She mused, and then continued, 'Truth and Love Are gifts too great to give themselves for nought; Exacting Gods. Within man's bleeding heart, If e'er to man conceded, both shall lie Crossed, like two swords-- Behold thine image, crowned Humanity! Better such dower than life exempt from woe: Our Fathers knew to suffer; joyed in pain; They knew not this--how deep its root!' Once more The Prophetess was mute: again she spake: 'How named thy guest his God?' The King replied: 'The Warrior God, Who comes to judge the world; The Lord of Love; the God Who wars on Sin, And ceases not to war.' 'Ay, militant,' Heida rejoined, with eyes that shone like stars: 'The Persian knew Him. Ormuzd was His name: Unpitying Light against the darkness warred; Against the Light the Darkness. Could the Light Remit, one moment's length, to pierce that gloom, Himself in gloom were swallowed.' Yet again In silence Heida sat; then cried aloud, 'Odin, and all his radiant AEsir Gods Forth thronging daily from the golden gates Of Asgard City, their supernal house, War on that giant brood of Jotuenheim, Lodged 'mid their mountains of eternal ice Which circles still that sea surrounding earth, Man's narrow home. I know that mystery now! That warfare means the war of Good on Ill: We shared that warfare once! This day, depraved, Warring, we war alone for rage and hate; Men fight as fight the lion and the pard: For them the sanctity of war is lost, Lost like the kindred sanctity of Love, Our household boast of old. The Father-God Vowed us to battle but as Virtue's proof, High test of softness scorned. His warrior knew 'Twas Odin o'er the battle field who sent Pure-handed maiden Goddesses, the Norns, Not vulture-like, but dove-like, mild as dawn, To seal the foreheads of his sons elect, Seal them to death, the bravest with a kiss: His warrior, arming, cried aloud, "This day I speed five Heroes to Valhalla's Hall: To-morrow night in love I share their Feast!" He honoured whom he slew.' To her the King: 'That Stranger with severer speech than thine, Sharp flail and stigma, charged the world with sin, The vast, wide world, and not one race alone: Each nation, he proclaimed, from Man's great stem Issuing, had with it borne one Word divine Rapt from God's starry volume in the skies, Each word a separate Truth, that, angel-like, Before them winging, on their faces flung Splendour of destined morn, and led man's race Triumphant long on virtue's road. Themselves Had changed that True to False. The Judge had come; That Power Who both beginning is and end Had stooped to earth to judge the earth with fire;