The speech of Mimmer on his heart fell heavy.
Hear it and tremble! Not for death, O Balder!
Nor e'en for Haela, but thy father's anguish;
"The year"--such was his word (thou knowest Mimmer,
And scarce canst think he'd breathe the words of falsehood)--
"The year when Norway's desert hills shall echo
The half-god's wasted love-caus'd lamentations,
When he's rejected by a prophet's daughter,
That year shall see the spear which holds his ruin,
Shall see the gods in grief, and Odin weeping."
Hear that and quake! And fly, and spare thy father!
If not, dote on and die, for that's thy fortune!

[He disappears among the trees.

BALDER (alone). And must I die? Ah well, I merely forfeit
A worthless breath, which is by Nanna hated.
Ha! hated. How that thought that Nanna hates me
Torments my breast! Death, only death, can drown it.
It burns, it scorches me, like Nastroud's blazes.
Come, tenfold death, come quickly, and extinguish
The thought: destroy it, crush it, with this bosom.
Thanks be to Thor, for he my eyelids lifted,
Disclosing I had chance of rest--of dying!
E'en Surtur, he whose hostile fingers planted
The tree, the black tree, by the feeble starlight;
Who nurs'd its infant root with blood fresh taken
From slaughter'd babes, and drew a circle round it,
And mutter'd magic words, and gave it power
To shoot the bane of Nastroud in my bosom,