Bibliofreakblog

FreeVerse: Tegnér’s Drapa

This is another poem from Tales Before Narnia (which will be reviewed soon, I promise!).  

In the introduction to the book, Anderson says:

Many of Lewis’s inspirations can be traced to his wide reading.  In Surprised by Joy (1956), an autobiography of his early life, Lewis noted that one of the experiences forming his pleasure in literature occurred when when as a youth he read the poem “Tegnér’s Drapa” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  (The poem was first published as “Tegnér’s Death”–Esaisas Tegnér, 1782-1846, was a Swedish poet, and the word drapa signifies a death song or dirge.)  It gave him a glimpse of what he would later call “Northerness”–”instantly,” Lewis wrote, “I was uplifted into huge regions of northern sky, I desired with almost sickening intesity something never to be described (except that it is cold, spacious, sever, pale, and remote).”  This Northerness was, for Lewis, a quality in literature he much valued–akin in some ways to the Romantic longing (Sehnsucht) that he also called “Joy.”

Lewis is totally right about this poem.  It really does invoke that “Northerness” feeling that so interested many 20th century English writers.

“Tegnér’s Death” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard a voice, that cried,
“Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!”
And through the misty air
Passed like the mournful cry
Of sunward sailing cranes.

I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.
Blasts from Niffelheim
Lifted the sheeted mists
Around him as he passed.

And the voice forever cried,
“Balder the Beautiful
Is dead, is dead!”
And died away
Through the dreary night,
In accents of despair.

Balder the Beautiful,
God of the summer sun,
Fairest of all the Gods!
Light from his forehead beamed,
Runes were upon his tongue,
As on the warrior’s sword.

All things in earth and air
Bound were by magic spell
Never to do him harm;
Even the plants and stones;
All save the mistletoe,
The sacred mistletoe!

Hoeder, the blind old God,
Whose feet are shod with silence,
Pierced through that gentle breast
With his sharp spear, by fraud
Made of the mistletoe,
The accursed mistletoe!

They laid him in his ship,
With horse and harness,
As on a funeral pyre.
Odin placed
A ring upon his finger,
And whispered in his ear.

They launched the burning ship!
It floated far away
Over the misty sea,
Till like the sun it seemed,
Sinking beneath the waves.
Balder returned no more!

So perish the old Gods!
But out of the sea of Time
Rises a new land of song,
Fairer than the old.
Over its meadows green
Walk the young bards and sing.

Build it again,
O ye bards,
Fairer than before!
Ye fathers of the new race,
Feed upon morning dew,
Sing the new Song of Love!

The law of force is dead!
The law of love prevails!
Thor, the thunderer,
Shall rule the earth no more,
No more, with threats,
Challenge the meek Christ.

Sing no more,
O ye bards of the North,
Of Vikings and of Jarls!
Of the days of Eld
Preserve the freedom only,
Not the deeds of blood!