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  THE JUDGEMENT
  OF VALHALLA


  BY
  GILBERT FRANKAU


  NEW YORK
  FEDERAL PRINTING COMPANY
  1918




  Copyright, 1918
  GILBERT FRANKAU

  _All rights reserved_




The Judgement of Valhalla

BY GILBERT FRANKAU




_THE DESERTER_


    “I’m sorry I done it, Major.”
    We bandaged the livid face;
    And led him out, ere the wan sun rose,
    To die his death of disgrace.

    The bolt-heads locked to the cartridge;
    The rifles steadied to rest,
    As cold stock nestled at colder cheek
    And foresight lined on the breast.

    “_Fire!_” called the Sergeant-Major.
    The muzzles flamed as he spoke:
    And the shameless soul of a nameless man
    Went up in the cordite-smoke.




_THE EYE AND THE TRUTH_


    Up from the fret of the earth-world, through the Seven Circles of
       Flame,
    With the seven holes in Its tunic for sign of the death-in-shame,
    To the little gate of Valhalla the coward-spirit came.

    Cold, It crouched in the man-strong wind that sweeps Valhalla’s
       floor;
    Weak, It pawed and scratched on the wood; and howled, like a dog,
       at the Door
    Which is shut to the souls who are sped in shame, for ever and
       evermore:

    For It snuffed the Meat of the Banquet-boards where the Threefold
       Killers sit,
    Where the Free Beer foams to the tankard-rim, and the Endless Smokes
       are lit....
    And It saw the Nakéd Eye come out above the lintel-slit.

    And now It quailed at Nakéd Eye which judges the naked dead;
    And now It snarled at Nakéd Truth that broodeth overhead;
    And now It looked to the earth below where the