The oaks will sigh above our long-forgotten graves. 
Oh, fortunate and blessed race!  Ye who shall drink
The sparkling beaker of that light, I bid you hail! 
It will be well if it can drive away the cloud
Whose humid covering hitherto has veiled life’s sun. 
But scorn not us, who, in sincerity, have sought
With unaverted gaze to find the light divine. 
The Allfather is but one, though many herald him.

“Thou hatest Bele’s sons.  And wherefore hatest thou? 
Because to thee, a yeoman’s son, they did not choose
To give their sister, who belongs to Seming’s race.—­
The noble son of all-wise Odin.  Their descent extends
To Valhal’s throne,—­and pride of birth is theirs. 
Thou sayest that birth on fortune, not on worth, depends. 
Of merit all his own, O youth, is no one proud,—­
But only of his fortune; for the best of things
Are only God’s good gifts to man.  Art thou not proud
Of thy heroic deeds, of thy superior strength? 
Who gave thee thy great strength?  Did Asa-Thor not knit
Thy sinewy arms as firm and close as oaken boughs? 
And is it not God’s spirit high which joyous beats
Within the citadel of thine arched breast?  Is not
The lightning God’s which flashes in thy fiery eyes? 
Beside thine infant cradle sang the haughty norns
The prince-song of thy life; for that thy merit is
No whit the greater than the king’s son’s for his birth. 
Lest thy pride be condemned another’s censure not. 
King Helge now is fallen.” 
                        Here broke Fridthjof in: 
“King Helge fallen?  When and where?”

“Thou canst but know
That while thou here wert building, he was on the march
Among the Finnish mountains.  On a lonely crag
There stood an ancient shrine.  To Jumala ’twas built
Abandoned long ago,—­the door was now fast closed;
But just above the portal still there stood a strange
Old image of the god, now tottering to its fall. 
But no one dare approach, for there a saying rife
Among the people went from age to age, that he
Who first the temple sought should Jumala behold. 
This Helge heard, and, blinded by his furious wrath,
Went up the ruined steps against the hated god,—­
Intent to cast the temple down.  When there arrived
The gate was closed,—­ the key fast rusted in the lock. 
Then grasping both the door-posts, hard and fierce he shook
The rotten pillars.  All at once, with horrid crash,
Down fell the ponderous image, crushing in its fall
The Valhal-son.  And thus he Jumala beheld. 
A messenger last night arrived the tidings bore. 
Now Halfdan sits alone on Bele’s throne.  To him
Thy hand extend, to heaven thy vengeance sacrifice. 
That offering Balder asks, and I, his priest, require
In token that the peaceful god thou mockest not. 
If thou refuse, this temple then is built in vain,
And vainly have I spoken.”