Page:The Forest Sanctuary.pdf/126
VALKYRIUR SONG.
The Valkyriur, or Fatal Sisters of Northern mythology, were supposed to single out the warriors who were to die in battle, and be received into the halls of Odin.
When a Northern chief fell gloriously in war, his obsequies were honoured with all possible magnificence. His arms, gold and silver, war-horse, domestic attendants, and whatever else he held most dear, were placed with him on the pile. His dependants and friends frequently made it a point of honour to die with their leader, in order to attend on his shade in Valhalla, or the Palace of Odin. And lastly, his wife was generally consumed with him on the same pile.
See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, Herbert's Helga, &c.
Tremblingly flash'd th' inconstant meteor light,
Showing thin forms like virgins of this earth,
Save that all signs of human joy or grief,
The flush of passion, smile or tear, had seem'd
On the fix'd brightness of each dazzling cheek
Strange and unnatural.
Milman.
The Sea-king woke from the troubled sleep
Of a vision-haunted night.
And he look'd from his bark o'er the gloomy deep,
And counted the streaks of light;
For the red sun's earliest ray
Was to rouse his bands that day.
To the stormy joy of fight!