And drave them homeward; and the snorting steeds Went straining through the crackling brushwood down, And by the darkling forest-paths the gods Followed, and on their shoulders carried boughs. And they came out upon the plain, and passed Asgard, and led their horses to the beach, And loosed them of their loads on the seashore, And ranged the wood in stacks by Balder’s ship; And every god went home to his own house. But when the gods were to the forest gone, Hermod led Sleipner from Valhalla forth, And saddled him: before that, Sleipner brooked No meaner hand than Odin’s on his mane, On his broad back no lesser rider bore; Yet docile now he stood at Hermod’s side, Arching his neck, and glad to be bestrode, Knowing the god they went to seek, how dear. But Hermod mounted him, and sadly fared In silence up the dark untravelled road Which branches from the north of heaven, and went All day; and daylight waned, and night came on. And all that night he rode, and journeyed so, Nine days, nine nights, toward the northern ice, Through valleys deep-ingulfed, by roaring streams. And on the tenth morn he beheld the bridge Which spans with golden arches Giall’s stream, And on the bridge a damsel watching armed, In the strait passage, at the farther end, Where the road issues between walling rocks. Scant space that warder left for passers-by; But as when cowherds in October drive Their kine across a snowy mountain pass To winter pasture on the southern side, And on the ridge a wagon chokes the way, Wedged in the snow; then painfully the hinds With goad and shouting urge their cattle past, Plunging through deep untrodden banks of snow To right and left, and warm steam fills the air,-- So on the bridge that damsel blocked the way, And questioned Hermod as he came, and said,-- “Who art thou on thy black and fiery horse, Under whose hoofs the bridge o’er Giall’s stream Rumbles and shakes? Tell me thy race and home. But yester-morn, five troops of dead passed by, Bound on their way below to Hela’s realm, Nor shook the bridge so much as thou alone. And thou hast flesh and color on thy cheeks, Like men who live, and draw the vital air; Nor look’st thou pale and wan, like men deceased, Souls bound below, my daily passers here.” And the fleet-footed Hermod answered her,-- “O damsel, Hermod am I called, the son Of Odin; and my high-roofed house is built Far hence, in Asgard, in the city of gods; And Sleipner, Odin’s horse, is this I ride. And I come, sent this road on Balder’s track: Say, then, if he hath crossed thy bridge or no?” He spake; the warder of the bridge replied,-- “O Hermod, rarely do the feet of gods Or of the horses of the gods resound Upon my bridge; and, when they cross, I know.