Then the wrath from the Niblung slippeth and the shame that anger

hath bred,

And the heavy wings of the dreamtide flit over Gunnar's head:

But he doth by his brother's bidding, and Sigurd's hand he takes,

And he looks in the eyes of the Volsung, though scarce in the desert

he wakes.

There Hogni sits in the saddle aloof from the King's desire,

And little his lips are moving, as he stares on the rolling fire,

And mutters the spells of his mother, and the words she bade him say:

But the craft of the kings of aforetime on those Kings of the battle

lay;

Dark night was spread behind them, and the fire flared up before,

And unheard was the wind of the wasteland mid the white flame's

wavering roar.

Long Sigurd gazeth on Gunnar, till he sees, as through a cloud,

The long black locks of the Niblung, and the King's face set and proud:

Then the face is alone on the dark, and the dusky Niblung mail

Is nought but the night before him: then whiles will the visage fail,

And grow again as he gazeth, black hair and gleaming eyes,

And fade again into nothing, as for more of vision he tries:

Then all is nought but the night, yea the waste of an emptier thing,

And the fire-wall Sigurd forgetteth, nor feeleth the hand of the King:

Nay, what is it now he remembereth? it is nought that aforetime he

knew,

And no world is there left him to live in, and no deed to rejoice in

or rue;

But frail and alone he fareth, and as one in the sphere-stream's drift,

By the starless empty places that lie beyond the lift:

Then at last is he stayed in his drifting, and he saith, It is blind

and dark;

Yet he feeleth the earth at his feet, and there cometh a change and a

spark,

And away in an instant of time is the mirk of the dreamland rolled,

And there is the fire-lit midnight, and before him an image of gold,

A man in the raiment of Gods, nor fashioned worser than they:

Full sad he gazeth on Sigurd from the great wide eyes and grey;

And the Helm that Aweth the people is set on the golden hair,

And the Mail of Gold enwraps him, and the Wrath in his hand is bare.

Then Sigurd looks on his arm and his hand in his brother's hand,

And thereon is the dark grey mail-gear well forged in the southern

land;

Then he looks on the sword that he beareth, and, lo, the eager blade

That leaps in the hand of Gunnar when the kings are waxen afraid;

And he turns his face o'er his shoulder, and the raven-locks hang down

From the dark-blue helm of the Dwarf-folk, and the rings of the

Niblung crown.

Then a red flush riseth against him in the face ne'er seen before,

Save dimly in the mirror or the burnished targe of war,

And the foster-brethren sunder, and the clasped hands fall apart;

But a change cometh over Sigurd, and the fierce pride leaps in his

heart;

He knoweth the soul of Gunnar, and the shaping of his mind;

He seeketh the words of Sigurd, and Gunnar's voice doth he find,

As he cries: "I know thy bidding; let the world be lief or loth,

The child is unborn that shall hearken how Sigurd rued his oath!

Well fare thou brother Gunnar! what deed shall I do this eve

That I shall never repent of, that thine heart shall never grieve?

What deed shall I do this even that none else may bring to the birth,

Nay, not the King of the Niblungs, and the lord of the best of the

earth?"

The flames rolled up to the heavens, and the stars behind were bright,

Dark Hogni sat on his war-steed, and stared out into the night,

And there stood Gunnar the King in Sigurd's semblance wrapped,

--As Sigurd walking in slumber, for in Grimhild's guile was he lapped,

That his heart forgat his glory, and the ways of Odin's lords,

And the thought was frozen within him, and the might of spoken words.

But Sigurd leapeth on Greyfell, and the sword in his hand is bare,

And the gold spurs flame on his heels, and the fire-blast lifteth his

hair;

Forth Greyfell bounds rejoicing, and they see the grey wax red,

As unheard the war-gear clasheth, and the flames meet over his head,

Yet a while they see him riding, as through the rye men ride,

When the word goes forth in the summer of the kings by the ocean-side;

But the fires were slaked before him and the wild-fire burned no more

Than the ford of the summer waters when the rainy time is o'er.

Not once turned Sigurd aback, nor looked o'er the ashy ring,

To the midnight wilderness drear and the spell-drenched Niblung King:

But he stayed and looked before him, and lo, a house high-built

With its roof of the red gold beaten, and its wall-stones over-gilt:

So he leapt adown from Greyfell, and came to that fair abode,

And dark in the gear of the Niblungs through the gleaming door he

strode:

All light within was that dwelling, and a marvellous hall it was,

But of gold were its hangings woven, and its pillars gleaming as glass,

And Sigurd said in his heart, it was wrought erewhile for a God:

But he looked athwart and endlong as alone its floor he trod,

And lo, on the height of the daïs is upreared a graven throne,

And thereon a woman sitting in the golden place alone;

Her face is fair and awful, and a gold crown girdeth her head;

And a sword of the kings she beareth, and her sun-bright hair is shed

O'er the laps of the snow-white linen that ripples adown to her feet:

As a swan on the billow unbroken ere the firth and the ocean meet,

On the dark-blue cloths she sitteth, in the height of the golden place,

Nor breaketh the hush of the hall, though her eyes be set on his face.

Now he sees this is even the woman of whom the tale hath been told,

E'en she that was wrought for the Niblungs, the bride ordained from

of old,

And hushed in the hall he standeth, and a long while looks in her eyes,

And the word he hath shapen for Gunnar to his lips may never arise.

The man in Gunnar's semblance looked long and knew no deed;

And she looked, and her eyes were dreadful, and none would help her

need.

Then the image of Gunnar trembled, and the flesh of the War-King

shrank;

For he heard her voice on the silence, and his heart of her anguish

drank:

"King, King, who art thou that comest, thou lord of the cloudy gear?

What deed for the weary-hearted shall thy strange hands fashion here?"

The speech of her lips pierced through him like the point of the bitter

sword,

And he deemed that death were better than another spoken word:

But he clencheth his hand on the war-blade, and setteth his face as

the brass,

And the voice of his brother Gunnar from out his lips doth pass:

"When thou lookest on me, O Goddess, thou seest Gunnar the King,

The King and the lord of the Niblungs, and the chief of their

warfaring.

But art thou indeed that Brynhild of whom is the rumour and fame,

That she bideth the coming of kings to ride her Wavering Flame,

Lest she wed the little-hearted, and the world grow evil and vile?

For if thou be none other I will speak again in a while."

She said: "Art thou Gunnar the Stranger? O art thou the man that I see?

Yea, verily I am Brynhild: what other is like unto me?

O men of the Earth behold me! hast thou seen, O labouring Earth,

Such sorrow as my sorrow, or such evil as my birth?"

Then spake the Wildfire's Trampler that Gunnar's image bore:

"O Brynhild, mighty of women, be thou glorious evermore!

Thou seest Gunnar the Niblung, as he sits mid the Niblung lords,

And rides with the gods of battle in the fore-front of the swords.

Now therefore awaken to life! for this eve have I ridden thy Fire,

When but few of the kings would outface it, to fulfil thine heart's

desire.

And such love is the love of the kings, and such token have women to

know

That they wed with God's belovèd, and that fair from their bed shall

outgrow

The stem of the world's desire, and the tree that shall not be abased,

Till the day of the uttermost trial when the war-shield of Odin is

raised.

So my word is the word of wooing, and I bid thee remember thine oath,

That here in this hall fair-builded we twain may plight the troth;

That here in the hall of thy waiting thou be made a wedded wife,

And be called the Queen of the Niblungs, and awaken unto life."

Hard rang his voice in the hall, and a while she spake no word,

And there stood the Image of Gunnar, and leaned on his bright blue

sword:

But at last she cried from the high-seat: "If I yet am alive and awake,

I know no words for the speaking, nor what answer I may make."

She ceased and he answered nothing; and a hush on the hall there lay,

And the moon slipped over the windows as he clomb the heavenly way;

And no whit stirred the raiment of Brynhild: till she hearkened the

Wooer's voice,

As he said: "Thou art none of the women that swear and forswear and

rejoice,

Forgetting the sorrow of kings and the Gods and the labouring earth.

Thou shalt wed with King Gunnar the Niblung and increase his worth

with thy worth."

And again was there silence a while, and the War-King leaned on his

sword

In the shape of his foster-brother; then Brynhild took up the word:

"Hail Gunnar, King of the Niblungs! tonight shalt thou lie by my side,

For thou art the Gods' belovèd, and for thee was I shapen a bride:

For thee, for the King, have I waited, and the waiting now is done;

I shall bear Earth's kings on my bosom and nourish the Niblung's son.

Though women swear and forswear, and are glad no less in their life,

Tonight shall I wed with the King-folk and be called King Gunnar's

wife.

Come Gunnar, Lord of the Niblungs, and sit in my fathers' seat!

For for thee alone was it shapen, and the deed is due and meet."

Up she rose exceeding glorious, and it was as when in May

The blossomed hawthorn stirreth with the dawning-wind of day;

But the Wooer moved to meet her, and amid the golden place

They met, and their garments mingled and face was close to face;

And they turned again to the high-seat, and their very right hands met,

And King Gunnar's bodily semblance beside her Brynhild set.

But over his knees and the mail-rings the high King laid his sword,

And looked in the face of Brynhild and swore King Gunnar's word:

He swore on the hand of Brynhild to be true to his wedded wife,

And before all things to love her till all folk should praise her life.

Unmoved did Brynhild hearken, and in steady voice she swore

To be true to Gunnar the Niblung while her life-days should endure;

So she swore on the hand of the Wooer: and they two were all alone,

And they sat a while in the high-seat when the wedding-troth was done,

But no while looked each on the other, and hand fell down from hand,

And no speech there was betwixt them that their hearts might

understand.

At last spake the all-wise Brynhild: "Now night is beginning to fade,

Fair-hung is the chamber of Kings, and the bridal bed is arrayed."

He rose and looked upon her: as the moon at her utmost height,

So pale was the visage of Brynhild, and her eyes as cold and bright:

Yet he stayed, nor stirred from the high-seat, but strove with the

words for a space,

Till she took the hand of the King and led him down from his place,

And forth from the hall she led him to the chamber wrought for her

love;

The fairest chamber of earth, gold-wrought below and above,

And hung were the walls fair-builded with the Gods and the kings of

the earth

And the deeds that were done aforetime, and the coming deeds of worth.

There they went in one bed together; but the foster-brother laid

'Twixt him and the body of Brynhild his bright blue battle-blade,

And she looked and heeded it nothing; but e'en as the dead folk lie,

With folded hands she lay there, and let the night go by:

And as still lay that Image of Gunnar as the dead of life forlorn,

And hand on hand he folded as he waited for the morn.

So oft in the moonlit minster your fathers may ye see

By the side of the ancient mothers await the day to be.

Thus they lay as brother by sister--and e'en such had they been to

behold,

Had he borne the Volsung's semblance and the shape she knew of old.

Night hushed as the moon fell downward, and there came the leaden sleep

And weighed down the head of the War-King, that he lay in slumber deep,

And forgat today and tomorrow, and forgotten yesterday;

Till he woke in the dawn and the daylight, and the sun on the gold

floor lay,

And Brynhild wakened beside him, and she lay with folded hands

By the edges forged of Regin and the wonder of the lands,

The Light that had lain in the Branstock, the hope of the Volsung Tree,

The Sunderer, the Deliverer, the torch of days to be:

Then he strove to remember the night and what deeds had come to pass,

And what deeds he should do hereafter, and what manner of man he was;

For there in the golden chamber lay the dark unwonted gear,

And beside his cheek on the pillow were long locks of the raven hair:

But at last he remembered the even and the deed he came to do,

And he turned and spake to Brynhild as he rose from the bolster blue:

"I give thee thanks, fair woman, for the wedding-troth fulfilled;

I have come where the Norns have led me, and done as the high Gods

willed:

But now give we the gifts of the morning, for I needs must depart to

my men

And look on the Niblung children, and rule o'er the people again.

But I thank thee well for thy greeting, and thy glory that I have seen,

For but little thereto are those tidings that folk have told of the

Queen.

Henceforth with the Niblung people anew beginneth thy life,

And fair days of peace await thee, and fair days of glorious strife.

And my heart shall be grieved at thy grief, and be glad of thy

well-doing,

And all men shall say thou hast wedded a true heart and a king."

So spake he in semblance of Gunnar, and from off his hand he drew

A ring of the spoils of the Southland, a marvel seen but of few,

And he set the ring on her finger, and she turned to her lord and

spake:

"I thank thee, King, for thy goodwill, and thy pledge of love I take.

Depart with my troth to thy people: but ere full ten days are o'er

I shall come to the Sons of the Niblungs, and then shall we part no

more

Till the day of the change of our life-days, when Odin and Freyia

shall call.

Lo, here, my gift of the morning! 'twas my dearest treasure of all;

But thou art become its master, and for thee was it fore-ordained,

Since thou art the man of mine oath and the best that the earth hath

gained."

And lo, 'twas the Grief of Andvari, and the lack that made him loth,

The last of the God-folk's ransom, the Ring of Hindfell's oath;

Now on Sigurd's hand it shineth, and long he looketh thereon,

But it gave him back no memories of the days that were bygone.

Then in most exceeding sorrow rose Sigurd from the bed,

And again lay Brynhild silent as an image of the dead.

Then the King did on his war-gear and girt his sword to his side,

And was e'en as an image of Gunnar when the Niblungs dight them to

ride.

And she on the bed of the bridal, remembering hope that was,

Lay still, and hearkened his footsteps from the echoing chamber pass.

So forth from the hall goes the Wooer, and slow and slow he goes,

As a conquered king from his city fares forth to meet his foes;

And he taketh the reins of Greyfell, nor yet will back him there,

But afoot through the cold slaked ashes of yester-eve doth fare,

With his eyes cast down to the earth; till he heareth the wind, and

a cry,

And raiseth a face brow-knitted and beholdeth men anigh,

And beholdeth Hogni the King set grey on his coal-black steed,

And beholdeth the image of Sigurd, the King in the golden weed:

Then he stayeth and stareth astonished and setteth his hand to his

sword;

Till Hogni cries from his saddle, and his word is a kindly word:

"Hail, brother, and King of the people! hail, helper of my kin!

Again from the death and the trouble great gifts hast thou set thee

to win

For thy friends and the Niblung children, and hast crowned thine

earthly fame,

And increased thine exceeding glory and the sound of thy lovèd name."

Nought Sigurd spake in answer but looked straight forth with a frown,

And stretched out his hand to Gunnar, as one that claimeth his own.

Then no word speaketh Gunnar, but taketh his hand in his hand,

And they look in the eyes of each other, and a while in the desert

they stand

Till the might of Grimhild prevaileth, and the twain are as

yester-morn;

But sad was the golden Sigurd, though his eyes knew nought of scorn:

And he spake:

"It is finished, O Gunnar! and I will that our brotherhood

May endure through the good and the evil as it sprang in the days of

the good;

But I bid thee look to the ending, that the deed I did yest'reve

Bear nought for me to repent of, for thine heart of hearts to grieve.

Thou art troth-plight, O King of the Niblungs, to Brynhild Queen of

the earth,

She hath sworn thine heart to cherish and increase thy worth with her

worth:

She shall come to the house of Gunnar ere ten days are past and o'er;

And thenceforth the life of Brynhild shall part from thy life no more,

Till the doom of our kind shall speed you, and Odin and Freyia shall

call,

And ye bide the Day of the Battle, and the uttermost changing of all."

The praise and thanks they gave him! the words of love they spake!

The tale that the world should hear of, deeds done for Sigurd's sake!

They were lovely might you hear them: but they lack; for in very deed

Their sound was clean forgotten in the day of Sigurd's need.

But as yet are those King-folk lovely, and no guile of heart they know,

And, in troth and love rejoicing, by Sigurd's side they go:

O'er heath and holt they hie them, o'er hill and dale they ride,

Till they come to the Burg of the Niblungs and the war-gate of their

pride;

And there is Grimhild the wise-wife, and she sits and spins in the

hall.

"Rejoice, O mother," saith Gunnar, "for thy guest hath holpen all

And this eve shall thy sons be merry: but ere ten days are o'er

Here cometh the Maid, and the Queen, the Wise, and the Chooser of war;

So wrought is the will of the Niblungs and their blossoming boughs

increase,

And joyous strife shall we dwell in, and merry days of peace."

So that night in the hall of the ancient they hold high-tide again,

And the Gods on the Southland hangings smile out full fair and fain,

And the song goes up of Sigurd, and the praise of his fame fulfilled,

But his speech in the dead sleep lieth, and the words of his wisdom

are chilled:

And men say, the King is careful, for he thinks of the people's weal,

And his heart is afraid for our trouble, lest the Gods our joyance

steal.

But that night, when the feast was over, to Gudrun Sigurd came,

And she noted the ring on his finger, and she knew it was nowise the

same

As the ring he was wont to carry; so she bade him tell thereof:

Then he turned unto her kindly, and his words were words of love;

Nor his life nor his death he heeded, but told her last night's tale:

Yea he drew forth the sword for his slaying, and whetted the edges of

bale;

For he took that Gold of Andvari, that Curse of the uttermost land,

And he spake as a king that loveth, and set it on her hand;

But her heart was exceeding joyous, as he kissed her sweet and soft,

And bade her bear it for ever, that she might remember him oft

When his hand from the world was departed and he sat in Odin's home.

But no one of his words she forgat when the latter days were come,

When the earth was hard for her footsteps, and the heavens were

darkling above

And but e'en as a tale that is told were waxen the years of her love,

Yea thereof, from the Gold of Andvari, the sparks of the waters wan,

Sprang a flame of bitter trouble, and the death of many a man,

And the quenching of the kindreds, and the blood of the broken troth,

And the Grievous Need of the Niblungs and the Sorrow of Odin the Goth.

_How Brynhild was wedded to Gunnar the Niblung._

So wear the ten days over, and the morrow-morn is come,

And the light-foot expectation flits through the Niblung home,

And the girded hope is ready, and all people are astir,

When the voice of the keen-eyed watchman from the topmost tower they

hear:

"Look forth from the Burg, O Niblungs, and the war-gate of renown!

For the wind is up in the morning, and the may-blooms fall adown,

And the sun on the earth is shining, and the clouds are small and high,

And here is a goodly people and an army drawing anigh."

Then horsed are the sons of the earl-folk, and their robes are

glittering-gay,

And they ride o'er the bridge of the river adown the dusty way,

Till they come on a lovely people, and the maids of war they meet,

Whose cloaks are blue and broidered, and their girded linen sweet;

And they ride on the roan and the grey, and the dapple-grey and the

red,

And many a bloom of the may-tide on their crispy locks is shed:

Fair, young are the sons of the earl-folk, and they laugh for love

and glee,

As the lovely-wristed maidens on the summer ways they see.

But lo, mid the sweet-faced fellows there cometh a golden wain,

Like the wain of the sea be-shielded with the signs of the war-god's

gain:

Snow-white are its harnessed yoke-beasts, and its bench-cloths are of

blue,

Inwrought with the written wonders that ancient women knew;

But nought therein there sitteth save a crownèd queen alone,

Swan-white on the dark-blue bench-cloths and the carven ivory throne;

Abashed are sons of the earl-folk of their laughter and their glee,

When the glory of Queen Brynhild on the summer ways they see.

But they hear the voice of the woman, and her speech is soft and kind:

"Are ye the sons of the Niblungs, and the folk I came to find,

O young men fair and lovely? So may your days be long,

And grow in gain and glory, and fail of grief and wrong!"

Then they hailed her sweet and goodly, and back again they rode

By the bridge o'er the rushing river to the gate of their abode;

And high aloft, half-hearkened, rang the joyance of the horn,

And the cry of the Ancient People from their walls of war was borne

O'er the tilth of the plain, and the meadows, and the sheep-fed slopes

that lead

From the God-built wall of the mountains to the blossoms of the mead.

Then up in the wain stood Brynhild, and her voice was sweet as she

said:

"Is this the house of Gunnar, and the man I swore to wed?"

But she hearkened the cry from the gateway and the hollow of the door:

"Yea this is the dwelling of Gunnar, and the house of the God of War:

There is none of the world so mighty, be he outland King or Goth,

Save Sigurd the mighty Volsung and the brother of his troth."

Then spake Brynhild and said: "Lo, a house of ancient Kings,

Wrought for great deeds' fulfilment, and the birth of noble things!

Be the bloom of the earth upon it, and the hope of the heavens above!

May peace and joy abide there, and the full content of love!

And when our days are done with, and we lie alow in rest,

May its lords returning homeward still deem they see the best!"

She spake with voice unfaltering, and the golden wain moved on,

And all men deemed who heard her that great gifts their home had won.

So she passed through the dusk of the doorway, and the cave of the

war-fair folk,

Wherein the echoing horse-hoofs as the sound of swords awoke,

And the whispering wind of the may-tide from the cloudy wall smote

back,

And cried in the crown of the roof-arch of battle and the wrack;

And the voice of maidens sounded as kings' cries in the day of the

wrath,

When the flame is on the threshold and the war-shields strew the path.

So fair in the sun of the forecourt doth Brynhild's wain shine bright,

And the huge hall riseth before her, and the ernes cry out from its

height,

And there by the door of the Niblungs she sees huge warriors stand,

Dark-clad, by the shoulders greater than the best of any land,

And she knoweth the chiefs of the Niblungs, the dreaded dukes of war:

But one in cloudy raiment stands a very midst the door,

And ruddy and bright is his visage, and his black locks wave in the

wind,

And she knoweth the King of the Niblungs and the man she came to find:

Then nought she lingered nor loitered, but stepped to the earth adown

With right-hand reached to the War-God, the wearer of the crown;

And she said:

"I behold thee, Gunnar, the King of War that rode

Through the waves of the Flickering Fire to the door of mine abode,

To lie by my side in the even, and waken in the morn;

And for this I needs must deem thee the best of all men born,

The highest-hearted, the greatest, the staunchest of thy love:

And that such the world yet holdeth, my heart is fain thereof:

And for thee I deem was I fashioned, and for thee the oath I swore

In the days of my glory and wisdom, ere the days of youth were o'er.

May the bloom of the earth be upon thee, and the hope of the heavens

above,

May the blessing of days be upon thee, and the full content of love!

Mayst thou see our children's children, and the crownèd kin of kings!

May no hope from thine eyes be hidden of the day of better things!

May the fire ne'er stay thy glory, nor the ocean-flood thy fame!

Through ages of all ages may the wide world praise thy name!

Yea oft may the word be spoken when low we lie at rest,

'It befell in the days of Gunnar, the happiest and the best!'

All this may the high Gods give thee, and thereto a gift I give,

The body of Queen Brynhild so long as both we live."

With unmoved face, unfaltering, the blessing-words she said,

But the joy sprang up in Gunnar and increased his goodlihead,

And he cast his arms about her and kissed her on the mouth,

And he said:

"The gift is greater than all treasure of the south:

As glad as my heart this moment, so glad may be thy life,

And the world be never weary of the joy of Gunnar's wife!"

She spake no word, and smiled not, but she held his hand henceforth.

And he said: "Now take the greetings of my men, the most of worth."

Then she turned her face to the war-dukes, and hearkened to their

praise,

And she spake in few words sweetly, and blessed their coming days.

Then again spake Gunnar and said: "Lo, Hogni my brother is this;

But Guttorm is far on the East-seas, and seeketh the warrior's bliss;

A third there is of my brethren, and my house holds none so great;

In the hall by the side of my sister thy face doth he await."

Then Brynhild turned unto Hogni, and he greeted her fair and well,

And she prayed all blessings upon him, and a tale that the world

should tell:

Then again she spake unto Gunnar: "I had deemed ye had been but three

Who sprang from the loins of Giuki; is this fourth akin unto thee,

This hall-abider the mighty?"

He said: "He is nought of our blood.

But the Gods have sent him to usward to work us measureless good:

It is even Sigurd the Volsung, the best man ever born,

The man that the Gods withstand not, my friend, and my brother sworn."

She heard the name, and she changed not, but her feet went forth as

he led,

And under the cloudy roof-tree Queen Brynhild bowed her head.

Then, were there a man so ancient as had lived beyond his peers

On the earth, that beareth all things, a twice-told tale of years,

He had heard no sound so mighty as the shout that shook the wall

When Brynhild's feet unhearkened first trod the Niblung hall.

No whit the clamour stirred her; but her godlike eyes she raised

And betwixt the hedge of the earl-folk on the golden high-seat gazed,

And the man that sat by Gudrun: but e'en as the rainless cloud

Ere the first of the tempest ariseth the latter sun doth shroud,

And men look round and shudder, so Grimhild came between

The silent golden Sigurd and the eyes of the mighty Queen,

And again heard Brynhild greeting, and again she spake and said:

"O Mother of the Niblungs, such hap be on thine head,

As thy love for me, the stranger, was past the pain of words!

Mayst thou see thy son's sons glorious in the meeting of the swords!

Mayst thou sleep and doubt thee nothing of the fortunes of thy race!

Mayst thou hear folk call yon high-seat the earth's most happy place!"

Then the Wise-wife hushed before her, and a little fell aside,

And nought from the eyes of Brynhild the high-seat now did hide;

And the face so long desired, unchanged from time agone,

In the house of the Cloudy People from the Niblung high-seat shone:

She stood with her hand in Gunnar's, and all about and around

Were the unfamiliar faces, and the folk that day had found;

But her heart ran back through the years, and yet her lips did move

With the words she spake on Hindfell, when they plighted troth of love.

Lo, Sigurd fair on the high-seat by the white-armed Gudrun's side,

In the midst of the Cloudy People, in the dwelling of their pride!

His face is exceeding glorious and awful to behold;

For of all his sorrow he knoweth and his hope smit dead and cold:

The will of the Norns is accomplished, and, lo, they wend on their

ways,

And leave the mighty Sigurd to deal with the latter days:

The Gods look down from heaven, and the lonely King they see,

And sorrow over his sorrow, and rejoice in his majesty.

For the will of the Norns is accomplished, and outworn is Grimhild's

spell,

And nought now shall blind or help him, and the tale shall be to tell:

He hath seen the face of Brynhild, and he knows why she hath come,

And that his is the hand that hath drawn her to the Cloudy People's

home:

He knows of the net of the days, and the deeds that the Gods have bid,

And no whit of the sorrow that shall be from his wakened soul is hid:

And his glory his heart restraineth, and restraineth the hand of the

strong

From the hope of the fools of desire and the wrong that amendeth wrong;

And he seeth the ways of the burden till the last of the uttermost end.

But for all the measureless anguish, and the woe that nought may amend,

His heart speeds back to Hindfell, and the dawn of the wakening day;

And the hours betwixt are as nothing, and their deeds are fallen away

As he looks on the face of Brynhild; and nought is the Niblung folk,

But they two are again together, and he speaketh the words he spoke,

When he swore the love that endureth, and the truth that knoweth not

change;

And Brynhild's face drew near him with eyes grown stern and strange.

--Lo, such is the high Gods' sorrow, and men know nought thereof,

Who cry out o'er their undoing, and wail o'er broken love.

Now she stands on the floor of the high-seat, and for e'en so little

a space

As men may note delaying, she looketh on Sigurd's face,

Ere she saith:

"I have greeted many in the Niblungs' house today,

And for thee is the last of my greetings ere the feast shall wear away:

Hail, Sigurd, son of the Volsungs! hail, lord of Odin's storm!

Hail, rider of the wasteland and slayer of the Worm!

If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth,

I pray that thou mayst win it, nor forget its might and worth."

All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew,

But gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall he answer

thereto,

While the death that amendeth lingers? and they twain shall dwell for

awhile

In the Niblung house together by the hearth that forged the guile;

Yet amid the good and the guileless, and the love that thought no

wrong,

Shall they fashion the deeds to remember, and the fame that endureth

for long:

And oft shall he look on Brynhild, and oft her words shall he hear,

And no hope and no beseeching in his inmost heart shall stir.

So he spake as a King of the people in whom all fear is dead,

And his anguish no man noted, as the greeting-words he said:

"Hail, fairest of all things fashioned! hail, thou desire of eyes!

Hail, chooser of the mightiest, and teacher of the wise!

Hail, wife of my brother Gunnar! in might may thy days endure,

And in peace without a trouble that the world's weal may be sure!"

She heard and turned unto Gunnar as a queen that seeketh her place,

But to Gudrun she gave no greeting, nor beheld the Niblung's face.

Then up stood the wife of Sigurd and strove with the greeting-word,

But the cold fear rose in her heart, and the hate within her stirred,

And the greeting died on her lips, and she gazed for a moment or twain

On the lovely face of Brynhild, and so sat in the high-seat again,

And turned to her lord beside her with many a word of love.

But the song sprang up in the hall, and the eagles cried from above,

And forth to the freshness of May went the joyance of the feast:

And Sigurd sat with the Niblungs, and gave ear to most and to least,

And showed no sign to the people of the grief that on him lay;

Nor seemeth he worser to any than he was on the yesterday.

_Of the Contention betwixt the Queens._

So there are all these abiding in the Burg of the ancient folk

Mid the troth-plight sworn and broken, and the oaths of the earthly

yoke.

Then Guttorm comes from his sea-fare, and is waxen fierce and strong,

A man in the wars delighting, blind-eyed through right and wrong:

Still Sigurd rides with the Brethren, as oft in the other days,

And never a whit abateth the sound of the people's praise;

They drink in the hall together, they doom in the people's strife,

And do every deed of the King-folk, that the world may rejoice in

their life.

There now is Brynhild abiding as a Queen in the house of the Kings,

And hither and thither she wendeth through the day of queenly things;

And no man knoweth her sorrow; though whiles is the Niblung bed

Too hot and weary a dwelling for the temples of her head,

And she wends, as her wont was aforetime, when the moon is riding high,

And the night on the earth is deepest; and she deemeth it good to lie

In the trench of the windy mountains, and the track of the wandering

sheep,

While soft in the arms of Sigurd Queen Gudrun lieth asleep:

There she cries on the lovely Sigurd, and she cries on the love and

the oath,

And she cries on the change and the vengeance, and the death to deliver

them both.

But her crying none shall hearken, and her sorrow nought shall know,

Save the heart of the golden Sigurd, and the man fast bound in woe:

So she wendeth her back in the dawning, toward the deeds and the

dwellings of men,

And she sits in the Niblung high-seat, and is fair and queenly again.

Close now is her converse with Gudrun, and sore therein she strives

Lest the barren stark contention should mingle in their lives;

And she humbles her oft before her, as before the Queen of the earth,

The mistress, the overcomer, the winner of all that is worth:

And Gudrun beareth it all, and deemeth it little enow

Though the wife of Sigurd be worshipped: and the scorn in her heart

doth grow,

Of every soul save Sigurd: for that tale of the night she bears

Scarce hid 'twixt the lips and the bosom; and with evil eye she hears

Songs sung of the deeds of Gunnar, and the rider of the fire,

Who mocked at the bane of King-folk to win his heart's desire:

But Sigurd's will constraineth, and with seeming words of peace

She deals with the converse of Brynhild, and the days her load

increase.

Men tell how the heart-wise Hogni grew wiser day by day;

He knows of the craft of Grimhild, and how she looketh to sway

The very council of God-home and the Norns' unchanging mind;

And he saith that well-learned is his mother, but that e'en her feet

are blind

Down the path that she cannot escape from: nay oft is she nothing,

he saith,

Save a staff for the foredoomed staying, and a sword for the ordered

death;

And that he will be wiser than this, nor thrust his desire aside,

Nor smother the flame of his hatred; but the steed of the Norns will

he ride,

Till he see great marvels and wonders, and leave great tales to be

told:

And measureless pride is in him, a stern heart, stubborn and cold.

But of Gunnar the Niblung they say it, that the bloom of his youth

is o'er,

And many are manhood's troubles, and they burden him oft and sore.

He dwells with Brynhild his wife, with Grimhild his mother he dwells,

And noble things of his greatness, of his joy, the rumour tells;

Yet oft and oft of an even he thinks of that tale of the night,

And the shame springs fresh in his heart at his brother Sigurd's might;

And the wonder riseth within him, what deed did Sigurd there,

What gift to the King hath he given: and he looks on Brynhild the fair,

The fair face never smiling, and the eyes that know no change,

And he deems in the bed of the Niblungs she is but cold and strange;

And the Lie is laid between them, as the sword lay while agone.

He hearkens to Grimhild moreover, and he deems she is driving him on,

He knoweth not whither nor wherefore: but she tells of the measureless

Gold,

And the Flame of the uttermost Waters, and the Hoard of the kings of

old:

And she tells of kings' supplanters, and the leaders of the war,

Who take the crown of song-craft, and the tale when all is o'er:

She tells of kings' supplanters, and saith: Perchance 'twere well,

Might some tongue of the wise of the earth of those deeds of the

night-tide tell:

She tells of kings' supplanters: I am wise, and the wise I know,

And for nought is the sword-edge whetted, save the smiting of the blow:

Old friends are last to sever, and twain are strong indeed,

When one the King's shame knoweth, and the other knoweth his need.

So Gunnar hearkens and hearkens, and he saith, It is idle and worse:

If the oath of my brother be broken, let the earth then see to the

curse!

But again he hearkens and hearkens, and when none may hear his thought

He saith in the silent night-tide: Shall my brother bring me to nought?

Must my stroke be a stroke of the guilty, though on sackless folk it

fall?

Shall a king sit joy-forsaken mid the riches of his hall?

And measureless pride is in Gunnar, and it blends with doubt and shame,

And the unseen blossom is envy and desire without a name.

But fair-faced, calm as a God who hath none to call his foes,

Betwixt the Kings and the people the golden Sigurd goes;

No knowledge of man he lacketh, and the lore he gained of old

From the ancient heart of the Serpent and the Wallower on the Gold

Springs fresh in the soul of Sigurd; the heart of Hogni he sees,

And the heart of his brother Gunnar, and he grieveth sore for these.

But he seeth the heart of Brynhild, and knoweth her lonely cry

When the waste is all about her, and none but the Gods are anigh:

And he knoweth her tale of the night-tide, when desire, that day doth

dull,

Is stirred by hope undying, and fills her bosom full

Of the sighs she may not utter, and the prayers that none may heed;

Though the Gods were once so mighty the smiling world to speed.

And he knows of the day of her burden, and the measure of her toil,

And the peerless pride of her heart, and her scorn of the fall and the

foil.

And the shadowy wings of the Lie, that with hand unwitting he led

To the Burg of the ancient people, brood over board and bed;

And the hand of the hero faileth, and seared is the sight of the wise,

And good is at one with evil till the new-born death shall arise.

In the hall sitteth Sigurd by Brynhild, in the council of the Kings,

And he hearkeneth her spoken wisdom, and her word of lovely things:

In the field they meet, and the wild-wood; on the acre and the heath;

And scarce may he tell if the meeting be worse than the coward's death,

Or better than life of the righteous: but his love is a flaming fire,

That hath burnt up all before it of the things that feed desire.

The heart of Gudrun he seeth, her heart of burning love,

That knoweth of nought but Sigurd on the earth, in the heavens above,

Save the foes that encompass his life, and the woman that wasteth away

'Neath the toil of a love like her love, and the unrewarded day:

For hate her eyes hath quickened, and no more is Gudrun blind,

And sure, though dim it may be, she seeth the days behind:

And the shadowy wings of the Lie, that the hand unwitting led

To the love and the heart of Gudrun, brood over board and bed;

And for all the hand of the hero and the foresight of the wise,

From the heart of a loving woman shall the death of men arise.

It was most in these latter days that his fame went far abroad,

The helper, the overcomer, the righteous sundering sword;

The loveliest King of the King-folk, the man of sweetest speech,

Whose ear is dull to no man that his helping shall beseech;

The eye-bright seer of all things, that wasteth every wrong,

The straightener of the crooked, the hammer of the strong:

Lo, such was the Son of Sigmund in the days whereof I tell,

The dread of the doom and the battle; and all children loved him well.

Now it happed on a summer season mid the blossom of the year,

When the clouds were high and little, and the sun exceeding clear,

That Queen Brynhild arose in the morning, and longed for the eddying

pool,

And the Water of the Niblungs her summer sleep to cool:

So she set her face to the river, where the hawthorn and the rose

Hide the face of the sunlit water from the yellow-blossomed close

And the house-built Burg of the Niblungs; for there by a grassy strand

The shallow water floweth o'er white and stoneless sand

And deepeneth up and outward; and the bank on the further side

Goes high and shear and rocky the water's face to hide

From the plain and the horse-fed meadow: there the wives of the

Niblungs oft

Would play in the wide-spread water when the summer days were soft;

And thither now goes Brynhild, and the flowery screen doth pass,

When lo, fair linen raiment falls before her on the grass,

And she looks, and there is Gudrun, the white-armed Niblung child,

All bare for the sunny river and the water undefiled.

Round she turned with her face yet dreamy with the love of yesternight,

Till the flush of anger changed it: but Brynhild's face grew white,

Though soft she spake and queenly:

"Hail, sister of my lord!

Thou art fair in the summer morning 'twixt the river and the sward!"

Then she disarrayed her shoulders and cast her golden girth,

And she said: "Thou art sister of Gunnar, and the kin of the best of

the earth;

So shalt thou go before me to meet the water cold."

Then, smiling nowise kindly, doth Gudrun her behold,

And she saith: "Thou art wrong, Queen Brynhild, to give the place to

me,

For she that is wife of the greatest more than sister-kin shall be.

--Nay, if here were the sister of Sigurd ne'er before me should she go,

Though sister were she surely of the best that the earth-folk know:

Yet I linger not, since thou biddest, for the courteous of women thou

art;

And the love of the night and the morning is heavy at my heart;

For the best of the world was beside me, while thou layest with Gunnar

the King."

She laughs and leaps, and about her the glittering waters spring:

But Brynhild laugheth in answer, and her face is white and wan

As swift she taketh the water; and the bed-gear of the swan

Wreathes long folds round about her as she wadeth straight and swift

Where the white-scaled slender fishes make head against the drift:

Then she turned to the white-armed Gudrun, who stood far down the

stream

In the lapping of the west-wind and the rippling shallows' gleam,

And her laugh went down the waters, as the war-horn on the wind,

When the kings of war are seeking, and their foes are fain to find.

But Gudrun cried upon her, and said: "Why wadest thou so

In the deeps and the upper waters, and wilt leave me here below?"

Then e'en as one transfigured loud Brynhild cried, and said:

"So oft shall it be between us at hall and board and bed;

E'en so in Freyia's garden shall the lilies cover me,

While thou on the barren footways thy gown-hem folk shall see:

E'en so shall the gold cloths lap me, when we sit in Odin's hall,

While thou shiverest, little hidden, by thy lord, the Helper's thrall,

By the serving-man of Gunnar, who all his bidding doth,

And waits by the door of the bower while his master plighteth the

troth:

But my mate is the King of the King-folk who rode the Wavering Fire,

And mocked at the ruddy death to win his heart's desire.

Lo now, it is meet and righteous that ye of the happy days

Should bow the heads and wonder at the wedding all men praise.

O, is it not goodly and sweet with the best of the earth to dwell,

And the man that all shall worship when the tale grows old to tell!

For the woe and the anguish endure not, but the tale and the fame

endure,

And as wavering wind is the joyance, but the Gods' renown shall

be sure:

It is well, O ye troth-breakers! there was found a man to ride

Through the waves of my Flickering Fire to lie by Brynhild's side."

Then no word answered Gudrun till she waded up the stream

And stretched forth her hand to Brynhild, and thereon was a golden

gleam,

And she spake, and her voice was but little:

"Thou mayst know by this token and sign

If the best of the kings of man-folk and the master of masters is

thine."

White waxed the face of Brynhild as she looked on the glittering thing:

And she spake: "By all thou lovest, whence haddest thou the ring?"

Then Gudrun laughed in her glory the face of the Queen to see:

"Thinkst thou that my brother Gunnar gave the Dwarf-wrought ring to

me?"

Nought spake the glorious woman, but as one who clutcheth a knife

She turned on the mocking Gudrun, and again spake Sigurd's wife:

"I had the ring, O Brynhild, on the night that followed the morn,

When the semblance of Gunnar left thee in thy golden hall forlorn:

And he, the giver that gave it, was the Helper's war-got thrall,

And the babe King Elf uplifted to the war-dukes in the hall;

And he rode with the heart-wise Regin, and rode the Glittering Heath,

And gathered the Golden Harvest and smote the Worm to the death:

And he rode with the sons of the Niblungs till the words of men must

fail

To tell of the deeds of Sigurd and the glory of his tale:

Yet e'en as thou sayst, O Brynhild, the bidding of Gunnar he did,

For he cloaked him in Gunnar's semblance and his shape in Gunnar's

hid:--

Thou all-wise Queen of the Niblungs, was this so hard a part

For the learned in the lore of Regin, who ate of the Serpent's heart?

--Thus he wooed the bride for Gunnar, and for Gunnar rode the fire;

And he held thine hand for Gunnar, and lay by thy dead desire.

We have known thee for long, O Brynhild, and great is thy renown;

In this shalt thou joy henceforward and nought in thy wedding crown."

Now is Brynhild wan as the dead, and she openeth her mouth to speak,

But no word cometh outward: then the green bank doth she seek,

And casteth her raiment upon her, and flees o'er the meadow fair,

As though flames were burning beneath it, and red gleeds the daisies

were:

But fair with face triumphant from the water Gudrun goes,

And with many a thought of Sigurd the heart within her glows.

And yet as she walked the meadow a fear upon her came,

What deeds are the deeds of women in their anguish and their shame;

And many a heavy warning and many a word of fate

By the lips of Sigurd spoken she remembereth overlate;

Yet e'en to the heart within her she dissembleth all her dread.

Daylong she sat in her bower in glee and goodlihead,

But when the day was departing and the earl-folk drank in the hall

She went alone in the garden by the nook of the Niblung wall;

There she thought of that word in the river, and of how it were

better unsaid,

And she looked with kind words to hide it, as men bury their

battle-dead

With the spice and the sweet-smelling raiment: in the cool of the eve

she went

And murmured her speech of forgiveness and the words of her intent,

While her heart was happy with love: then she lifted up her face,

And lo, there was Brynhild the Queen hard by in the leafy place;

Then the smile from her bright eyes faded and a flush came over her

cheek

And she said: "What dost thou, Brynhild? what matter dost thou seek?"

But the word of Sigurd smote her, and she spake ere the answer came:

"Hard speech was between us, Brynhild, and words of evil and shame;

I repent, and crave thy pardon: wilt thou say so much unto me,

That the Niblung wives may be merry, as great queens are wont to be?"

But no word answered Brynhild, and the wife of Sigurd spake:

"Lo, I humble myself before thee for many a warrior's sake,

And yet is thine anger heavy--well then, tell all thy tale,

And the grief that sickens thine heart, that a kindly word may avail."

Then spake Brynhild and said: "Thou art great and livest in bliss,

And the noble queens and the happy should ask better tidings than this:

For ugly words must tell it; thou shouldst scarce know what they mean;

Thou, the child of the mighty Niblungs, thou, Sigurd's wedded queen.

It is good to be kindly and soft while the heart hath all its will."

Said the Queen: "There is that in thy word that the joy of my heart

would kill.

I have humbled myself before thee, and what further shall I say?"

Then spake Brynhild the Queen: "I spake heavy words today;

And thereof do I repent me; but one thing I beseech thee and crave:

That thou speak but a word in thy turn my life and my soul to save:

--Yea the lives of many warriors, and the joy of the Niblung home,

And the days of the unborn children, and the health of the days to

come--

Say thou it was Gunnar thy brother that gave thee the Dwarf-lord's

ring,

And not the glorious Sigurd, the peerless lovely King;

E'en so will I serve thee for ever, and peace on this house shall be,

And rest ere my departing, and a joyous life for thee;

And long life for the lovely Sigurd, and a glorious tale to tell.

O speak, thou sister of Gunnar, that all may be better than well!"

But hard grew the heart of Gudrun, and she said: "Hast thou heard the

tale

That the wives of the Niblungs lie, lest the joy of their life-days

fail?

Wilt thou threaten the house of the Niblungs, wilt thou threaten my

love and my lord?

--It was Sigurd that lay in thy bed with thee and the edge of the

sword;

And he told me the tale of the night-tide, and the bitterest tidings

thereof,

And the shame of my brother Gunnar, how his glory was turned to a

scoff;

And he set the ring on my finger with sweet words of the sweetest

of men,

And no more from me shall it sunder--lo, wilt thou behold it again?"

And her hand gleamed white in the even with the ring of Andvari

thereon,

The thrice-cursed burden of greed and the grain from the needy won;

Then uprose the voice of Brynhild, and she cried to the towers aloft:

"O house of the ancient people, I blessed thee sweet and soft;

In the day of my grief I blessed thee, when my life seemed evil and

long;

Look down, O house of the Niblungs, on the hapless Brynhild's wrong!

Lest the day and the hour be coming when no man in thy courts shall be

left

To remember the woe of Brynhild, and the joy from her life-days reft;

Lest the grey wolf howl in the hall, and the wood-king roll in the

porch,

And the moon through thy broken rafters be the Niblungs' feastful

torch."

"O God-folk hearken," cried Gudrun, "what a tale there is to tell!

How a Queen hath cursed her people, and the folk that hath cherished

her well!"

"O Niblung child," said Brynhild, "what bitterer curse may be

Than the curse of Grimhild thy mother, and the womb that carried thee?"

"Ah fool!" said the wife of Sigurd, "wilt thou curse thy very friend?

But the bitter love bewrays thee, and thy pride that nought shall end."

"Do I curse the accursèd?" said Brynhild, "but yet the day shall come,

When thy word shall scarce be better on the threshold of thine home;

When thine heart shall be dulled and chilly with e'en such a mingling

of might,

As in Sigurd's cup she mingled, and thou shalt not remember aright."

Out-brake the child of the Niblungs: "A witless lie is this;

But thou sickenest sore for Sigurd, and the giver of all bliss:

A ruthless liar thou art: thou wouldst cut off my glory and gain,

Though it further thine own hope nothing, and thy longing be empty

and vain.

Ah, thou hungerest after mine husband!--yet greatly art thou wed,

And high o'er the kings of the Goth-folk doth Gunnar rear the head."

"Which one of the sons of Giuki," said Brynhild, "durst to ride

Through the waves of my Flickering Fire to lie by Brynhild's side?

Thou shouldst know him, O Sister of Kings; let the glorious name be

said,

Lest mine oath in the water be written, and I wake up, vile and

betrayed,

In the arms of the faint-heart dastard, and of him that loveth life,

And casteth his deeds to another, and the wooing of his wife."

"Yea, hearken," said she of the Niblungs, "what words the stranger

saith!

Hear the words of the fool of love, how she feareth not the death,

Nor to cry the shame on Gunnar, whom the King-folk tremble before:

The wise and the overcomer, the crown of happy war!"

Said Brynhild: "Long were the days ere the Son of Sigmund came;

Long were the days and lone, but nought I dreamed of the shame.

So may the day come, Grimhild, when thine eyes know not thy son!

Think then on the man I knew not, and the deed thy guile hath done!"

Then coldly laughed Queen Gudrun, and she said: "Wilt thou lay all

things

On the woman that hath loved thee and the Mother of the Kings?

O all-wise Queen of the Niblungs, was this change too hard a part

For the learned in the lore of Regin, who ate of the Serpent's heart?"

Then was Brynhild silent a little, and forth from the Niblung hall

Came the sound of the laughter of men to the garth by the nook of the

wall;

And a wind arose in the twilight, and sounds came up from the plain

Of kine in the dew-fall wandering, and of oxen loosed from the wain,

And the songs of folk free-hearted, and the river rushing by;

And the heart of Brynhild hearkened and she cried with a grievous cry:

"O Sigurd, O my Sigurd, we twain were one, time was,

And the wide world lay before us and the deeds to bring to pass!

And now I am nought for helping, and no helping mayst thou give;

And all is marred and evil, and why hast thou heart to live?"

She held her peace for anguish, and forth from the hall there came

The shouts of the joyous Niblungs, and the sound of Sigurd's name:

And Brynhild turned from Gudrun, and lifted her voice and said:

"O evil house of the Niblungs, may the day of your woe and your dread

Be meted with the measure of the guile ye dealt to me,

When ye sealed your hearts from pity and forgat my misery!"

And she turned to flee from the garden; but her gown-lap Gudrun caught,

And cried: "Thou evil woman, for thee were the Niblungs wrought,

And their day of the fame past telling, that they should heed thy life?

Dear house of the Niblung glory, fair bloom of the warriors' strife,

How well shalt thou stand triumphant, when all we lie in the earth

For a little while remembered in the story of thy worth!"

But the lap of her linen raiment did Brynhild tear from her hold

And spake from her mouth brought nigher, and her voice was low and

cold:

"Such pride and comfort in Sigurd henceforward mayst thou find,

Such joy of his life's endurance, as thou leav'st me joy behind!"

But turmoil of wrath wrapt Gudrun, that she knew not the day from the

night,

And she hardened her heart for evil as the warriors when they smite:

And she cried: "Thou filled with murder, my love shall blossom and

bloom

When thou liest in the hell forgotten! smite thence from the deedless

gloom,

Smite thence at the lovely Sigurd, from the dark without a day!

Let the hand that death hath loosened the King of Glory slay!"

So died her words of anger, and her latter speech none heard,

Save the wind of the early night-tide and the leaves by its wandering

stirred;

For amidst her wrath and her blindness was the hapless Brynhild gone:

And she fled from the Burg of the Niblungs and cried to the night

alone:

"O Sigurd, O my Sigurd, what now shall give me back

One word of thy loving-kindness from the tangle and the wrack?

O Norns, fast bound from helping, O Gods that never weep,

Ye have left stark death to help us, and the semblance of our sleep!

Yet I sleep and remember Sigurd; and I wake and nought is there,

Save the golden bed of the Niblungs, and the hangings fashioned fair:

If I stretch out mine hand to take it, that sleep that the sword-edge

gives,

How then shall I come on Sigurd, when again my sorrow lives

In the dreams of the slumber of death? O nameless, measureless woe,

To abide on the earth without him, and alone from earth to go!"

So wailed the wife of Gunnar, as she fled through the summer night,

And unwitting around she wandered, till again in the dawning light

She stood by the Burg of the Niblungs, and the dwelling of her lord.

Awhile bode the white-armed Gudrun on the edge of the daisied sward,

Till she shrank from the lonely flowers and the chill, speech-burdened

wind.

Then she turned to the house of her fathers and her golden chamber

kind;

And for long by the side of Sigurd hath she lain in light-breathed

sleep,

While yet the winds of night-tide round the wandering Brynhild sweep.

_Gunnar talketh with Brynhild._

On the morrow awakeneth Gudrun; and she speaketh with Sigurd and saith:

"For what cause is Brynhild heavy, and as one who abideth but death?"

"Yea," Sigurd said, "is it so? as a great queen she goes upon earth,

And thoughtful of weighty matters, and things that are most of worth."

"It was other than this," said Gudrun, "that I deemed her yesterday;

All men would have said great trouble on the wife of Gunnar lay."

"Is it so?" said Sigurd the Volsung, "Ah, I sore misdoubt me then,

That thereof shall we hear great tidings that shall be for the ruin

of men."

"Why grieveth she so," said Gudrun, "a queen so mighty and wise,

The Chooser of the war-host, the desire of many eyes,

The Queen of the glorious Gunnar, the wife of the man she chose?

And she sits by his side on the high-seat, as the lily blooms by the

rose."

"Where then in the world was Brynhild," said he, "when she spake that

word,

And said that her belovèd was her very earthly lord?"

Then was Sigurd silent a little, and Gudrun spake no more;

For despite the heart of the Niblungs, and her love exceeding sore,

With fear her soul was smitten for the word that Sigurd spake,

And yet more for his following silence; and the stark death seemed to

awake

And stride through the Niblung dwelling, and the sunny morn grew dim:

Till, lo, the voice of the Volsung, and the speech came forth from him:

"Hearken, Gudrun my wife; the season is nigh at hand,

Yea, the day is now on the threshold, when thou alone in the land

Shalt answer for Sigurd departed, and shalt say that I loved thee well;

And yet if thou hear'st men say it, then true is the tale to tell,

That Brynhild was my belovèd in the tide and the season of youth;

And as great as is thy true-love, e'en so was her love and her truth.

But for this cause thus have I spoken, that the tale of the night hast

thou told,

And cast the word unto Brynhild, and shown her the token of gold.

--A deed for the slaying of many, and the ending of my life,

Since I betrayed her unwitting.--Yet grieve not, Gudrun my wife!

For cloudy of late were the heavens with many a woven lie,

And now is the clear of the twilight, when the slumber draweth anigh.

But call up the soul of the Niblungs, and harden thine heart to bear,

For wert thou not sprung from the mighty, today were thy portion of

fear:

Yea, thou wottest it even as I; but I see thine heart arise,

And the soul of the mighty Niblungs, and fair is the love in thine

eyes."

Then forth went the King from the chamber to the council of the Kings,

And he sat with the wise in the Doom-ring for the sifting of troublous

things,

And rejoiced the heart of the people: and the Wrath kept watch by his

side.

And his eyen were nothing dimmer than on many a joyous tide.

But abed lay Brynhild the Queen, as a woman dead she lay,

And no word for better or worse to the best of her folk would she say:

So they bore the tidings to Gunnar, and said: "Queen Brynhild ails

With a sickness whereof none knoweth, and death o'er her life

prevails."

Then uprose Gunnar the Niblung, and he went to Brynhild his wife,

And prayed her to strengthen her heart for the glory of his life:

But she gave not a word in answer, nor turned to where he stood,

And there rose up a fear in his heart, and he looked for little of

good:

There he bode for a long while silent, and the thought within him

stirred

Of wise speech of his mother Grimhild, and many a warning word:

But he spake:

"Art thou smitten of God, unto whom shall we cast the prayer?

Art thou wronged by one of the King-folk, for whom shall the blades be

bare?"

Belike she never heard him; she lay in her misery,

And the slow tears gushed from her eyen and nought of the world would

she see.

But ill thoughts arose in Gunnar, and remembrance of the speech

Erst spoken low by Grimhild; yet he turned his heart to beseech,

And he spake again:

"O Brynhild, if I ever made thee glad,

If the glory of the great-ones of my gift thine heart hath had.

As mine heart hath been faithful to thee, as I longed for thy

life-days' gain,

Tell now of thy toil and thy trouble that we each of each may be fain!"

Nought spake she, nothing she moved, and the tears were dried on her

cheek;

But the very words of Grimhild did Gunnar's memory seek;

He sought and he found and considered; and mighty he was and young,

And he thought of the deeds of his fathers and the tales of the

Niblungs sung;

How they bore no God's constraining, and rode through the wrong and

the right

That the storm of their wrath might quicken, and their tempest carry

the light.

The words of his mother he gathered and the wrath-flood over him

rolled,

And with it came many a longing, that his heart had never told,

Nay, scarce to himself in the night-tide, for the gain of the ruddy

rings,

And the fame of the earth unquestioned and the mastery over kings,

And he sole King in the world-throne, unequalled, unconstrained;

And with wordless wrath he fretted at the bonds that his glory had

chained,

And the bitter anger stirred him, and at last he spake and cried:

"How long, O all-wise Brynhild, like the dead wilt thou abide,

Nor speak to thy lord and thy husband and the man that rode thy Fire,

And mocked at the bane of King-folk to accomplish thy desire?

I deem thou sickenest, Brynhild, with the love of a mighty-one,

The foe, the King's supplanter, he that so long hath shone

Mid the honour of our fathers, and the lovely Niblung house,

Like a serpent amidst of the treasure that the day makes glorious."

Yet never a word she answered, nor unto the great King turned,

Till through all the patience of King-folk the flame of his anger

burned,

And his voice was the rattling thunder, as he cried across the bed:

"O who art thou, fearful woman? art thou one of the first of the dead?

Hast thou long ago seen and hated the tide of the Niblung praise,

And clad thee in flesh twice over for the bane of our happy days?

Art thou come from the far-off country that none may live and behold

For the bane of the King of the Niblungs, and of Sigurd lord of the

Gold?"

Then she raised herself on her elbow and turned her eyes on the King:

"O tell me, Gunnar," she said, "that thou gavest Andvari's Ring

To thy sister the white-armed Gudrun!--thou, not thy captain of war,

The son of the God-born Volsungs, the Lord of the Treasure of yore!

O swear it that I may live! that I may be glad in thine hall,

And weave with the wisdom of women, and broider the purple and pall,

And look in thy face at the chess-play, and drink of thy carven cup,

And whisper a word in season when the voice of the wise goes up,

And speak thee the speech of kindness by the hallowed Niblung hearth.

O swear it, King of the Niblungs, lest thine honour die of the dearth!

O swear it, lord I have wedded, lest mine honour come to nought,

And I be but a wretch and a bondmaid for a year's embracing bought!"

Till his heart hath heard her meaning at the golden bed he stares,

And the last of the words she speaketh flit empty past his ears;

For he knows that the tale of the night-tide hath been told and

understood,

And now of her shame was he deeming e'en worse than Brynhild would.

So he turns from her face and the chamber with his glory so undone,

That he saith the Gods did evil when the mighty work they won,

And wrought the Burg of the Niblungs, and fashioned his fathers' days,

And led them on to the harvest of the deeds and the people's praise.

And nought he sees to amend it, save the hungry eyeless sword,

And the war without hope or honour, and the strife without reward.

So alone he goeth his ways, and the morn to the noontide falls,

And the sun goeth down in the heavens, and fades from the Niblung

walls,

And the dusk and the dark draw over, and no man the King may see.

But Sigurd sits in the hall mid the war-dukes' company:

Alone of the Kings in the Doom-ring, and the council of the wise,

By the street and the wharf and the burg-gate he shines in the

people's eyes;

Stately and lovely to look on he heareth of good and of ill,

And he knitteth up and divideth, with life and death at his will.

_Of the exceeding great grief and mourning of Brynhild._

Now the sun cometh up in the morning and shines o'er holt and heath,

And the wall of the mighty mountains, and the sheep-fed slopes beneath,

And the horse-fed plain and the river, and the acres of the wheat,

And the herbs of bane and of healing, and the garden hedges sweet;

It shines on the sea and the shepherd, and the husbandman's desire;

On the Niblung Burg it shineth and smiteth the vanes afire;

And in Gudrun's bower it shineth, and seeth small joy therein,

For hushed the fair-clad maidens the work of women win;

Then Gudrun looketh about her, and she saith:

"Why sit ye so,

That I hearken but creak of the loom-stock and the battens' homeward

blow?

Why is your joy departed and your sweet speech fallen dumb?

Are the Niblungs fled from the battle, is their war-host overcome?

Have the Norns given forth their shaming? have they fallen in the

fight?

Yet the sun shines notwithstanding, and the world around is bright."

Then answered a noble woman, and the wise of maids was she:

"Thou knowest, O lovely lady, that nought of this may be;

Yet with woe that the world shall hearken the glorious house is filled,

On the hearth of all men hallowed the cup of joy is spilled.

--A dread, an untimely hour, an exceeding evil day!"

Then the wife of Sigurd answered: "Arise and go thy way

To the chamber of Queen Brynhild, and bid her wake at last,

For that long have we slept and slumbered, and the deedless night is

passed:

Bid her wake to the deeds of queen-folk, and be glad as the

world-queens are

When they look on the people that loves them, and thrust all trouble

afar.

Let her foster her greatness and glory, and the fame no ages forget,

That tomorn may as yesterday blossom, yea more abundantly yet."

Then arose the light-foot maiden: but she stayed and spake by the door:

"O Gudrun, I durst not behold her, for the days of her joyance are

o'er,

And the days of her life are numbered, and her might is waxen weak,

And she lieth as one forsaken, and no word her lips will speak,

Nay, not to her lord that loveth: but all we deem, O Queen,

That the wrath of the Gods is upon her for ancient deeds unseen."

Nought answered the white-armed Gudrun, but the fear in her soul arose,

For she thought of the golden Sigurd, and the compassing of foes,

And great grew the dread of her maidens as they gazed upon her face:

But she rose and looked not backward as she hastened from her place,

And sought the King of the Niblungs by hall and chamber and stair,

And bright was the pure mid-morning and the wind was fresh and fair.

So she came on her brother Gunnar, as he sat apart and alone,

Arrayed in the Niblung war-gear, nor moved he more than the stone

In the jaws of the barren valley and the man-deserted dale;

On his knees was the breadth of the sunshine, and thereon lay the

edges pale,

The war-flame of the Niblungs, the sword that his right hand knew:

White was the fear on her lips, and hard at her heart it drew.

As she spake:

"I have found thee, O brother! O Gunnar, go to her and say

That my heart is grieved with her grief and I mourn for her evil day."

Then Gunnar answered her word, but his words were heavy and slow:

"Thou know'st not the words thou speakest--and wherefore should I go,

Since I am forbidden to share it, the woe or the weal of her heart?

Look thou on the King of the Niblungs, how he sitteth alone and apart,

Fast bound in the wiles of women, and the web that a traitor hath spun,

And no deed for his hand he knoweth, or to do or to leave undone."

Wan-faced from before him she fled, and she went with hurrying feet,

And no child of man in her going would she look upon or greet,

Till she came unto Hogni the Wise; and he sat in his war-array,

The coal-blue gear of the Niblungs, and the sword o'er his knees there

lay:

She sickened, and said: "What dost thou? what then is the day and the

deed,

That the sword on thy knees is naked, and thou clad in the warrior's

weed?

Go in, go in to Brynhild, and tell her how I mourn

For the grief whereof none wotteth that hath made her days forlorn."

"It is good, my sister," said Hogni, "to abide in the harness of war

When the days and the days are changing, and the Norns' feet stand by

the door.

I will nowise go in unto Brynhild, lest the evil tide grow worse.

For what woman will bear the sorrow and burden her soul with a curse

If she may escape it unbidden? and there are words that wound

Far worse than the bitter edges, though wise in the air they sound.

Bide thou and behold things fated! Hast thou learned how men may teach

The stars in their ordered courses, or lead the Norns with speech?"

She stood and trembled before him, nor durst she long behold

The silent face of Hogni and the far-seeing eyes and cold.

So she gat her forth from before him, and Sigurd her husband she

sought,

And the speech on her lips was ready, till the chill fear made it

nought;

For apart and alone was he sitting in all his war-gear clad,

And Fafnir's Helm of Aweing, and Regin's Wrath he had,

And over the breast of Sigurd was the Hauberk all of gold

That hath not the like in the heavens nor has earth of its fellow told.

But he set her down beside him and said: "What fearest thou then?

What terror strideth in daylight mid the peace of the Niblung men?"

She cried: "The Helm and the Sword, and the golden guard of thy

breast!"

"So oft, O wife," said Sigurd, "is a war-king clad the best

When the peril quickens before him, and on either hand is doubt;

Thus men wreathe round the beaker whence the wine shall be soon

poured out.

But hope thou not overmuch, for the end is not today;

And fear thou little indeed, for not long shall the sword delay:

But speak, O daughter of Giuki, for thy lips scarce held the word

Ere thou sawest the gleam of my hauberk and the edge of the ancient

Sword,

The Light that hath lain in the Branstock, the hope of the Volsung

tree,

The Sunderer, the Deliverer, the torch of days to be."

She sighed; for her heart was heavy for the days but a while agone,

When the death was little dreamed of, and the joy was lightly won;

And her soul was bitter with anger for the day that Brynhild had led

To the heart of the Niblung glory: but fear thrust on, and she said:

"O my lord, O Sigurd the mighty, an evil day is this,

A chill, an untimely hour for the blooming of our bliss!

Go in to my sister Brynhild, and tell her of very sooth

That my heart for her sorrow sorrows, and is sick for woe and ruth."

"The hour draws nigh," said Sigurd, "for I know of the speech and the

word

That is kind in the air to hearken, and is worse than the whetted

sword.

Now is Brynhild sore encompassed by a tide of measureless woe,

And amidst and anear, as I see it, she seeth the death-star grow.

Yet belike it is, O Gudrun, that thy will herein shall be done;

But now depart, I pray thee, and leave thy lord alone:

Heavy and hard shall it be, for a season shall it endure,

But the grief and the sorrow shall perish, and the fame of the Gods

is sure."

Yet she sat by his side and spake not, and a while at his glory she

gazed,

For his face o'erpassed the brightness that so long the folk had

praised,

And she durst not question or touch him, and at last she rose from

his side,

And gat her away soft-footed, and wandered far and wide

Through the house and the Burg of the Niblungs; yet durst she never

more

Go look on the Niblung Brethren as they sat in their harness of war.

But the morn to the noon hath fallen, and the afternoon to the eve,

And the beams of the westering sun the Niblung wall-stones leave,

And yet sitteth Sigurd alone; then the sun sinketh down into night,

And the moon ariseth in heaven, and the earth is pale with her light:

And there sitteth Sigurd the Volsung in the gold and the harness of war

That was won from the heart-wise Fafnir and the guarded Treasure of

yore,

But pale is the Helm of Aweing, and wan are the ruddy rings:

So whiles in a city forsaken ye see the shapes of kings,

And the lips that the carvers wrought, while their words were

remembered and known,

And the brows men trembled to look on in the long-enduring stone,

And their hands once unforgotten, and their breasts, the walls of war;

But now are they hidden marvels to the wise and the master of lore,

And he nameth them not, nor knoweth, and their fear is faded away.

E'en so sat Sigurd the Volsung till the night waxed moonless and grey,

Till the chill dawn spread o'er the lowland, and the purple fells grew

clear

In the cloudless summer dawn-dusk, and the sun was drawing anear:

Then reddened the Burg of the Niblungs, and the walls of the ancient

folk,

And a wind came down from the mountains and the living things awoke

And cried out for need and rejoicing; till, lo, the rim of the sun

Showed over the eastern ridges, and the new day was begun;

And the beams rose higher and higher, and white grew the Niblung wall,

And the spears on the ramparts glistered and the windows blazed withal,

And the sunlight flooded the courts, and throughout the chambers

streamed:

Then bright as the flames of the heaven the Helm of Aweing gleamed,

Then clashed the red rings of the Treasure, as Sigurd stood on his

feet,

And went through the echoing chambers, as the winds in the wall-nook

beat;

And there in the earliest morning while the lords of the Niblungs lie

'Twixt light sleep and awakening they hear the clash go by,

And their dreams are of happy battle, and the songs that follow fame,

And the hope of the Gods accomplished, and the tales of the ancient

name,

Ere Sigurd came to the Niblungs and faced their gathered foes.

But on to the chamber of Brynhild alone in the morning he goes,

And the sun lieth broad across it, and the door is open wide

As the last of the women had left it; then he lifted his voice and

cried:

"Awake, arise, O Brynhild! for the house is smitten through

With the light of the sun awakened, and the hope of deeds to do."

She spake: "Art thou come to behold me? thou, the mightiest and the

worst

Of the pitiless betrayers, that the hope of my life hath nursed."

He said: "It is I that awake thee, and I give thee the life and the

days

For fulfilling the deedful measure, and the cup of the people's

praise."

She cried: "O the gifts of Sigurd!--Ah why didst thou cast me aside,

That we twain should be dwelling, the strangers, in the house of the

Niblung pride?

What life is the death in life? what deeds--where the shame cometh up

Betwixt the speech of the wise-ones and the draught of the welcoming

cup;

And the shame and repentance awaketh when the song in the harp is

awake?

Where we rise in the morning for nothing, and lie down for no love's

sake?

Where thou ridest forth to the battle and the dead hope dulleth thy

light,

And with shame thy hand is cumbered when the sword is uplifted to

smite?

O Sigurd, what hast thou done, that the gifts are cast aback?

--O nay, no life of repentance!--but the bitter sword and the wrack!"

"O Brynhild, live!" said the Volsung, "for what shall the world be then

When thou from the earth art departed, and the hallowed hearths of

men?"

She said: "Woe worth the while for the word that hath come from thy

mouth!

As the bitter weltering ocean to the shipman dying of drouth,

E'en so is the life thou biddest, since thou pitiedst not thine own,

Nor thy love, nor the hope of thy life-days, but must dwell as a glory

alone!"

"It is truer to tell," said Sigurd, "that mine heart in thy love was

enwrapped

Till the evil hour of the darkening, and the eyeless tangle had happed:

And thereof shalt thou know, O Brynhild, on one day better than I,

When the stroke of the sword hath been smitten, and the night hath

seen me die:

Then belike in thy fresh-springing wisdom thou shalt know of the dark

and the deed,

And the snare for our feet fore-ordered from whence they shall never

be freed.

But for me, in the net I awakened and the toils that unwitting I wove,

And no tongue may tell of the sorrow that I had for thy wedded love:

But I dwelt in the dwelling of kings; so I thrust its seeming apart

And I laboured the field of Odin: and e'en this was a joy to my heart,

That we dwelt in one house together, though a stranger's house it

were."

"O late, and o'erlate!" cried Brynhild--"may the dead folk hearken

and hear?

All was and today it is not--And the Oath unto Gunnar is sworn,

Shall I live the days twice over, and the life thou hast made forlorn?"

And she heard the words of Hindfell and the oath of the earlier day,

Till the daylight darkened before her, and all memory passed away,

And she cried: "I may live no longer, for the Gods have forgotten the

earth,

And my heart is the forge of sorrow, and my life is a wasting dearth."

Then once again spake Sigurd, once only and no more:

A pillar of light all golden he stood on the sunlit floor;

And his eyes were the eyes of Odin, and his face was the hope of the

world,

And his voice was the thunder of even when the bolt o'er the mountains

is hurled:

The fairest of all things fashioned he stood 'twixt life and death,

And the Wrath of Regin rattled, and the rings of the Glittering Heath,

As he cried:

"I am Sigurd the Volsung, and belike the tale shall be true

That no hand on the earth may hinder what my hand would fashion and do:

And what God or what man shall gainsay it if our love be greater than

these,

The pride and the glory of Sigurd, and the latter days' increase?

O live, live, Brynhild belovèd! and thee on the earth will I wed,

And put away Gudrun the Niblung--and all those shall be as the dead."

But so swelled the heart within him as he cast the speech abroad,

That the golden wall of the battle, the fence unrent by the sword.

The red rings of the uttermost ocean on the breast of Sigurd brake:

And he saw the eyes of Brynhild, and turned from the word she spake:

"I will not wed thee, Sigurd, nor any man alive."

Then Sigurd goes out from before her; and the winds in the wall-nook

strive,

And the craving of fowl and the beast-kind with the speech of men is

blent,

And the voice of the sons of the Niblungs; and their day's first hour

is spent

As he goes through the hall of the War-dukes, and many an earl is

astir,

But none durst question Sigurd lest of evil days he hear:

So he comes to his kingly chamber, and there sitteth Gudrun alone,

And the fear in her soul is minished, but the love and the hatred are

grown:

She is wan as the moonlit midnight; but her heart is cold and proud,

And she asketh him nought of Brynhild, and nought he speaketh aloud.

_Of the slaying of Sigurd the Volsung._

Ere the noon ariseth Brynhild, and forth abroad she goes,

And sits by the wall of her bower 'twixt the lily and the rose;

Great dread and sickness is on her, as it shall be once on the morn

When the uttermost sun is arisen 'neath the blast of the world-shaking

horn:

Her maidens come and go, but none dares cast her a word;

From the wall the warders behold her, and turn round to the spear and

the sword;

Yea, few dare speak of Brynhild as morning fadeth in noon

In the Burg of the ancient people mid the stir and the glory of June.

Then cometh forth speech from Brynhild, and she calls to her maidens

and saith:

"Go tell ye the King of the Niblungs that I am arisen from death,

And come forth from the uttermost sickness, and with him I needs must

speak:

That we look into weighty matters and due deeds for king-folk seek."

So they went and returned not again, and it was but a little space

Ere she looked, and behold, it was Gunnar that stood before her face,

And his war-gear darkened the noon-tide and the grey helm gleamed from

his head,

But his eyes were fearful beneath it: then she gazed on the heavens

and said:

"Thou art come, O King of the Niblungs; what mighty deed is to frame

That thou wearest the cloudy harness, and the arms of the Niblung

name?"

He spake: "O woman, thou mockest! what King of the people is here?

Are not all kings confounded, and all peoples' shame laid bare?

Shall the Gods grow little to help, or men grow great to amend?

Nay, the hunt is up in the world and the Gods to the forest will wend,

And their hearts are exceeding merry as they ride and drive the prey:

But what if the bear grin on them, and the wood-beast turn to bay?

What now if the whelp of their breeding a wolf of the world be grown,

To cry out in the face of their brightness and mar their glad renown?"

She heeded him not, nor hearkened: but he said: "Thou wert wise of old;

And hither I come at thy bidding: let the thought of thine heart be

told."

She said: "What aileth thee, Gunnar? time was thou wert great and glad.

And that was yester-morning: how then is the good turned bad?"

He said: "I was glad in my dreams, and I woke and my glory was dead."

"Hath a God then wrought thee evil, or one of the King-folk?" she said.

He said: "In the snare am I taken, in the web that a traitor hath spun;

And no deed knoweth my right-hand to do or to leave undone."

"I look upon thee," said Brynhild, "I know thy race and thy name.

Yet meseems the deed thou sparest, to amend thine evil and shame."

"Nought, nought," he said, "may amend it, save the hungry eyeless

sword.

And the war without hope or honour, and the strife without reward."

"Thou hast spoken the word," said Brynhild, "if the word is enough,

it is well.

Let us eat and drink and be merry, that all men of our words may tell!"

"O all-wise woman," said Gunnar, "what deed lieth under the tongue?

What day for the dearth of the people, when the seed of thy sowing hath

sprung?"

She said: "Our garment is Shame, and nought the web shall rend,

Save the day without repentance, and the deed that nought may amend."

"Speak, mighty of women," said Gunnar, "and cry out the name and the

deed

That the ends of the Earth may hearken, and the Niblungs' grievous

Need."

"To slay," she said, "is the deed, to slay a King ere the morn,

And the name is Sigurd the Volsung, my love and thy brother sworn."

She turned and departed from him, and he knew not whither she went;

But he took his sword from the girdle and the peace-strings round it

rent,

And into the house he gat him, and the sunlit fair abode,

But his heart in the mid-mirk waded, as through the halls he strode,

Till he came to a chamber apart; and Grimhild his mother was there,

And there was his brother Hogni in the cloudy Niblung gear:

Him-seemed there was silence between them as of them that have spoken,

and wait

Till the words of their mouths be accomplished by slow unholpen Fate:

But they turned to the door, and beheld him, and he took his sheathèd

sword

And cast it adown betwixt them, and it clashed half bare on the board,

And Grimhild spake as it clattered: "For whom are the peace-strings

rent?

For whom is the blood-point whetted and the edge of thine intent?"

He said: "For the heart of Sigurd; and thus all is rent away

Betwixt this word and his slaying, save a little hour of day."

Then spake Hogni and answered: "All lands beneath the sun

Shall know and hearken and wonder that such a deed must be done."

"Speak, brother of Kings," said Gunnar, "dost thou know deeds better

or worse

That shall wash us clean from shaming, and redeem our lives from the

curse?"

"I am none of the Norns," said Hogni, "nor the heart of Odin the Goth,

To avenge the foster-brethren, or broken love and troth:

Thy will is the story fated, nor shall I look on the deed

With uncursed hands unreddened, and edges dulled at need."

Again spake Grimhild the wise-wife: "Where then is Guttorm the brave?

For he blent not his blood with the Volsung's, nor his oath to Sigurd

gave,

Nor called on Earth to witness, nor went beneath the yoke;

And now is he Sigurd's foeman; and who may curse his stroke?"

Then Hogni laughed and answered: "His feet on the threshold stand:

Forged is thy sword, O Mother, and its hilts are come to hand,

And look that thou whet it duly; for the Norns are departed now;

From the blood of our foster-brother no branch of bale shall grow;

Hoodwinked are the Gods of heaven, their sleep-dazed eyes are blind;

They shall peer and grope through the darkness, and nought therein

shall find,

Save the red right hand of Guttorm, and his lips that never swore;

At the young man's deed shall they wonder, and all shall be covered

o'er:

Ho, Guttorm, enter, and hearken to the counsel of the wise!"

Then in through the door strode Guttorm fair-clad in hunter's guise,

With no steel save his wood-knife girded; but his war-fain eyes stared

wild,

As he spake: "What words are ye hiding from the youngest Niblung child?

What work is to win, my brethren, that ye sit in warrior's weed,

And tell me nought of the glory, and cover up the deed?"

Then uprose Grimhild the wise-wife, and took the cup again;

Night-long had she brewed that witch-drink and laboured not in vain,

For therein was the creeping venom, and hearts of things that prey

On the hidden lives of ocean, and never look on day;

And the heart of the ravening wood-wolf and the hunger-blinded beast

And the spent slaked heart of the wild-fire the guileful cup increased:

But huge words of ancient evil about its rim were scored,

The curse and the eyeless craving of the first that fashioned sword.

So the cup in her hand was gleaming, as she turned unto Guttorm and

spake;

"Be merry, King of the War-fain! we hold counsel for thy sake:

The work is a God's son's slaying, and thine is the hand that shall

smite,

That thy name may be set in glory and thy deeds live on in light."

Forth flashed the flame from his eyen, and he cried: "Where then is

the foe,

This dread of mine house and my brethren, that my hand may lay him

alow?"

"Drink, son," she said, "and be merry! and I shall tell his name,

Whose death shall crown thy life-days, and increase thy fame with his

fame."

He drinketh and craveth for battle, and his hand for a sword doth seek,

And he looketh about on his brethren, but his lips no word may speak;

They speak the name, and he hears not, and again he drinks of the cup

And knows not friend nor kindred, and the wrath in his heart wells up,

That no God may bear unmingled, and he cries a wordless cry,

As the last of the day is departing and the dusk time drawing anigh.

Then Grimhild goes from the chamber, and bringeth his harness of war,

And therewith they array his body, and he drinketh the cup once more,

And his heart is set on the murder, and now may he understand

What soul is dight for the slaying, and what quarry is for his hand.

For again, they tell him of Sigurd, and the man he remembereth,

And praiseth his mighty name and his deeds that laughed on death.

Now dusk and dark draw over, and through the glimmering house

They go to the place of the Niblungs, the high hall and glorious;

For hard by is the chamber of Sigurd: there dight in their harness of

war

In their thrones sit Gunnar and Hogni, but Guttorm stands on the floor

With his blue blade naked before them: the torches flare from the wall

And the woven God-folk waver, but the hush is deep in the hall,

And those Niblung faces change not, though the slow moon slips from her

height

And earth is acold ere dawning, and new winds shake the night.

Now it was in the earliest dawn-dusk that Guttorm stirred in his place,

And the mail-rings tinkled upon him, as he turned his helm-hid face,

And went forth from the hall and the high-seat; but the Kings sat still

in their pride

And hearkened the clash of his going and heeded how it died.

Slow, all alone goeth Guttorm to Sigurd's chamber door,

And all is open before him, and the white moon lies on the floor

And the bed where Sigurd lieth with Gudrun on his breast,

And light comes her breath from her bosom in the joy of infinite rest.

Then Guttorm stands on the threshold, and his heart of the murder is

fain,

And he thinks of the deeds of Sigurd, and praiseth his greatness and

gain;

Bright blue is his blade in the moonlight--but lo, how Sigurd lies,

As the carven dead that die not, with fair wide-open eyes;

And their glory gleameth on Guttorm, and the hate in his heart is

chilled,

And he shrinketh aback from the threshold and knoweth not what he

willed.

But his brethren heed and hearken, and they hear the clash draw nigh,

But they stir no whit in their pride, though the lord of all creatures

should die.

Then they see where cometh Guttorm, but they cast him never a word,

For white 'neath the flickering torches they see his unstained sword;

But he gazed on those Kings of the kindred, and the beast of war awoke;

And his heart was exceeding wrathful with the tarrying of the stroke:

And he strode to the chamber of Sigurd, and again they heeded well

How the clash, in the cloister awakened, by the threshold died and

fell.

But Guttorm gazed from the threshold, and the moon was fading away

From the golden bed of Sigurd, and the Niblung woman lay

On the bosom of the Volsung, and her hand lay light on her lord;

But dread were his eyes wide-open, and they gleamed against the sword,

And Guttorm shrank from before them, and back to the hall he came:

There the biding brethren behold him flash wild in the torches' flame,

Nor stir their lips to question; but their swords on their knees are

laid;

The torches faint in the dawning, and they see his unstained blade.

Now dieth moon and candle, and though the day be nigh

The roof of the hall fair-builded seems far aloof as the sky,

But a glimmer grows on the pavement and the ernes on the roof-ridge

stir:

Then the brethren hist and hearken, for a sound of feet they hear,

And into the hall of the Niblungs a white thing cometh apace:

But the sword of Guttorm upriseth, and he wendeth from his place,

And the clash of steel goes with him; yet loud as it may sound

Still more they hear those footsteps light-falling on the ground,

And the hearts of the Niblungs waver, and their pride is smitten acold,

For they look on that latest comer, and Brynhild they behold:

But she sits by their side in silence, and heeds them nothing more

Than the grey soft-footed morning heeds yester-even's war.

But Guttorm clashed in the cloisters and through the silence strode

And scarce on the threshold of Sigurd a little while abode:

There the moon from the floor hath departed and heaven without is grey,

And afar in the eastern quarter faint glimmer streaks of day.

Close over the head of Sigurd the Wrath gleams wan and bare,

And the Niblung woman stirreth, and her brow is knit with fear;

But the King's closed eyes are hidden, loose lie his empty hands,

There is nought 'twixt the sword of the slayer and the Wonder of all

Lands.

Then Guttorm laughed in his war-rage, and his sword leapt up on high,

As he sprang to the bed from the threshold and cried a wordless cry,

And with all the might of the Niblungs through Sigurd's body thrust,

And turned and fled from the chamber, and fell amid the dust,

Within the door and without it, the slayer slain by the slain;

For the cast of the sword of Sigurd had smitten his body atwain

While yet his cry of onset through the echoing chambers went.

Woe's me! how the house of the Niblungs by another cry was rent,

The wakening wail of Gudrun, as she shrank in the river of blood

From the breast of the mighty Sigurd: he heard it and understood,

And rose up on the sword of Guttorm, and turned from the country of

death,

And spake words of loving-kindness as he strove for life and breath:

"Wail not, O child of the Niblungs! I am smitten, but thou shalt live,

In remembrance of our glory, mid the gifts the Gods shall give!"

She stayed her cry to hearken, and her heart well nigh stood still:

But he spake: "Mourn not, O Gudrun, this stroke is the last of ill;

Fear leaveth the House of the Niblungs on this breaking of the morn;

Mayst thou live, O woman belovèd, unforsaken, unforlorn!"

Then he sank aback on the sword, and down to his lips she bent

If some sound therefrom she might hearken; for his breath was

well-nigh spent:

"It is Brynhild's deed," he murmured, "and the woman that loves me

well;

Nought now is left to repent of, and the tale abides to tell.

I have done many deeds in my life-days, and all these, and my love,

they lie

In the hollow hand of Odin till the day of the world go by.

I have done and I may not undo, I have given and I take not again:

Art thou other than I, Allfather, wilt thou gather my glory in vain?"

There was silence then in the chamber, as the dawn spread wide and

grey,

And hushed was the hall of the Niblungs at the entering-in of day.

Long Gudrun hung o'er the Volsung and waited the coming word;

Then she stretched out her hand to Sigurd and touched her love and her

lord,

And the broad day fell on his visage, and she knew she was there alone,

And her heart was wrung with anguish and she uttered a weary moan:

Then Brynhild laughed in the hall, and the first of men's voices was

that

Since when on yester-even the kings in the high-seat had sat.

But the wrath of Gunnar was kindled and the words of the king

out-brake,

"Woe's me, thou wonder of women! thou art glad for no man's sake,

Nay not for thine own, meseemeth, for thou bidest here as the dead,

As the pale ones stricken deedless, whose tale of life is sped."

She hearkened him not nor answered; and day came on apace,

And they heard the anguish of Gudrun and her voice in the ancient

place.

"Awake, O House of the Niblungs! for my kin hath slain my lord.

Awake, awake, to the murder, and the edges of the sword!

Awake, go forth and be merry! and yet shall the day betide,

When ye stand in the garth of the foemen, and death is on every side,

And ye look about and around you, and right and left ye look

For the least of the hours of Sigurd, and his hand that the battle

shook:

Then be your hope as mine is, then face ye death and shame

As I face the desolation, and the days without a name!"

And she shrieked as the woe gathered on her, and the sun rose over her

head:

"Wake, wake, O men of this house, for Sigurd the Volsung is dead!"

In the house rose rumour and stir, and men stood up in the morn,

And their hearts with doubt were shaken, as if with the Uttermost Horn:

The cry and the calling spread, and shields clashed down from the wall,

And swords in the chamber glittered, and men ran apace to the hall.

Nor knew what man to question, nor who had tidings to give,

Nor what were the days thenceforward wherein the folk should live.

But ever the word is amongst them that Sigurd the Volsung is slain,

And the spears in the hall were tossing as the rye in the windy plain.

But they look aloft to the high-seat and they see the gleam of the

gold:

And Gunnar the King of battle, and Hogni wise and cold,

And Brynhild the wonder of women; and her face is deadly pale,

And the Kings are clad in their war-gear, and bared are the edges of

bale.

Then cold fear falleth upon them, but the noise and the clamour abate,

And they look on the war-wise Gunnar and awhile for his word they wait;

But e'en as he riseth above them, doth a shriek through the tumult

ring:

"Awake, O House of the Niblungs, for slain is Sigurd the King!"

Then nothing faltered Gunnar, but he stood o'er the Niblung folk,

And over the hall woe-stricken the words of pride he spoke:

"Mourn now, O Niblung people, for gone is Sigurd our guest,

And Guttorm the King is departed, and this is our day of unrest;

But all this of the Norns was fore-ordered, and herein is Odin's hand;

Cast down are the mighty of men-folk, but the Niblung house shall

stand:

Mourn then today and tomorrow, but the third day waken and live,

For the Gods died not this morning, and great gifts they have to give."

He spake and awhile was silence, and then did the cry outbreak,

And many there were of the Earl-folk that wept for Sigurd's sake;

And they wept for their little children, and they wept for those

unborn,

Who should know the earth without him and the world of his worth

forlorn.

But wild is the wailing of women as they fare to the place of the dead,

Where cold is Gudrun sitting mid the waste of Sigurd's bed.

Then they take the man belovèd, and bear him forth to the hall,

And spread the linen above him, and cloth of purple and pall;

And meekly Gudrun followeth, and she sitteth down thereby,

But mute is her mouth henceforward, and she giveth forth no cry,

And no word of lamentation, though far abroad they weep

For the gift of the Gods departed, and the golden Sigurd's sleep.

Meanwhile elsewhere the women and the wives of the Niblungs wail

O'er the body of King Guttorm and array him for the bale,

And Grimhild opens her treasure and bears forth plenteous gold

And goodly things for his journey, and the land of Death acold.

So rent is the joy of the Niblungs; and their simple days and fain

From that ancient house are departed, and who shall buy them again?

For he, the redeemer, the helper, the crown of all their worth,

They looked upon him and wondered, they loved; and they thrust him

forth.

_Of the mighty Grief of Gudrun over Sigurd dead._

Of old in the days past over was Gudrun blent with the dead,

As she sat in measureless sorrow o'er Sigurd's wasted bed,

But no sigh came from her bosom, nor smote she hand in hand,

Nor wailed with the other women, and the daughters of the land;

Then the wise of the Earls beheld her, smit cold with her dread intent,

And they rose one after other, and before the Queen they went;

Men ancient, men mighty in battle, men sweet of speech were there,

And they loved her, and entreated, and spake good words to hear:

But no tears and no lamenting in Gudrun's heart would strive

With the deadly chill of sorrow that none may bear and live.

Now there were the King-folk's daughters, and wives of the Earls of

war,

The fair, and the noble-hearted, the wise in ancient lore;

And they rose one after other, and stood before the Queen

To tell of their woes past over, and the worst their eyes had seen:

There was Giaflaug, Giuki's sister, she was old and stark to see,

And she said:

"O heavyhearted; they slew my King from me:

Look up, O child of the Niblungs, and hearken mournful things

Of the woes of living man-folk and the daughters of the Kings!

Dead now is the last of my brethren; to the dead my sister went;

My son and my little daughter in the earliest days were spent:

On the earth am I living loveless, long past are the happy days,

They lie with things departed and vain and foolish praise,

And the hopes of hapless people: yet I sit with the people's lords

When men are hushed to hearken the least of all my words.

What else is the wont of the Niblungs? why else by the Gods were they

wrought,

Save to wear down lamentation, and make all sorrow nought?"

No word of woe gat Gudrun, nor had she will to weep,

Such weight of woe was on her for the golden Sigurd's sleep:

Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew

For the love they had taken from her, and the day with nought to do.

Then troth-plight maids forsaken, and never-wedded ones,

And they that mourned dead husbands and the hope of unborn sons,

These told of their bitterest trouble and the worst their eyes had

seen;

"Yet all we live to love thee, and the glory of the Queen.

Look up, look up, O Gudrun! what rest for them that wail

If the Queens of men shall tremble, and the God-kin faint and fail?"

No voice gat Gudrun's sorrow, no care she had to weep;

For the deeds of the day she knew not, nor the dreams of Sigurd's

sleep:

Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,

Because of her love departed, and the day with nought to do.

Then spake a Queen of Welshland, and Herborg hight was she:

"O frozen heart of sorrow, the Norns dealt worse with me:

Of old, in the days departed, were my brave ones under shield,

Seven sons, and the eighth, my husband, and they fell in the Southland

field:

Yet lived my father and mother, yet lived my brethren four,

And I bided their returning by the sea-washed bitter shore:

But the winds and death played with them, o'er the wide sea swept the

wave,

The billows beat on the bulwarks and took what the battle gave:

Alone I sang above them, alone I dight their gear

For the uttermost journey of all men, in the harvest of the year:

Nor wakened spring from winter ere I left those early dead;

With bound hands and shameful body I went as the sea-thieves led:

Now I sit by the hearth of a stranger; nor have I weal nor woe,

Save the hope of the Niblung masters and the sorrow of a foe."

No wailing word gat Gudrun, no thought she had to weep

O'er the sundering tide of Sigurd, and the loved lord's lonely sleep:

Her heart was cold and dreadful; nor good from ill she knew,

Since her love was taken from her and the day of deeds to do.

Then arose a maid of the Niblungs, and Gullrond was her name,

And betwixt that Queen of Welshland and Gudrun's grief she came:

And she said: "O foster-mother, O wise in the wisdom of old,

Hast thou spoken a word to the dead, and known them hear and behold?

E'en so is this word thou speakest, and the counsel of thy face."

All heed gave the maids and the warriors, and hushed was the

spear-thronged place,

As she stretched out her hand to Sigurd, and swept the linen away

From the lips that had holpen the people, and the eyes that had

gladdened the day;

She set her hand unto Sigurd, and turned the face of the dead

To the moveless knees of Gudrun, and again she spake and said:

"O Gudrun, look on thy loved-one; yea, as if he were living yet

Let his face by thy face be cherished, and thy lips on his lips be

set!"

Then Gudrun's eyes fell on it, and she saw the bright-one's hair

All wet with the deadly dew-fall, and she saw the great eyes stare

At that cloudy roof of the Niblungs without a smile or frown;

And she saw the breast of the mighty and the heart's wall rent adown:

She gazed and the woe gathered on her, so exceeding far away

Seemed all she once had cherished from that which near her lay;

She gazed, and it craved no pity, and therein was nothing sad,

Therein was clean forgotten the hope that Sigurd had:

Then she looked around and about her, as though her friend to find,

And met those woeful faces but as grey reeds in the wind,

And she turned to the King beneath her and raised her hands on high,

And fell on the body of Sigurd with a great and bitter cry;

All else in the house kept silence, and she as one alone

Spared not in that kingly dwelling to wail aloud and moan;

And the sound of her lamentation the peace of the Niblungs rent,

While the restless birds in the wall-nook their song to the green

leaves sent;

And the geese in the home-mead wandering clanged out beneath the sun;

For now was the day's best hour, and its loveliest tide begun.

Long Gudrun lay on Sigurd, and her tears fell fast on the floor

As the rain in midmost April when the winter-tide is o'er,

Till she heard a wail anigh her and how Gullrond wept beside,

Then she knew the voice of her pity, and rose upright and cried:

"O ye, e'en such was my Sigurd among these Giuki's sons,

As the hart with the horns day-brightened mid the forest-creeping ones;

As the spear-leek fraught with wisdom mid the lowly garden grass;

As the gem on the gold band's midmost when the council cometh to pass,

And the King is lit with its glory, and the people wonder and praise.

--O people, Ah thy craving for the least of my Sigurd's days!

O wisdom of my Sigurd! how oft I sat with thee

Thou striver, thou deliverer, thou hope of things to be!

O might of my love, my Sigurd! how oft I sat by thy side,

And was praised for the loftiest woman and the best of Odin's pride!

But now am I as little as the leaf on the lone tree left,

When the winter wood is shaken and the sky by the North is cleft."

Then her speech grew wordless wailing, and no man her meaning knew;

Till she hushed her swift and turned her; for a laugh her wail pierced

through,

As a whistling shaft the night-wind in some foe-encompassed wood;

And lo, by the nearest pillar the wife of Gunnar stood;

There stood the allwise Brynhild 'gainst the golden carving pressed,

As she stared at the wound of Sigurd and that rending of his breast:

But she felt the place fallen silent, and the speechless anger set

On her own chill, bitter sorrow; and the eyes of the women met,

And they stood in the hall together, as they stood that while ago,

When they twain in Brynhild's dwelling of days to come would know:

But every soul kept silence, and all hearts were chill as stone

As Brynhild spake:

"Thou woman, shall thine eyes be wet alone?

Shalt thou weep and speak in thy glory, when I may weep no more,

When I speak, and my speech is as silence to the man that loved me

sore?"

Then folk heard the woe of Gudrun, and the bitterness of hate:

"Day cursed o'er every other! when they opened wide the gate,

And Kings in gold arrayed them, and all men the joy might hear,

As Greyfell neighed in the forecourt the world's delight to bear,

And my brethren shook the world-ways as they rode to Brynhild's bower,

--An ill day--an evil woman--a most untimely hour!"

But she wailed: "The seat is empty, and empty is the bed,

And earth is hushed henceforward of the words my speech-friend said!

Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki, and my brethren of one womb!

Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki for the latter days of doom!

O hearken, hearken Gunnar! May the dear Gold drag thee adown,

And Greyfell's ruddy Burden, and the Treasure of renown,

And the rings that ye swore the oath on! yea, if all avengers die,

May Earth, that ye bade remember, on the blood of Sigurd cry!

Be this land as waste as the trothplight that the lips of fools have

sworn!

May it rain through this broken hall-roof, and snow on the hearth

forlorn!

And may no man draw anigh it to tell of the ruin and the wrack!

Yea, may I be a mock for the idle if my feet come ever aback,

If my heart think kind of the chambers, if mine eyes shall yearn to

behold

The fair-built house of my fathers, the house beloved of old!"

Then she waileth out before them, and hideth her face from the day,

And she casteth her down from the high-seat and fleeth fast away;

And forth from the Hall of the Niblungs, and forth from the Burg is

she gone,

And forth from the holy dwellings, and a long way forth alone,

Till she comes to the lonely wood-waste, the desert of the deer

By the feet of the lonely mountains, that no man draweth anear;

But the wolves are about and around her, and death seems better than

life,

And folding the hands and forgetting a merrier thing than strife;

And for long and long thereafter no man of Gudrun knows,

Nor who are the friends of her life-days, nor whom she calleth her

foes.

But how great in the hall of the Niblungs is the voice of weeping and

wail!

Men bide on the noon's departing, men bide till the eve shall fail,

Then they wend one after other to the sleep that all men win,

Till few are the hall-abiders, and the moon is white therein,

And no sound in the house may ye hearken save the ernes that stir

o'erhead,

And the far-off wail o'er Guttorm and the wakeners o'er the dead:

But still by the carven pillar doth the all-wise Brynhild stand

A-gaze on the wound of Sigurd, nor moveth foot nor hand,

Nor speaketh word to any, of them that come or go

Round the evil deed of the Niblungs and the corner-stone of woe.

_Of the passing away of Brynhild._

Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious suns

And the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done.

For out in the people's meadows they raise a bale on high,

The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie;

Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour of sweet spice,

Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs of untold price:

The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts of the mighty horn

From the topmost tower out-wailing o'er the woeful world are borne.

But Brynhild lay in her chamber, and her women went and came,

And they feared and trembled before her, and none spake Sigurd's name;

But whiles they deemed her weeping, and whiles they deemed indeed

That she spake, if they might but hearken, but no words their ears

might heed;

Till at last she spake out clearly:

"I know not what ye would;

For ye come and go in my chamber, and ye seem of wavering mood

To thrust me on, or to stay me; to help my heart in woe,

Or to bid my days of sorrow midst nameless folly go."

None answered the word of Brynhild, none knew of her intent;

But she spake: "Bid hither Gunnar, lest the sun sink o'er the bent,

And leave the words unspoken I yet have will to speak."

Then her maidens go from before her, and that lord of war they seek,

And he stands by the bed of Brynhild and strives to entreat and

beseech,

But her eyes gaze awfully on him, and his lips may learn no speech.

And she saith:

"I slept in the morning, or I dreamed in the waking-hour,

And my dream was of thee, O Gunnar, and the bed in thy kingly bower,

And the house that I blessed in my sorrow, and cursed in my sorrow and

shame,

The gates of an ancient people, the towers of a mighty name:

King, cold was the hall I have dwelt in, and no brand burned on the

hearth;

Dead-cold was thy bed, O Gunnar, and thy land was parched with dearth:

But I saw a great King riding, and a master of the harp,

And he rode amidst of the foemen, and the swords were bitter-sharp,

But his hand in the hand-gyves smote not, and his feet in the fetters

were fast,

While many a word of mocking at his speechless face was cast.

Then I heard a voice in the world: 'O woe for the broken troth,

And the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and the Sorrow of Odin the Goth!

Then I saw the halls of the strangers, and the hills, and the

dark-blue sea,

Nor knew of their names and their nations, for earth was afar from me,

But brother rose up against brother, and blood swam over the board,

And women smote and spared not, and the fire was master and lord.

Then, then was the moonless mid-mirk, and I woke to the day and the

deed,

The deed that earth shall name not, the day of its bitterest need.

Many words have I said in my life-days, and little more shall I say:

Ye have heard the dream of a woman, deal with it as ye may:

For meseems the world-ways sunder, and the dusk and the dark is mine,

Till I come to the hall of Freyia, where the deeds of the mighty shall

shine.'"

So hearkened Gunnar the Niblung, that her words he understood,

And he knew she was set on the death-stroke, and he deemed it nothing

good:

But he said: "I have hearkened, and heeded thy death and mine in thy

words:

I have done the deed and abide it, and my face shall laugh on the

swords;

But thee, woman, I bid thee abide here till thy grief of soul abate;

Meseems nought lowly nor shameful shall be the Niblung fate;

And here shalt thou rule and be mighty, and be queen of the

measureless Gold,

And abase the kings and upraise them; and anew shall thy fame be told,

And as fair shall thy glory blossom as the fresh fields under the

spring."

Then he casteth his arms about her, and hot is the heart of the King

For the glory of Queen Brynhild and the hope of her days of gain,

And he clean forgetteth Sigurd and the foster-brother slain:

But she shrank aback from before him, and cried: "Woe worth the while

For the thoughts ye drive back on me, and the memory of your guile!

The Kings of earth were gathered, the wise of men were met;

On the death of a woman's pleasure their glorious hearts were set,

And I was alone amidst them--Ah, hold thy peace hereof!

Lest the thought of the bitterest hours this little hour should move."

He rose abashed from before her, and yet he lingered there;

Then she said: "O King of the Niblungs, what noise do I hearken and

hear?

Why ring the axes and hammers, while feet of men go past,

And shields from the wall are shaken, and swords on the pavement cast,

And the door of the treasure is opened; and the horn cries loud and

long,

And the feet of the Niblung children to the people's meadows throng?"

His face was troubled before her, and again she spake and said:

"Meseemeth this is the hour when men array the dead;

Wilt thou tell me tidings, Gunnar, that the children of thy folk

Pile up the bale for Guttorm, and the hand that smote the stroke?"

He said: "It is not so, Brynhild; for that Giuki's son was burned

When the moon of the middle heaven last night toward dawning turned."

They looked on each other and spake not; but Gunnar gat him gone,

And came to his brother Hogni, the wise-heart Giuki's son,

And spake: "Thou art wise, O Hogni; go in to Brynhild the queen,

And stay her swift departing; or the last of her days hath she seen."

"It is nought, thy word," said Hogni; "wilt thou bring dead men aback,

Or the souls of kings departed midst the battle and the wrack?

Yet this shall be easier to thee than the turning Brynhild's heart;

She came to dwell among us, but in us she had no part;

Let her go her ways from the Niblungs with her hand in Sigurd's hand.

Will the grass grow up henceforward where her feet have trodden the

land?"

"O evil day," said Gunnar, "when my queen must perish and die!"

"Such oft betide," saith Hogni, "as the lives of men flit by;

But the evil day is a day, and on each day groweth a deed,

And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful tale shall speed.

Lo now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass,

Lest men say it, 'They loathed the evil and they brought the evil to

pass.'"

So they spake, and their hearts were heavy, and they longed for the

morrow morn,

And the morrow of tomorrow, and the new day yet to be born.

But Brynhild cried to her maidens: "Now open ark and chest,

And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best,

Red rings that the Dwarf-lords fashioned, fair cloths that queens have

sewed,

To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road."

They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear;

But she laughed mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashioned

fair:

She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan;

As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone:

And they that stood about her, their hearts were raised aloft

Amid their fear and wonder: then she spake them kind and soft:

"Now give me the sword, O maidens, wherewith I sheared the wind

When the Kings of Earth were gathered to know the Chooser's mind."

All sheathed the maidens brought it, and feared the hidden blade,

But the naked blue-white edges across her knees she laid,

And spake: "The heaped-up riches, the gear my fathers left,

All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from battle reft,

All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor,

And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of Brynhild's store."

They brought them mid their weeping, but none put forth a hand

To take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land:

There they stand and weep before her, and some are moved to speech,

And they cast their arms about her and strive with her, and beseech

That she look on her loved-ones' sorrow and the glory of the day.

It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands away

And she said: "Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the gold

In remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old."

Then she spake: "Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him?

For new things are mine eyes beholding and the Niblung house grows dim,

And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speak

When the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak."

Then upright by the bed of the Niblungs for a moment doth she stand,

And the blade flasheth bright in the chamber, but no more they hinder

her hand

Than if a God were smiting to rend the world in two:

Then dulled are the glittering edges, and the bitter point cleaves

through

The breast of the all-wise Brynhild, and her feet from the pavement

fail,

And the sigh of her heart is hearkened mid the hush of the maidens'

wail.

Chill, deep is the fear upon them, but they bring her aback to the bed,

And her hand is yet on the hilts, and sidelong droopeth her head.

Then there cometh a cry from withoutward, and Gunnar's hurrying feet

Are swift on the kingly threshold, and Brynhild's blood they meet.

Low down o'er the bed he hangeth and hearkeneth for her word,

And her heavy lids are opened to look on the Niblung lord,

And she saith:

"I pray thee a prayer, the last word in the world I speak,

That ye bear me forth to Sigurd, and the hand my hand would seek;

The bale for the dead is builded, it is wrought full wide on the plain,

It is raised for Earth's best Helper, and thereon is room for twain:

Ye have hung the shields about it, and the Southland hangings spread,

There lay me adown by Sigurd and my head beside his head:

But ere ye leave us sleeping, draw his Wrath from out the sheath,

And lay that Light of the Branstock, and the blade that frighted deaths

Betwixt my side and Sigurd's, as it lay that while agone,

When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone:

How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind?

How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find?

How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ring

Clash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my king?"

Then she raised herself on her elbow, but again her eyelids sank,

And the wound by the sword-edge whispered, as her heart from the iron

shrank,

And she moaned: "O lives of man-folk, for unrest all overlong

By the Father were ye fashioned; and what hope amendeth a wrong?

Now at last, O my belovèd, all is gone; none else is near,

Through the ages of all ages, never sundered, shall we wear."

Scarce more than a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell,

Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell;

And no more their lamentation might the maidens hold aback,

But the sound of their bitter mourning was as if red-handed wrack

Ran wild in the Burg of the Niblungs, and the fire were master of all.

Then the voice of Gunnar the war-king cried out o'er the weeping hall:

"Wail on, O women forsaken, for the mightiest woman born!

Now the hearth is cold and joyless, and the waste bed lieth forlorn.

Wail on, but amid your weeping lay hand to the glorious dead,

That not alone for an hour may lie Queen Brynhild's head:

For here have been heavy tidings, and the Mightiest under shield

Is laid on the bale high-builded in the Niblungs' hallowed field.

Fare forth! for he abideth, and we do Allfather wrong,

If the shining Valhall's pavement await their feet o'erlong."

Then they took the body of Brynhild in the raiment that she wore,

And out through the gate of the Niblungs the holy corpse they bore,

And thence forth to the mead of the people, and the high-built

shielded bale;

Then afresh in the open meadows breaks forth the women's wail

When they see the bed of Sigurd and the glittering of his gear;

And fresh is the wail of the people as Brynhild draweth anear,

And the tidings go before her that for twain the bale is built,

That for twain is the oak-wood shielded and the pleasant odours spilt.

There is peace on the bale of Sigurd, and the Gods look down from on

high,

And they see the lids of the Volsung close shut against the sky,

As he lies with his shield beside him in the Hauberk all of gold,

That has not its like in the heavens, nor has earth of its fellow told;

And forth from the Helm of Aweing are the sunbeams flashing wide,

And the sheathèd Wrath of Sigurd lies still by his mighty side.

Then cometh an elder of days, a man of the ancient times,

Who is long past sorrow and joy, and the steep of the bale he climbs;

And he kneeleth down by Sigurd, and bareth the Wrath to the sun

That the beams are gathered about it, and from hilt to blood-point run,

And wide o'er the plain of the Niblungs doth the Light of the

Branstock glare,

Till the wondering mountain-shepherds on that star of noontide stare,

And fear for many an evil; but the ancient man stands still

With the war-flame on his shoulder, nor thinks of good or of ill,

Till the feet of Brynhild's bearers on the topmost bale are laid,

And her bed is dight by Sigurd's; then he sinks the pale white blade

And lays it 'twixt the sleepers, and leaves them there alone--

He, the last that shall ever behold them,--and his days are well nigh

done.

Then is silence over the plain; in the noon shine the torches pale

As the best of the Niblung Earl-folk bear fire to the builded bale:

Then a wind in the west ariseth, and the white flames leap on highs

And with one voice crieth the people a great and mighty cry,

And men cast up hands to the Heavens, and pray without a word,

As they that have seen God's visage, and the face of the Father have

heard.

They are gone--the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth:

It shall labour and bear the burden as before that day of their birth:

It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped,

And the hour that Brynhild hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh the

dead:

It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no

more,

Till the new sun beams on Baldur, and the happy sealess shore.