I can hear the old gods shout in the heathen sky As the hawk-Valkyrie carry the stiffened lumps Of corpse-faced heroes shriekingly to Valhalla. This is Nibelung Hall. I must break the runes from my eyes. I must escape it or die.” He slept. The rain fell.

Melora Vilas, rising by candlelight, Looked at herself in the bottom of the tin basin And wished that she had a mirror. Now Spring was here, She could kneel above the well of a forest pool And see the shadow hidden under the water, The intent brown eyes, the small face cut like a heart. She looked at the eyes and the eyes looked back at her, But just when it seemed they could start to talk to each other⁠— “What are you like? Who are you?”⁠— a ripple flawed The deep glass and the shadow trembled away.