HE WHOM I loved loved no one—
Nor woman, child, nor man:
His joy was but in battle,
To lead his rushing clan.
I had the gift of magic—
Through changing forms I ran!
I was his white plume, floating
Above the serried van!

The plume was but a target,
Amid the flying scath;
And, then, was I his broadsword,
Annealed in fiery bath,
And through the hated phalanx
We cut a groaning swath;
But when his arch foe scaped him,
He brake me, in his wrath!

Then I became his corselet,
That next his heart he wore;
Ay, and his useless buckler,
For he fell wounded sore.
I was the wild, strange music
That went his soul before;
And “Hark!” he murmured, dying,
“There's singing on the moor!”

I was that wild, strange music
That sought his soul to win!
I led him onward, onward,
Till died the battle din;
Across the moor, the upland—
By breathless stream and lin,
I turned, to draw him to me
In regions fine and thin!

His eyes were oped, to know me,
But bright with wrath their gleam.
I had the gift of magic—
Fate, only, is supreme!
I bore him to Valhalla,
In the red Planet's gleam;
And there he dreams of battle—
And I am but his Dream!