"if every created thing
weeps for Balder, he shall return to Asgard; but if one eye is dry he
remains henceforth in Helheim."

Then Hermod rode swiftly away, and the decree of Hel was soon told in
Asgard. Through all the worlds the gods sent messengers to say that all
who loved Balder should weep for his return, and everywhere tears fell
like rain. There was weeping in Asgard, and in all the earth there was
nothing that did not weep. Men and women and little children, missing
the light that had once fallen into their hearts and homes, sobbed with
bitter grief; the birds of the air, who had sung carols of joy at the
gates of the morning since time began, were full of sorrow; the beasts
of the fields crouched and moaned in their desolation; the great trees,
that had put on their robes of green at Balder's command, sighed as the
wind wailed through them; and the sweet flowers, that waited for
Balder's footstep and sprang up in all the fields to greet him, hung
their frail blossoms and wept bitterly for the love and the warmth and
the light that had gone out. Throughout the whole earth there was
nothing but weeping, and the sound of it was like the wailing of those
storms in autumn that weep for the dead summer as its withered leaves
drop one by one from the trees.

The messengers of the gods went gladly back to Asgard, for everything
had wept for Balder; but as they journeyed they came upon a giantess,
called Thok, and her eyes were dry.

"Weep for Balder," they said.

"With dry eyes only will I weep for Balder," she answered. "Dead or
alive, he never gave me gladness. Let him stay in Helheim."

When she had spoken these words a terrible laugh broke from her lips,
and the messengers looked at each other with pallid faces, for they knew
it was the voice of Loke.

Balder never came back to Asgard, and the shadows deepened over all
things, for the night of death was fast coming on.

SECTION VII

POETRY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. SOME IMPORTANT GENERAL COLLECTIONS

Bryant, William Cullen, _Library of Poetry and Song_.

Child, Francis J., _English and Scottish Popular Ballads_. [Ed.
by Sargent and Kittredge.]

Quiller-Couch, Sir Arthur, _Oxford Book of English Verse_.

Stedman, Edmund Clarence, _An American Anthology_. _A Victorian
Anthology._

Stevenson, Burton E., _The Home Book of Verse_.

The finest single-volume general collection yet
made. It runs to nearly