The writings of John Greenleaf Whittier, Volume 7.
John Greenleaf Whittier, Ed.

“No misty breathing strains thy nostril;
     Thine eye shines blue and cold;
Yet mounting up our airy pathway
     I see thy hoofs of gold.
Not lighter o'er the springing rainbow
     Walhalla's gods repair
Than we in sweeping journey over
     The bending bridge of air.

“Far, far around star-gleams are sparkling
     Amid the twilight space;
And Earth, that lay so cold and darkling,
     Has veiled her dusky face.
Are those the Nornes that beckon onward
     As if to Odin's board,
Where by the hands of warriors nightly
     The sparkling mead is poured

“Tis Skuld: ¹ her star-eye speaks the glory
     That wraps the mighty soul,
When on its hinge of music opens
     The gateway of the pole;
When Odin's warder leads the hero
     To banquets never o'er,
And Freya's ² glances fill the bosom
     With sweetness evermore.

“On on! the northern lights are streaming
     In brightness like the morn,
And pealing far amid the vastness
     I hear the gyallarhorn.³
The heart of starry space is throbbing
     With songs of minstrels old;
And now on high Walhalla's portal
     Gleam Surtur's hoofs of gold.”