Hother! ah! how art thou fallen!

NANNA (affectionately).  My Hother!

HOTHER.  Ah! farewell for ever, Nanna!

[He goes hastily away.  NANNA attempts to follow him, but BALDER detains her.

NANNA, BALDER.

NANNA.  Woe’s me! he will destroy himself.

BALDER.  By Odin!
He shall not!  Be composed! believe, I’ve power
To hinder it!  Believe thy Balder, Nanna!

NANNA (she takes with fervour his hand and bends herself for some time over it).  I do believe thee, noble one, I know thee!
I feel all thy exaltedness.  Thy virtues
I hold in reverence.  Oh! that all my friendship,
That these hot tears were able to reward thee!

BALDER (casts himself upon his knees before her).  Oh glimpse!  Oh wave of hope, in which I’m drowning!

NANNA (agitated).  What hopest thou?

BALDER.  Let not thy lips, oh Nanna
Awaken Balder from his dream of rapture;
Let him enjoy it; let him read his destiny,
His hope, his life, in yonder precious tear-drops.

NANNA.  Ah, what avails it ’gainst one’s fate to struggle?
My heart can ne’er of Balder be deserving.

BALDER.  Ah, that I but—

NANNA.  Excuse me now; thou knowest
I’ve—Ah! a miserable friend to comfort.

[She tears herself away from him, gives a friendly look and goes.  He follows her for some time with his eyes.

BALDER.  Yet will I hope!  Hear, hear ye rocks! that Balder
Ventures to hope!—stern fate is now contented!
Blunted is Surtur’s spear, and Nanna wavers!
Oh virtue! which, when blood rag’d high didst triumph,
How sure, how nobly thou reward’st thy lover!
Ye rocks which so lately gave ear to my groans,
Now hear of my hope and my gladness the tones,
And reply ye proud woods that no longer seem drear;
In vain fate and heaven, oh Balder, have cas’d,
With vigour the bosom thou lovest, and placed
In the hand of the hero the sorcerer’s spear.
Oh virtue! thou still dost thy servant befriend;
Ye echoes the triumph of true love extend,
And virtue’s fair guerdon proclaim far and near.

THOR, BALDER.

THOR.  Boldly resounds thy song, thou friend of battle!
So bluster from the hero’s lips the bloody
Hard-gotten vict’ries, and the slain foes’ praises,
Whilst he surveys the lonely field of slaughter,
Thou smilest, pleasure from thine eye is flashing,
Like Odin’s, when he freed the earth from danger
By watering it with blood of savage giants.

BALDER.  Ha, friend! press thou thy breast unto this bosom,
And feel what lip but feebly can interpret,
Feel heaven’s rapture in my soul!

THOR.  Thou ravest!

BALDER.  Ah!  Nanna, friend!—

THOR.  Ha! now I understand thee.
And well it is, full well, that Odin’s Balder
At length by tears has soften’d Gevar’s daughter!
This triumph—

BALDER.  Thou art mocking!

THOR.  No, thy vict’ry
Shall to me be as one of my most prais’d ones,
As that I won from Nagaard’s gloomy demon!
Ha! it is great!  It takes from me and Odin
The dastard fear which has too long tormented
Our bosoms.  I no more thine ear shall weary
With vain advice.  Enough! the maiden loveth.

BALDER.  She loveth—yes, by Hæl! she loveth Hother.

THOR.  Ha!  Balder, dost thou mock me?  Whom?  What Hother?

BALDER.  Hast Thor forgotten then the valiant Leir-King?

THOR (in thought).  No!—by my hammer, no!—I saw him battle
At Rolf, the Daneman’s festival; I saw him,
Strong in his arm.

BALDER.  But yet it lost the falchion.

THOR (yet in thought).  Before his spear the copper hauberk yielded
Like softest wax.  Shall he—But scarce a mortal
Avails thereto—But then if fate—

BALDER.  Banish, oh banish,
These murky thoughts, oh Thor! and share my pleasure.

THOR.  Thy pleasure!  Do I dream?  Loves Nanna, Hother?

BALDER.  Ay, doth she!

THOR.  That rejoices thee?  Thou ravest.

BALDER.  Ah hear!—my joy thou wilt thyself approve of.

THOR (after some reflection).  Now, noble one, I understand: embrace me—
Thy vict’ry’s worthy thee—and me—and Odin.
On Gevar’s rocks I will myself engrave it.
Oh! not a weak, soft-hearted maid, but Balder,
But thee, my friend—the monster in thy bosom,
Thy love, thy foolish love, thou overcamest.

BALDER.  Ah, hush thee, cruel one!  I feel I’m blushing.
Know, I had never o’er my heart less power.
I burn, and tremble at the thought of seeing
The flame put out by which I am tormented.

THOR.  What do I hear?  Ye heavens! can an Asa
Lose virtue thus, and all—well, quaff thy pleasure!
And rave and dote!  Thou lov’st and art rejected?
How pleasurably!  By my arm, I’m thinking
The Valkyrie has touch’d thy skull already,
Thou ravest so—I see thy fate is hastening.

BALDER.  My fate’s first law is love.

THOR.  Alas, the second
Is death!

BALDER.  And where’s the battle? where’s the slayer?

THOR.  The slayer?  Hother.

BALDER.  Weaponless, despairing,
He wanders ’mong the rocks.  We fought.

THOR.  He liveth?

BALDER.  Ah, Nanna wept.

THOR.  Curst tears! the blood of Asa
For ye must pay!

BALDER.  And friend, had he the power,
Think’st thou that Hother, that the Skiolding basely
Would murder him to whom his life he oweth?

THOR.  Not so would he.  But if he must, what can he
’Gainst destiny, if she the death-spear hands him,
And guides herself his arm?

BALDER.  Oh, banish, banish
Thy timid care, and hear and share my transport;
Just now, as Hother’s life I spar’d there glitter’d,
Through Nanna’s tears the first, first glimpse of pity;
Sweetly she smil’d, and granting me her friendship,
She press’d my hand with loving warmth.

THOR.  Ha! vex not
Mine ear, I pray thee, with thy follies—little
Is Asa Thor with dastard love acquainted;
Yet can I see into her heart.  She thanks thee
For Hother’s life: that gives thee joy?  Thou dreamest.

BALDER.  My life’s the dream thou dost aspire to scatter.

THOR.  It is thy death!

BALDER.  What death?  See fate accomplished!
Behold this spear which late the Leir-King brandish’d!
My knee grew weak: I stagger’d when it struck me;
Yet still I live, and it to earth fell blunted.

THOR (Whilst he surveys the spear).  Do not deceive thyself, this spear was harden’d
In flames celestial, not in Nastroud’s blazes.
But death has greeted Odin’s son, and Rota,
She who invites the hero-kings to Valhall,
Is here, where never din of arms resounded.
With terror view’d I battle’s haughty daughter:
Dark stood she on a rock, enveiled in vapour;
And on her shoulder, on her steel-cas’d shoulder,
The bird of death, the mournful owl, sat croaking.
Whom seeks she, far from every bloody Champain?
And Surtur’s branch, how soon is that discover’d,
If fate but wish!  And think’st thou Loke slumbers?
Ah, Balder fly! forget a foolish passion!
Fly, ere thy fate, which hasteneth, is accomplish’d.
Follow me straight!

BALDER.  What—fly! and give up Nanna!
The hope in which I live is far too noble
For me to fly from it.

THOR.  O Balder, hear me!
Hear why I come, and if thou wish’st for rescue,
Then heed a friend’s, a father’s last, last warning!
Wondering at thy infatuation, troubled
By threatening, now no longer dark forebodings,
By panic seiz’d, press’d by unwonted sadness,
I left these hills, and thunder-peals announced me
In Asgaard, every eye my trouble