I.
A
plague upon the people fell,
A famine after laid them low;
Then thorpe and byre arose in fire,
For on them brake the sudden foe;
So thick they died the people cried,
‘The Gods are moved against the land.’
The Priest in horror about his altar
To Thor and Odin lifted a hand:
‘Help us from
famine
And plague and
strife!
What would you have
of us?
Human life?
Were it our
nearest,
Were it our
dearest,–
Answer, O
answer!–
We give you his
life.’
II.
But
still the foeman spoil’d and burn’d,
And cattle died, and deer in wood,
And bird in air, and fishes turn’d
And whiten’d all the rolling flood;
And dead men lay all over the way,
Or down in a furrow scathed with flame;
And ever and aye the Priesthood moan’d,
Till at last it seem’d that an answer came:
‘The King is
happy
In child and wife;
Take you his
dearest,
Give us a life.’
III.
The
Priest went out by heath and hill;
The King was hunting in the wild;
They found the mother sitting still;
She cast her arms about the child.
The child was only eight summers old,
His beauty still with his years increased,
His face was ruddy, his hair was gold;
He seem’d a victim due to the priest.
The Priest beheld
him,
And cried with joy,
‘The Gods have
answer’d;
We give them the
boy.’
IV.
The
King return’d from out the wild,
He bore but little game in hand;
The mother said, ‘They have taken the child
To spill his blood and heal the land.
The land is sick, the people diseased,
And blight and famine on all the lea;
The holy Gods, they must be appeased,
So I pray you tell the truth to me.
They have taken our
son,
They will have his
life.
Is he your dearest?
Or I, the wife?’
V.
The
King bent low, with hand on brow,
He stay’d his arms upon his knee:
‘O wife, what use to answer now?
For now the Priest has judged for me.’
The King was shaken with holy fear;
‘The Gods,’ he said, ‘would have chosen
well;
Yet both are near, and both are dear,
And which the dearest I cannot tell!’
But the Priest was
happy,
His victim won:
‘We have his
dearest,
His only son!’
VI.
The
rites prepared, the victim bared,
The knife uprising toward the blow,
To the altar-stone she sprang alone:
‘Me, not my darling, no!’
He caught her away with a sudden cry;
Suddenly from him brake his wife,
And shrieking, ‘I am his dearest, I–
I am his dearest!’ rush’d on the knife.
And the Priest
was happy:
‘O Father
Odin,
We give you a
life.
Which was his
nearest?
Who was his
dearest?
The Gods have
answer’d;
We give them
the wife!'
< British and American Poets
of the 19th Century >