Balder hath gone this way, and ta’en the road Below there, to the north, toward Hela’s realm. From here the cold white mist can be discerned, Not lit with sun, but through the darksome air By the dim vapor-blotted light of stars, Which hangs over the ice where lies the road. For in that ice are lost those northern streams, Freezing and ridging in their onward flow, Which from the fountain of Vergelmer run, The spring that bubbles up by Hela’s throne. There are the joyless seats, the haunt of ghosts, Hela’s pale swarms; and there was Balder bound. Ride on! pass free! but he by this is there.” She spake, and stepped aside, and left him room. And Hermod greeted her, and galloped by Across the bridge; then she took post again. But northward Hermod rode, the way below; And o’er a darksome tract, which knows no sun, But by the blotted light of stars, he fared. And he came down to ocean’s northern strand, At the drear ice, beyond the giants’ home. Thence on he journeyed o’er the fields of ice Still north, until he met a stretching wall Barring his way, and in the wall a grate. Then he dismounted, and drew tight the girths, On the smooth ice, of Sleipner, Odin’s horse, And made him leap the grate, and came within. And he beheld spread round him Hela’s realm, The plains of Niflheim, where dwell the dead, And heard the thunder of the streams of hell. For near the wall the river of Roaring flows, Outmost; the others near the centre run,-- The Storm, the Abyss, the Howling, and the Pain; These flow by Hela’s throne, and near their spring. And from the dark flocked up the shadowy tribes; And as the swallows crowd the bulrush-beds Of some clear river, issuing from a lake, On autumn-days, before they cross the sea; And to each bulrush-crest a swallow hangs Swinging, and others skim the river-streams, And their quick twittering fills the banks and shores,-- So around Hermod swarmed the twittering ghosts. Women, and infants, and young men who died Too soon for fame, with white ungraven shields; And old men, known to glory, but their star Betrayed them, and of wasting age they died, Not wounds; yet, dying, they their armor wore, And now have chief regard in Hela’s realm. Behind flocked wrangling up a piteous crew, Greeted of none, disfeatured and forlorn,-- Cowards, who were in sloughs interred alive; And round them still the wattled hurdles hung Wherewith they stamped them down, and trod them deep, To hide their shameful memory from men. But all he passed unhailed, and reached the throne Of Hela, and saw, near it, Balder crowned, And Hela set thereon, with countenance stern; And thus bespake him first the solemn queen:-- “Unhappy, how hast thou endured to leave The light, and journey to the cheerless land