As had already been intimated, the table of contents in a present-day volume of poetry is very apt to show an Old Norse title.  Thus Robert Lord Lytton’s Poems Historical and Characteristic (London, 1877) reveals among the poems on European, Oriental, classic and mediaeval subjects, “The Death of Earl Hacon,” a strong piece inspired by an incident in Heimskringla.  In Robert Buchanan’s multifarious versifying occurs this title:  “Balder the Beautiful, A Song of Divine Death,” but only the title is Old Norse; nothing in the poem suggests that origin except a notion or two of the end of all things.  “Hakon” is the title of a short virile piece more nearly of the Norse spirit.  Sidney Dobell’s drama Balder has only the title to suggest the Icelandic, but Gerald Massey has the true ring in a number of lyrics, with themes drawn from the records of Norway’s relations with England.  In “The Norseman” there is a trumpet strain that recalls the best of the border-ballads; there is also a truthfulness of portraiture that argues a poet’s, intuition in Gerald Massey, if not an acquaintance with the sagas: 

    The Norseman’s King must stand up tall,
    If he would be head over all;
    Mainmast of Battle! when the plain
    Is miry-red with bloody rain! 
    And grip his weapon for the fight,
    Until his knuckles grin tooth-white,
    The banner-staff he bears is best
    If double handful for the rest: 
      When “follow me” cries the Norseman.

He knows the gentler side of Old Norse character, too, a side which, as we have seen, was not suspected till Carlyle came: 

    He hides at heart of his rough life,
    A world of sweetness for the Wife;
    From his rude breast a Babe may press
    Soft milk of human tenderness,—­
    Make his eyes water, his heart dance,
    And sunrise in his countenance: 
    In merriest mood his ale he quaffs
    By firelight, and with jolly heart laughs
      The blithe, great-hearted Norseman.

The poem “Old King Hake,” is as strikingly true in characterization as the preceding.  In half a dozen strophes Massey has told a whole saga, and has found time, too, to describe “an iron hero of Norse mould.”  How miserable a personage is the Italian that flits through Browning’s pages when contrasted with this hero: 

    When angry, out the blood would start
      With old King Hake;
    Not sneak in dark caves of the heart,
      Where curls the snake,
    And secret Murder’s hiss is heard
      Ere the deed be done: 
    He wove no web of wile and word;
      He bore with none. 
    When sharp within its sheath asleep
      Lay his good sword,
    He held it royal work to keep
      His kingly word. 
    A man of valour, bloody and wild,
      In Viking need;
    And yet of firelight feeling mild
      As honey-mead.