THE SWORD OF THE TOMB.

A NORTHERN LEGEND.

The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre. See Ochlenschlager's Plays.

"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,
While a hollow chant came forth

From the dark sepulchral hill.

"There shines no sun 'midst the hidden 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 night-wind borne away

Through the wild and stormy skies,

The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast,
As on through the forest the warrior pass'd,
Through the forest of Odin, the dim and old,
The dark place of visions and legends, told
By the fires of Northern pine.

The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground

Gave back to his footstep a hollow sound;

And it seem'd that the depths of those awful shades, From the dreary gloom of their long arcades,

Gave warning, with voice and sign.

But the wind strange magic knows,

To call wild shape and tone

From the grey wood's tossing boughs,

When Night is on her throne.

The pines clos'd o'er him with deeper gloom,
As he took the path to the monarch's tomb;
The Pole-star shone, and the heavens were bright
With the arrowy streams of the Northern light,
But his road through dimness lay!

He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood,
The dark shrine stain'd with the victim's blood;
Nor paus'd, till the rock where a vaulted bed

Had been hewn of old for the kingly dead,

Arose on his midnight way.

Then first a moment's chill

Went shuddering through his breast,

And the steel-clad man stood still

Before that place of rest.

But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath,

The threshold-floor of the hall of Death,

And look'd on the pale mysterious fire

Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire, With a strange and solemn light.

Then darkly the words of the boding strain
Like an omen rose on his soul again,

-"Soft be thy step through the silence deep, And move not the urn in the house of sleep, For the viewless have fearful might!"

But the gleaming sword and shield

Of many a battle-day

Hung o'er that urn, reveal'd

By the tomb-fire's waveless ray.

With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound, They hung o'er the dust of the far-renown'd, Whom the bright Valkyriur's warning voice Had call'd to the banquet where gods rejoice,

And the rich mead flows in light.