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~ By Courtesy of Others ~

 

Skadhi's Lament

"Lo Balder, thou highest of athelings
beight all-full with kingly things
Look upon me, and hear
the plainted weeps which hold thee dear
and lo! They pour of them!
Glist'ning orbs whose sorrow's have no end
for thou, not Njordhr, was my mind's bend!"

"Speak thou not!  For another's art
and shall remain!  Tell me, cold Skadhi,
shall I befoul these so hight kingly things
for life in ice and snowstorms swirling?
But, I speak no ill of the Wolfdales,
but rather that ill-boding tempest which is honor
from the two holy thedes of sky and earth
and even so the holy dead below?"

"None need find, beloved, our benighted love
for if honor be tied to fame, and fame
to knowing the bald and wealth of a man,
then seemeth it to me that, if none do wot
then nary shall weet, and, it follows that,
should nary weet, then nary will speak
a hateful and shameful word of thee.
So, come, come and lie with me
beneath the cherry beam, where from
Hildeskjalf our doing be by darkness done."

"Wretched woman, wife who knoweth no tenderness!
What of the troth I owe to Nanna, who ne'er so basely
would do harm to truth or troth or life-giving honor!
Thy choice is ordained by the Wyrd, orlaid in yore
that Njordhr is to be thy love and lord.
And, if I foresee right, then Nanna be mine
for to love and keep and defend to cruelest death,
yea, that must be the means of my death, for e'en Hel
would needs work hard to wrest this prince,
and in no wise would I yield to her will!"

"Prince, ease thy pounding breast, lighten thou
that thund'ry countenance, for no conflict thee findeth in me
all I would is taste! Love, even if only a night
can be garbed as a timeless, starry caress of thy warlike hand!
Yea, even for that alone will I beg, for I shall dream,
as I lie in my husband's briny seagull dung,
of that one moment when Wyrd forgot, and
the limitless worlds of hope and existence merged
and I will live until the end of our days in that memory,
no matter whither my body goes."

"O icy maid, thou who huntest on the snowcapped buroughs,
I have woe for thee, as I see that the freeze
which hath afflicted thee since was slain thy forespring
noble Thjazi, set alight by the wise fires
and smitten by my thewed kin
For thee I pity and gloom, for thou wilt not
have thy hope, and with thy heart's ailing
thou shalt discend to darkness, even as the heavens
succumb frequently to the horrible knowing
that soon she will not have means to pour
her sweet rains on living things, whom soon
shall be engulfed in flames and be seen no more."

"O Balder!  I beg with all heart have I;
a night I will!  If only a night!"

© Harja Sagjam

Image: "Luminous Wind", © Johnathon Earl Bowser, www.johnathonart.com, used by permission.

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