Long they fight till the New Year's dawn--until black knight yields,
And the foeman hews away the twig, and rides into the dawn,
But there will come a time,'tis said, when the white knight must yield,
And the twig will grow and its leaves will blow until the trunk is
great:
So great that a proud war horse 'neath its lower branch may go.
And when the branch is grown and blown will come the world's great
fight;
The fiercest of her battles, the last great strife of dread;
And the war horse of the mighty king will stand beneath the tree,
And the king will win, and all the world will be his heritage.

'The White Knight,' saith a commentator, 'is Freyr, one of the most
glorious among Norse Asen, or children of the gods--he who rules over
rain, sunshine, and earth's fruitfulness. His adversary is Surtur, the
Black Demon--a pitiless foe of the Asen, who in the great battle will
fight with the evil Loki--'the curse and shame of gods and men'--and set
heaven and earth afire. But then there will come a new heaven and a new
earth, in which eternal justice shall reign, and the 'GREAT KING'--he
whose steed shall wait beneath the Ash of Life--'will rule forever in
peace and holiness.'

Dear reader, the battle between Freyr and Surtur is ever raging--in your
heart as in all the world. But whenever a great strife for freedom and
truth and man's rights is battled out, _then_ the branch has grown, and
the horse of the Great King is saddled beneath the Ash, and his rule
draws nearer than ever. Even as I write the battle rages, as it never
raged before on earth, between the infernal Loki and Surtur and the
glorious Asen--the great children of light and of truth. You, soldier of
the Lord, who read these lines--you, whose musket is borne in defence of
the Union, are as true a child of the great race of light as was ever
Odin or Balder, and you are in this great fight fulfilling the
prophecies of a thousand years aforetime, which foretold the final
battle of freedom. _You_ too are of the Northmen, the children of Odin
and of Freyr, the inexhaustible race of warriors and of workmen--the
free laborers who forged the swords they wielded against the dark and
wily fiend who stole his weapons from the foe ere the war began. And the
Horse so easily ruled--the all-powerful WILL--stands bridled beneath the
eternal Ash Tree of Life; and while he lives and the tree grows, hope
need not perish, and freedom cannot die.