IV Frithiof’s Farewell
No more shall I see In its upward motion The smoke of the Northland. Man is a slave: The fates decree. On the waste of the ocean There is my fatherland, there is my grave.
Go not to the strand, Ring, with thy bride, After the stars spread their light through the sky. Perhaps in the sand, Washed up by the tide, The bones of the outlawed Viking may lie.
Then, quoth the king, “’T is mournful to hear A man like a whimpering maiden cry. The death-song they sing Even now in mine ear, What avails it? He who is born must die.”