fear unto all time.
Wakening to war the monstrous brood of crime,
Dragon with fiend, until her tale is uttered,
A fear unto all time.
