The Gold Horns - Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger

Upon the pages

Of the olden ages,

And in hills where are lying

The dead, they are prying;

On armour rusty,

In ruins musty,

On Rune-stones jumbled,

With bones long crumbled.

Eld’s deeds, through guesses

Beheld, are delighting,

But mist possesses

The ancient writing.

The eye-ball fixed is,

The thought perplexed is;

In darkness they’re groping

Their mouths they’re op’ing:

“Ye days long past,

When the North was uplighted,

And with earth heav’n united,

A glimpse back cast.”

The clouds are bustling,

The night blasts rustling,

Sighs are breaking,

From grave-hills quaking,

The regions were under

Thunder.

Of the mighty and daring,

The ghosts there muster,

Stains of war bearing,

In their eye star lustre.

“Ye who blind are straying,

And praying,

Shall an ag’d relic meet,

Which shall come and shall fleet,

Its red sides golden,

The stamp displaying

Of the times most olden.

That shall give ye a notion

To hold in devotion

Our gift, is your duty!

A maiden, of beauty

Most rare.

Shall find the token!”

They vanished; this spoken

Their tones die in air.

Black Hrymfax, weary,

Panteth and bloweth,

And in sea himself burieth;

Belling, cheery,

Morn’s gates ope throweth;

Forth Skinfax hurrieth,

On heaven’s bridge prancing,

And with lustre glancing.

The little birds quaver,

Pearls from night’s weeping;

The flowers are steeping

In the winds which waver;

To the meadows, fleet

A maiden boundeth;

Violet fillet neat

Her brows surroundeth;

Her cheeks are glowing,

Lilly hands she’s showing;

Light as a hind,

With sportive mind

She smiling frisketh.

And as on she whisketh,

And thinks on her lover,

She trips something over;

And, her eyes declining,

Beholds a shining,

And red’neth and shaketh,

And trembling uptaketh

With wondering sprite

From the dingy mould,

With hand snow-white,

The ruddy gold.

A gentle thunder

Pealeth;

The whole North wonder

Feeleth.

Forth rush with gabble

A countless rabble;

The earth they’re upturning,

For the treasure burning.

But there’s no gold!

Their hope is mistaken;

They see but the mould,

From whence it is taken.

An age by rolleth.

Again it howleth

O’er the tops of the mountains.

Of the rain the fountains

Burst with fury;

The spirits of glory

From Norge’s highlands,

To Denmark’s islands,

In the halls of ether

Again meet together.

“For the few there below

Who our gift’s worth know,

Who earth’s fetters spurn all,

And whose souls are soaring

To the throne of th’ Eternal;

Who in eye of Nature

Behold the Creator;

And tremble adoring,

’Fore the rays of his power

In the sun, in the flower,

In the greatest and least,

And with thirst are possest

For of life the spring;

Who, O powerful sprite

Of the times departed!

See thy look bright

From the relic’s sides darted:

For them our Be once more shall ring.

“Nature’s son, whose name

Is unknown to fame,

But his acre tilling,

Strong-armed and tall,

Like his forefathers all,

Him to honour we’re willing,

He shall find the second token!”

They vanished, this spoken.

Black Hrymfax weary

Panteth and bloweth,

And in sea himself buried;

And Belling cheery

Morn’s gates ope throweth;

Forth Skinfax hurrieth,

On heaven’s bridge prancing,

And with lustre glancing.

By the bright green shaw

The oxen striding

The heavy plough draw,

The soil dividing.

The plough stops; sorest

Of shudders rushes

Right through the forest;

The bird-quire hushes

Sudden its strains;

Holy silence

O’er all reigns.

Then rings in the mould

The ancient gold.

Glimpses two from period olden

   Lo! in modern time appearing;

Strange returned those glimpses golden,

   On their sides enigmas bearing.

Holiness mysterious hovers

   O’er their signs, of meaning pond’rous;

Glory of the Godhead covers

   These eternal works so wondrous.

Reverence them, for nought is stable;

   They may vanish, past all seeking.

Let Christ’s blood on Christ’s own table

   Fill them, once with red blood reeking.

But their majesty unviewing,

   And their lustre but descrying,

Them as spectacles ye’re shewing

   To the silly and the prying.

Storm-winds bellow, blackens heaven!

   Comes the hour of melancholy;

Back is taken what was given,—

   Vanished is the relic holy.

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Adam Gottlob Oehlenschläger (1779 - 1850) Denmark

Translated by George Borrow

Source: The Gold Horns, Editor: Edmund Gosse, Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for Clement Shorter, 1913 [Project Gutenberg]