A Day Long Time Gone

Hearing I ask from the holy races,

From Heimdall's sons, both high and low;

Thou wilt, Valfather, that I relate

Old tales recalled of men long ago.

I remember yet the giants of yore,

Who gave me bread in the days gone by;

Nine worlds I knew, the nine in the tree

With mighty roots beneath the mold.

Of old was the age when Ymir lived;

Sea nor waves nor sand there were;

Earth had not been, nor heaven above,

But a yawning gap, and grass nowhere.

Then Bur's sons lifted the land,

Mithgarth the mighty there they made;

The sun from the south warmed the stones of earth,

And green was the ground with growing leeks.

Solen's hand cast over heaven's rim;

No knowledge she had where her home should be,

The moon knew not what might was his,

The stars knew not where their stations were.

The sun turns black, earth sinks in the sea,

The hot stars down from heaven are whirled;

Fierce grows the steam and the life-feeding flame,

Till fire leaps high about heaven itself.

More fair than the sun, a hall I see,

Roofed with gold, on Gimle it stands;

There shall the righteous rulers dwell,

And happiness ever there shall have they.