labor's strength
In rural homes united,--

The simple life, the homely hearth,
With beauty's sphere surrounding,
And blessing toil where toil abounds
With graces more abounding.

1868.

THE DOLE OF JARL THORKELL.

THE land was pale with famine
And racked with fever-pain;
The frozen fiords were fishless,
The earth withheld her grain.

Men saw the boding Fylgja
Before them come and go,
And, through their dreams, the Urdarmoon
From west to east sailed slow.

Jarl Thorkell of Thevera
At Yule-time made his vow;
On Rykdal's holy Doom-stone
He slew to Frey his cow.

To bounteous Frey he slew her;
To Skuld, the younger Norn,
Who watches over birth and death,
He gave her calf unborn.

And his little gold-haired daughter
Took up the sprinkling-rod,
And smeared with blood the temple
And the wide lips of the god.

Hoarse below, the winter water
Ground its ice-blocks o'er and o'er;
Jets of foam, like ghosts of dead waves,
Rose and fell along the shore.

The red torch of the Jokul,
Aloft in icy space,
Shone down on the bloody Horg-stones
And the statue's carven face.

And closer round and grimmer
Beneath its baleful light
The Jotun shapes of mountains
Came crowding through the night.

The gray-haired Hersir trembled
As a flame by wind is blown;
A weird power moved his white lips,
And their voice was not his own.

"The AEsir thirst!" he muttered;
"The gods must have more blood
Before the tun shall blossom
Or fish shall fill the flood.

"The AEsir thirst and hunger,
And hence our blight and ban;
The mouths of the strong gods water
For the flesh and blood of man!

"Whom shall we give the strong ones?
Not warriors, sword on thigh;
But let the nursling infant
And bedrid old man die."

"So be it!" cried the young men,
"There needs nor doubt nor parle."
But, knitting hard his red brows,
In silence stood the Jarl.

A sound of woman's weeping
At the temple door was heard,
But the old men bowed their white heads,
And answered not a word.

Then the Dream-wife of Thingvalla,
A Vala young and fair,
Sang softly, stirring with her breath
The veil of her loose hair.