"Voice of the gifted elder Time!
Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme!
Speak! from the shades and the depths disclose,
How Sigurd may vanquish his mortal foes—
Voice of the buried past!
"Voice of the grave! 'tis the mighty hour
When Night with her stars and dreams hath power,
And my step hath been soundless on the snows,
And the spell I have sung hath laid repose
On the billow and the blast."
Then the torrents of the North
And the forest pines were still,
When a hollow chaunt came forth
From the dark sepulchral hill.
"There shines no sun through the land of dead,
But where the day looks not the brave may tread;
There is heard no song, and no mead is pour'd,
But the warrior may come to the silent board
In the shadow of the night.
"There is laid a sword in thy father's tomb,
And its edge is fraught with thy foeman's doom;
But soft be thy step through the silence deep,
And move not the urn in the house of sleep,
For the viewless have fearful might."
Then died the solemn lay,
As a trumpet's music dies,
By the nignt-wind borne away
Through the wild and stormy skies.
- ↑ * The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish Poet, Ochlenschlager.
