Reading The Runes Poem by Ernest Hilbert

For Jacob Charles Hilbert

Small Viking, like us, you have a slight part
Of the Troll in you, that ancient being born
Before good and evil could divert the heart,
Before wild seas froze and icebergs were worn
Loose from mother glaciers. You're also of Giants,
Snow-stomper, cloud-cutter, shoulders like hills,
Filled to the tip with what time slowly kills,
Our blond warrior, voyager, sun-haired skald,
Yours the sadness of art and spark of science,
All the frontiers before the world was walled.
Our own Dragon-Death-Ships growl to flame
To ignite the dark realm you've arrived to tame.
We burn brightly deep in our fjords.
Battles await you. Horizons are yours.