Survey him near: how swells each vein with poison,
Which I have poured into his breast with cunning!
Soon Odin, soon will thy beloved be silent;
Soon from thy sight will Balder flit for ever;
Then will it be thy turn to mourn, O tyrant!
It comes--the long-protracted day of vengeance!
It comes--the sigh'd-for hour of retribution!
How long hast thou not tortur'd Loke's bowels,
And fearless trampled 'neath thy feet his offspring?
Hear Hael and Fenris' Wolf, and Midgaard's Serpent--
Loud howl they!--hear them night and day proclaiming
Thy unmatched cruelty with frightful voices!
Each of them was a god, and fair as Balder,
But now to earth and heaven, and to myself, a horror:
Each is a monster, bow'd with chains of darkness.
The hour's at hand, the tardy hour of vengeance:
Already blow I in war's horn: to combat,
Up, up ye mighty gods, and rescue Balder!
There see I him, the hero youth, who only,
Arm'd with the tree of death by Odin's maidens,
Can be--so Fate decrees--this Balder's slayer.
And he shall be it: quickly shall he brandish
The life-destroying bough, if Asa Loke,
By mighty art and wonderful delusions,
Knows how to work the maidens to his purpose.
He comes! I will conceal myself, and listen.

HOTHER, and presently LOKE--the first dressed like a Norwegian peasant,
with a hunting-spear in his hand; the other undistinguished.