O Queen of the grief without knowledge, of the courage that may not avail, Of the longing that may not attain, of the love that shall never forget, More joy than the gladness of laughter thy voice hath amidst of its wail: More hope than of pleasure fulfilled amidst of thy blindness is set; More glorious than gaining of all thine unfaltering hand that shall fail: For what is the mark on thy brow but the brand that thy Brynhild doth bear? Lone once, and loved and undone by a love that no ages outwear. Ah! when thy Balder conies back, and bears from the heart of the Sun Peace and the healing of pain, and the wisdom that waiteth no more; And the lilies are laid on thy brow 'mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done; And the roses spring up by thy feet that the rocks of the wilderness wore. Ah! when thy Balder comes back and we gather the gains he hath won, Shall we not linger a little to talk of thy sweetness of old, Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail whence the Gods stood aloof to behold? In several other poems in this volume he recurs to the practice of his romances, Scandinavianizes where the tendency of other poets would be to mediævalize. "Of the Wooing of Hallbiorn the Strong," and "The Raven and the King's Daughter" are examples. Here we have ballads like those that Coleridge and Keats conceived on occasion, full of the beauty that lends itself so kindly to painted-glass decoration; clustered spear-shafts, crested helms and curling banners, and everywhere lily hands combing yellow hair or broidering silken standards. But the names strike a strange note in these songs of Morris, and the accompaniments are very different from the mediæval kind: Come ye carles of the south country, Now shall we go our kin to see! For the lambs are bleating in the south, And the salmon swims towards Olfus mouth. Girth and graithe and gather your gear! And ho for the other Whitewater![34] The introduction of the homely arts of bread-winning distinguishes the romance of Scandinavia from the romance of Southern Europe, and here Morris struck into a new field for poetry. Wherever we turn to note the effects of Icelandic tradition, we find this presence of daily toil, always associated with dignity, never apologized for. The connection between Morris' art and Morris' socialism is not hard to explain. No commentary can equal Morris' own poem, "To the Muse of the North," in setting forth the charm that drew him to the literature of Iceland: