Explore "The Punishment of Loke" by Madison Cawein on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
/ The gods of Asaheim, incensed with Loke, / A whirlwind yoked with thunder-footed steeds, / And, carried thus, boomed o'er the booming seas, / Far as the teeming wastes of Jotunheim, / To punish Loke for all his wily crimes.
/ They found him sitting nigh a mountain-force, / Which flashing roared from crags of ribbed snow, / Lamenting strange and weird in rushing notes / Of the old Stroemkarl, who therein smote a harp / And sang in mystic syllables of runes. / For 'tis the wild man's harp and voice you hear: / He sits behind the crackling cataract / Within a grotto dim of mist and foam, / His long, thin beard, white as the flying spray / Flung to the midnight in a sounding cave / By the blind fish that leap against the winds; / Gemmed with the large dews of the cataract, / Swings in the sucking breeze, and swinging beats / Time to his harp's strains quav'ring soft and sad / Beneath the talons of his pale, lean hand. / And all the waters, leaping, tingling shake / Like shivering stars within the frozen skies, / When as the Giants of Frost rule o'er the deep, / And nip their buds with fingers hoar of ice.