"Then the three Gods waded the river, and no word Hænir spake, For his thoughts were set on God-home, and the day that is ever awake. But Odin laughed in his wrath, and murmured: 'Ah, how long, Till the iron shall ring on the anvil for the shackles of thy wrong!'
"Then Loki takes up the quarry, and is e'en as a man again; And the three wend on through the wild-wood till they come to a grassy plain Beneath the untrodden mountains; and lo a noble house, And a hall with great craft fashioned, and made full glorious; But night on the earth was falling; so scantly might they see The wealth of its smooth-wrought stonework and its world of imagery: Then Loki bade turn thither since day was at an end, And into that noble dwelling the lords of God-home wend; And the porch was fair and mighty, and so smooth-wrought was its gold, That the mirrored stars of heaven therein might ye behold: But the hall, what words shall tell it, how fair it rose aloft, And the marvels of its windows, and its golden hangings soft, And the forest of its pillars! and each like the wave's heart shone, And the mirrored boughs of the garden were dancing fair thereon. --Long years agone was it builded, and where are its wonders now?
"Now the men of God-home marvelled, and gazed through the golden glow, And a man like a covetous king amidst of the hall they saw; And his chair was the tooth of the whale, wrought smooth with never a flaw; And his gown was the sea-born purple, and he bore a crown on his head, But never a sword was before him: kind-seeming words he said, And bade rest to the weary feet that had worn the wild so long. So they sat, and were men by seeming; and there rose up music and song, And they ate and drank and were merry: but amidst the glee of the cup They felt themselves tangled and caught, as when the net cometh up Before the folk of the firth, and the main sea lieth far off; And the laughter of lips they hearkened, and that hall-abider's scoff, As his face and his mocking eyes anigh to their faces drew, And their godhead was caught in the net, and no shift of creation they knew To escape from their man-like bodies; so great that day was the Earth.
"Then spake the hall-abider: 'Where then is thy guileful mirth, And thy hall-glee gone, O Loki? Come, Hænir, fashion now My heart for love and for hope, that the fear in my body may grow, That I may grieve and be sorry, that the ruth may arise in me, As thou dealtst with the first of men-folk, when a master-smith thou wouldst be. And thou, Allfather Odin, hast thou come on a bastard brood? Or hadst thou belike a brother, thy twin for evil and good, That waked amidst thy slumber, and slumbered midst thy work? Nay, Wise-one, art thou silent as a child amidst the mirk? Ah, I know ye are called the Gods, and are mighty men at home, But now with a guilt on your heads to no feeble folk are ye come, To a folk that need you nothing: time was when we knew you not: Yet e'en then fresh was the winter, and the summer sun was hot, And the wood-meats stayed our hunger, and the water quenched our thirst, Ere the good and the evil wedded and begat the best and the worst. And how if today I undo it, that work of your fashioning, If the web of the world run backward, and the high heavens lack a King? --Woe's me! for your ancient mastery shall help you at your need: If ye fill up the gulf of my longing and my empty heart of greed, And slake the flame ye have quickened, then may ye go your ways And get ye back to your kingship and the driving on of the days To the day of the gathered war-hosts, and the tide of your Fateful Gloom. Now nought may ye gainsay it that my mouth must speak the doom, For ye wot well I am Reidmar, and that there ye lie red-hand From the slaughtering of my offspring, and the spoiling of my land; For his death of my wold hath bereft me and every highway wet. --Nay, Loki, naught avails it, well-fashioned is the net. Come forth, my son, my war-god, and show the Gods their work, And thou who mightst learn e'en Loki, if need were to lie or lurk!'