FROM THE EDDA.*

EASTWARD of the God-built Midgard,
Eastward of the wood of iron,
Sits the hag the dam of giants,
Sits the bag the dam of monsters,
Who are all of mighty stature,
And like savage wolves are fashion'd,
Fashion'd like their father Fenrir:
One of these, Skoll he is named,
Makes the sun to flee before him;
Sol, she fears to be devoured,
Therefore does she flee before him ;
If she stopt, then fell destruction
Would be hers; and so before him
Does she flee in haste for ever:
And the wolf-man, Skoll the giant,
Hath a brother namèd Hati,
Who before Sol's brightness rushing

Drives the moon along the

* See Note G.

M

space realms.

Mani fears to be devoured,
Therefore does he flee from Hati.
But wolf Managarm, the mighty,
Of his fearful race most fearful,
He with blood of men full-filled,
Life-blood of the sons of heroes,
He, in time, the moon shall swallow;
And the earth and all the heaven
Shall with bloody stains be crimson'd:
Then the sun's light dim and dimmer
Shall become; and hither, thither
Shall the winds in wailing tumult
Howl because the day is darken'd.

Thus shall Managarm, the mighty,
Foaming out the crimson life-blood
Of the dead and of the dying,
Be at last the moon's devourer:
Thus the summer shall be darken'd,
And the sun forego her shining,
And the winds upraise their wailing.

THE SEMBLANCE OF THE PAST.

THERE is music that recalls the semblance of an ancient town, Where a church was ever vocal, vocal with the changing

chimes;

And a river slowly creeping bore the barges up and

down;

And the quaint old greystone house told a tale of olden

times:

And the chords of joy or sorrow which those chimes struck in my soul,

As I homeward-wending heard them, heard them wending back to school:

Urging on the flying coach, or loath to reach the journey's

goal,

As dear freedom was before me, or the dull scholastic rule.

There is music that recalls the semblance of a shadowy aisle Dimly-gleaming with the light of waxen tapers set around,

And the deep-toned, sweet-toned organ's pealing solemnly the while,

Loudly calling, lowly falling with uncertain bursts of

sound;

And that sweet low voice beside me, as I knelt in humble

prayer,

With that friend of friends whose deep love was a priceless

joy to me;

And our arm-link'd walks together in the cloister'd alleys there,

When we heard the shivering sound-peals swelling like the

distant sea.

There is music that recalls the semblance of a palaced

height

With a hundred trumpets blowing, blowing in a loud

acclaim,

And the booming of the cannon, and the banners gleaming bright,

Rapture of a foreign army, but a conquer'd people's

shame.

And a white-robed long procession winding down the serried

hill

To the statued bridge that spans the noble Moldau eddying

deep,

Where the meek confessor bow'd him to the phrensied tyrant's

will,

And among the river eddies did his martyr's palm-branch

reap.

There is music that recalls the semblance of the ocean

strand,

Where, a child, I loved to wander, gathering salt seaweeds

and shells;

And a marramgrass-grown reach of shifting, quivering, sunstruck sand,

Over which, on Sunday mornings, rang the music of the

bells

From the grey church-tower uprearing from the red roofs of

the town,

Built where many a pleasant river mingles with the

Northern main,

And the sailors in the vessels haply passing up or down

Heard the holy sounds, and joyful, shouted in accordant strain.

These the semblances and visions which sweet music brings

to me,

Semblances of friends departed, echoes from far-distant

times:

Always of the past it telleth, by its aid my soul set free Backwards towards its earliest being up life's ladder-steps ascends: