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All things in earth and air

Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;

Even the plants and stones;

All save the mistletoe,

The sacred mistletoe!

Hæder, the blind old God,

Whose feet are shod with silence,

Pierced through that gentle breast With his sharp spear, by fraud Made of the mistletoe,

The accursed mistletoe!

They laid him in his ship,

With horse and harness,

As on a funeral pyre.

Odin placed

A ring upon his finger,

And whispered in his ear.

They launched the burning ship!

It floated far away

Over the misty sea,

Till like the sun it seemed,

Sinking beneath the waves.

Balder returned no more!

So perish the old Gods!

But out of the sea of Time

Rises a new land of song,

Fairer than the old.

Over its meadows green

Walk the young bards and sing.

Build it again,

O ye bards,

Fairer than before!

Ye fathers of the new race,

Feed upon morning dew,

Sing the new Song of Love!

The law of force is dead!

The law of love prevails!
Thor, the thunderer,

Snall rule the earth no more,

No more, with threats,

Challenge the meek Christ.

Sing no more,

O ye bards of the North,
Of Vikings and of Jarls!

Of the days of Eld

Preserve the freedom only,

Not the deeds of blood!

SONNET

ON MRS. KEMBLE'S READINGS FROM SHAKSPEARE.

O PRECIOUS evenings! all too swiftly sped!
Leaving us heirs to amplest heritages

Of all the best thoughts of the greatest sages,
And giving tongues unto the silent dead!

How our hearts glowed and trembled as she read,
Interpreting by tones the wondrous pages

Of the great poet who foreruns the ages,
Anticipating all that shall be said!

O happy Reader! having for thy text

The magic book, whose Sibylline leaves have

caught

The rarest essence of all human thought!

O happy Poet! by no critic vext!

How must thy listening spirit now rejoice
To be interpreted by such a voice!

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