GUDRUN.
HEREIN IS TOLD OF THE DAYS OF THE NIBLUNGS AFTER THEY SLEW SIGURD,
AND OF THEIR WOEFUL NEED AND FALL IN THE HOUSE OF KING ATLI.
_King Atli wooeth and weddeth Gudrun._
Hear now of those Niblung war-kings, how in glorious state they dwell;
They do and undo at their pleasure and wear their life-days well;
They deal out doom to the people, and their hosts of war array,
Nor storm nor wind nor winter their eager swords shall stay:
They ride the lealand highways, they ride the desert plain,
They cry out kind to the Sea-god and loose the wave-steed's rein:
They climb the unmeasured mountains, and gleam on the world beneath,
And their swords are the blinding lightning, and their shields are the
shadow of death:
When men tell of the lords of the Goth-folk, of the Niblungs is their
word,
All folk in the round world's compass of their mighty fame have heard:
They are lords of the Ransom of Odin, the uncounted sea-born Gold,
The Grief of the wise Andvari, the Death of the Dwarfs of old,
The gleaming Load of Greyfell, the ancient Serpent's Bed,
The store of the days forgotten, by the dead heaped up for the dead.
Lo, such are the Kings of the Niblungs, but yet they crave and desire
Lest the world hold greater than they, lest the Gods and their kindred
be higher.
Fair, bright is their hall in the even; still up to the cloudy roof
There goeth the glee and the singing while the eagles chatter aloof,
And the Gods on the hangings waver in the doubtful wind of night;
Still fair are the linen-clad damsels, still are the war-dukes bright;
Men come and go in the even; men come and go in the morn;
Good tidings with the daybreak, fair fame with the glooming is born:
--But no tidings of Sigurd and Brynhild, and whoso remembereth their
days
Turns back to the toil or the laughter from his words of lamenting or
praise,
Turns back to the glorious Gunnar, casts hope on the Niblung name,
Doeth deeds from the morn to the even, and beareth no burden of shame.
Well wedded is Gunnar the King, and Hogni hath wedded a wife;
Fair queens are those wives of the Niblungs, good helpmates in peace
and in strife
Sweet they sit on the golden high-seat, and Grimhild sitteth beside,
And the years have made her glorious, and the days have swollen her
pride;
She looketh down on the people, from on high she looketh down,
And her days have become a wonder, and her redes are wisdom's crown.
She saith: Where then are the Gods? what things have they shapen and
made
More of might than the days I have shapen? of whom shall our hearts be
afraid?
Now there was a King of the outlands, and Atli was his name,
The lord of a mighty people, a man of marvellous fame,
Who craved the utmost increase of all that kings desire;
Who would reach his hand to the gold as it ran in the ruddy fire,
Or go down to the ocean-pavement to harry the people beneath,
Or cast up his sword at the Gods, or bid the friendship of death.
By hap was the man unwedded, and wide in the world he sought
For a queen to increase his glory lest his name should come to nought;
And no kin like the kin of the Niblungs he found in all the earth.
No treasure like their treasure, no glory like their worth;
So he sendeth an ancient war-duke with a goodly company,
And three days they ride the mirk-wood and ten days they sail the sea,
And three days they ride the highways till they come to Gunnar's land;
And there on an even of summer in Gunnar's hall they stand,
And the spears of Welshland glitter, and the Southland garments gleam,
For those folk are fair apparelled as the people of a dream.
But the glorious Son of Giuki from amidst the high-seat spoke:
"Why stand ye mid men sitting, or fast mid feasting folk?
No meat nor drink there lacketh, and the hall is long and wide.
Three days in the peace of the Niblungs unquestioned shall ye bide,
Then timely do your message, and bid us peace or war."
But spake the Earl of Atli yet standing on the floor:
"All hail, O glorious Gunnar, O mighty King of men!
O'er-short is the life of man-folk, the three-score years and ten,
Long, long is the craft for the learning, and sore doth the right hand
waste:
Lo, lord, our spurs are bloody, and our brows besweat with haste;
Our gear is stained by the sea-spray and rent by bitter gales,
For we struck no mast to the tempest, and the East was in our sails;
By the thorns is our raiment rended, for we rode the mirk-wood through,
And our steeds were the God-bred coursers, nor day from night-tide
knew:
Lo, we are the men of Atli, and his will and his spoken word
Lies not beneath our pillow, nor hangs above the board;
Nay, how shall it fail but slay us if three days we hold it hid?
--I will speak to-night, O Niblung, save thy very mouth forbid:
But lo now, look on the tokens, and the rune-staff of the King."
Then spake the Son of Giuki: "Give forth the word and the thing.
Since thy faithfulness constraineth: but I know thy tokens true,
And thy rune-staff hath the letters that in days agone I knew."
"Then this is the word," said the elder, "that Atli set in my mouth:
'I have known thee of old, King Gunnar, when we twain drew sword in
the south
In the days of thy father Giuki, and great was the fame of thee then:
But now it rejoiceth my heart that thou growest the greatest of men,
And anew I crave thy friendship, and I crave a gift at thy hands,
That thou give me the white-armed Gudrun, the queen and the darling of
lands,
To be my wife and my helpmate, my glory in hall and afield;
That mine ancient house may blossom and fresh fruit of the King-tree
yield.
I send thee gifts moreover, though little things be these.
But such is the fashion of great-ones when they speak across the
seas.'"
Then cried out that earl of the strangers, and men brought the gifts
and the gold;
White steeds from the Eastland horse-plain, fine webs of price untold,
Huge pearls of the nether ocean, strange masteries subtly wrought
By the hands of craftsmen perished and people come to nought.
But Gunnar laughed and answered: "King Atli speaketh well;
Across the sea, peradventure, I too a tale may tell:
Now born is thy burden of speech; so rejoice at the Niblung board,
For here art thou sweetly welcome for thyself and thy mighty lord:
And maybe by this time tomorrow, or maybe in a longer space,
Shall ye have an answer for Atli, and a word to gladden his face."
So the strangers sit and are merry, and the Wonder of the East
And the glory of the Westland kissed lips in the Niblung feast.
But again on the morrow-morning speaks Gunnar with Grimhild and saith:
"Where then in the world is Gudrun, and is she delivered from death?
For nought hereof hast thou told me: but the wisest of women art thou,
And I deem that all things thou knowest, and thy cunning is timely now;
For King Atli wooeth my sister; and as wise as thou mayst be,
What thing mayst thou think of greater 'twixt the ice and the
uttermost sea
Than the might of the Niblung people, if this wedding come to pass?"
Then answered the mighty Grimhild, and glad of heart she was:
"It is sooth that Gudrun liveth; for that daughter of thy folk
Fled forth from the Burg of the Niblungs when the Volsung's might ye
broke:
She fled from all holy dwellings to the houses of the deer,
And the feet of the mountains deserted that few folk come anear:
There the wolves were about and around her, and no mind she had to
live;
Dull sleep she deemed was better than with turmoiled thought to strive:
But there rode a wife in the wood, a queen of the daughters of men,
And she came where Gudrun abided, whose might was minished as then,
Till she was as a child forgotten; nor that queen might she gainsay;
Who took the white-armed Gudrun, and bore my daughter away
To her burg o'er the hither mountains; there she cherished her soft
and sweet,
Till she rose, from death delivered, and went upon her feet:
She awoke and beheld those strangers, a trusty folk and a kind,
A goodly and simple people, that few lords of war shall find:
Glorious and mighty they deemed her, as an outcast wandering God,
And she loved their loving-kindness, and the fields of the tiller she
trod,
And went 'twixt the rose and the lily, and sat in the chamber of wool,
And smiled at the laughing maidens, and sang over shuttle and spool.
Seven seasons there hath she bided, and this have I wotted for long;
But I knew that her heart is as mine to remember the grief and the
wrong,
So the days of thy sister I told not, in her life would I have no part,
Lest a foe for thy life I should fashion, and sharpen a sword for thine
heart:
But now is the day of our deeds, and no longer durst I refrain,
Lest I put the Gods' hands from me, and make their gifts but vain.
Yea, the woman is of the Niblungs, and often I knew her of old,
How her heart would burn within her when the tale of their glory was
told.
With wisdom and craft shall I work, with the gifts that Odin hath
given,
Wherewith my fathers of old, and the ancient mothers have striven."
"Thy word is good," quoth Gunnar, "a happy word indeed:
Lo, how shall I fear a woman, who have played with kings in my need?
Yea, how may I speak of my sister, save well remembering
How goodly she was aforetime, how fair in everything,
How kind in the days passed over, how all fulfilled of love
For the glory of the Niblungs, and the might that the world shall move?
She shall see my face and Hogni's, she shall yearn to do our will,
And the latter days of her brethren with glory shall fulfil."
Then Grimhild laughed and answered: "Today then shalt thou ride
To the dwelling of Thora the Queen, for there doth thy sister abide."
As she spake came the wise-heart Hogni, and that speech of his mother
he heard,
And he said: "How then are ye saying a new and wonderful word,
That ye meddle with Gudrun's sorrow, and her grief of heart awake?
Will ye draw out a dove from her nest, and a worm to your hall-hearth
take?"
"What then," said his brother Gunnar, "shall we thrust by Atli's word?
Shall we strive, while the world is mocking, with the might of the
Eastland sword,
While the wise are mocking to see it, how the great devour the great?"
"O wise-heart Hogni," said Grimhild, "wilt thou strive with the hand
of fate,
And thrust back the hand of Odin that the Niblung glory will crown?
Wert thou born in a cot-carle's chamber, or the bed of a King's
renown?"
"I know not, I know not," said Hogni, "but an unsure bridge is the sea,
And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me.
I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,
And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe."
They spake no word before him; but he said: "I see the road;
I see the ways we must journey--I have long cast off the load,
The burden of men's bearing wherein they needs must bind
All-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind:
So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforth
Shall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale of the Niblung worth."
Therewith he went out from before them, and through chamber and hall
he cried
On the best of the Niblung earl-folk, for that now the Kings would
ride:
Soon are all men assembled, and their shields are fresh and bright,
Nor gold their raiment lacketh; then the strong-necked steeds they
dight,
They dight the wain for Grimhild, and she goeth up therein,
And the well-clad girded maidens have left the work they win,
To sit by the Mother of Kings and make her glory great:
Then to horse get the Kings of the Niblungs, and ride out by the
ancient gate;
And amidst its dusky hollows stir up the sound of swords:
Forth then from the hallowed houses ride on those war-fain lords,
Till they come to the dales deserted, and the woodland waste and drear;
There the wood-wolves shrink before them, fast flee the forest-deer,
And the stony wood-ways clatter as the Niblung host goes by.
Adown by the feet of the mountains that eve in sleep they lie,
And arise on the morrow-morning and climb the mountain-pass,
And the sunless hollow places, and the slopes that hate the grass.
So they cross the hither ridges and ride a stony bent
Adown to the dale of Thora, and the country of content;
By the homes of a simple people, by cot and close they go,
Till they come to Thora's dwelling; but fair it stands and low
Amidst of orchard-closes, and round about men win
Fair work in field and garden, and sweet are the sounds therein.
Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he stands
To hearken the women's voices and the sound of their labouring hands;
And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears,
The speech of his sister Gudrun: his inmost heart it stirs,
And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hall
He stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.
On the high-seat sitteth Gudrun when she sees the man of war
Come gleaming into the chamber; then she standeth up on the floor,
And is great and goodly to look on mid the women of that place:
But she knoweth the guise of the Niblungs, and she knoweth Gunnar's
face,
And at first she turneth to flee, as erewhile she fled away
When she rose from the wound of Sigurd and loathed the light of day:
But her father's heart rose in her, and the sleeping wrong awoke,
And she made one step from the high-seat before Queen Thora's folk;
And Gunnar moved from the threshold, and smiled as he drew anear,
And Hogni went behind him and the Mother of Kings was there;
And her maids and the Earls of the Niblungs stood gleaming there
behind:
Lo, the kin and the friends of Gudrun, a smiling folk and kind!
In the midst stood Gudrun before them, and cried aloud and said:
"What! bear ye tidings of Sigurd? is he new come back from the dead?
O then will I hasten to greet him, and cherish my love and my lord,
Though the murderous sons of Giuki have borne the tale abroad."
Dead-pale she stood before them, and no mouth answered again,
And the summer morn grew heavy, and chill were the hearts of men
And Thora's people trembled: there the simple people first
Saw the horror of the King-folk, and mighty lives accurst.
All hushed stood the glorious Gunnar, but Hogni came before,
And he said: "It is sooth, my sister, that thy sorrow hath been sore,
That hath rent thee away from thy kindred and the folk that love thee
most:
But to double sorrow with hatred is to cast all after the lost,
And to die and to rest not in death, and to loathe and linger the end:
Now today do we come to this dwelling thy grief and thy woe to amend,
And to give thee the gift that we may; for without thy love and thy
peace
Doth our life and our glory sicken, though its outward show increase.
Lo, we bear thee rule and dominion, and hope and the glory of life,
For King Atli wooeth thee, Gudrun, for his queen and his wedded wife."
Still she stood as a carven image, as a stone of ancient days
When the sun is bright about it and the wind sweeps low o'er the ways.
All hushed was Gunnar the Niblung and knew not how to beseech,
But still Hogni faced his sister, nor faltered aught in his speech:
"Thou art young," he said, "O sister; thou wert called a mighty queen
When the nurses first upraised thee and first thy body was seen:
If thou bide with these toiling women when a great king bids thee to
wife,
Then first is it seen of the Niblungs that they cringe and cower from
strife:
By the deeds of the Golden Sigurd I charge thee hinder us not,
When the Norns have dight the way-beasts, and our hearts for the
journey are hot!"
She answered not with speaking, she questioned not with eyes,
Nought did her deadly anger to her brow unknitted rise,
Then forth came Grimhild the Mighty, and the cup was in her hand,
Wherein with the sea's dread mingled was the might and the blood of
the land;
And the guile of the summer serpent and the herb of the sunless dale
Were blent for the deadening slumber that forgetteth joy and bale;
And cold words of ancient wisdom that the very Gods would dim
Were the foreshores of that wine-sea and the cliffs that girt its rim:
Therewith in the hall stood Grimhild, and cried aloud and spake:
"It was I that bore thee, daughter; I laboured once for thy sake,
I groaned to bear thee a queen, I sickened sore for thy fame:
By me and my womb I command thee that thou worship the Niblung name,
And take the gift we would give thee, and be wed to a king of the
earth,
And rejoice in kings hereafter when thy sons are come to the birth:
Lo, then as thou lookest upon them, and thinkest of glory to come,
It shall be as if Sigmund were living, and Sigurd sat in thine home."
Nought answered the white-armed Gudrun, no master of masters might see
The hate in her soul swift-growing or the rage of her misery.
But great waxed the wrath of Grimhild; there huge in the hall she
stood,
And her fathers' might stirred in her, and the well-spring of her
blood;
And she cried out blind with anger: "Though all we die on one day,
Though we live for ever in sorrow, yet shalt thou be given away
To Atli the King of the mighty, high lord of the Eastland gold:
Drink now, that my love and my wisdom may thaw thine heart grown cold;
And take those great gifts of our giving, the cities long builded for
thee,
The wine-burgs digged for thy pleasure, the fateful wealthy lea,
The darkling woods of the deer, the courts of mighty lords,
The hosts of men war-shielded, the groves of fallow swords!"
Nought changed the eyes of Gudrun, but she reached her hand to the cup
And drank before her kindred, and the blood from her heart went up,
And was blent with the guile of the serpent, and many a thing she
forgat,
But never the day of her sorrow, and of how o'er Sigurd she sat:
But the land's-folk looked on the Niblungs as the daughter of Giuki
drank,
And before their wrath they trembled, and before their joy they shrank.
Then yet again spake Gudrun, and they that stood thereby,
--O how their hearts were heavy as though the sun should die!
She said: "O Kings of my kindred, I shall nought gainsay your will;
With the fruit of your fond desires your hearts shall ye fulfil;
Bear me back to the Burg of the Niblungs, and the house of my fathers
of old,
That the men of King Atli may take me with the tokens and treasure of
gold."
Then the cry goeth up from the Niblungs, and no while in that house
they abide;
Forth fare the Cloudy People and the stony slopes they ride,
And the sun is bright behind them o'er queen Thora's lowly dale,
Where the sound of their speech abideth as an ancient woeful tale.
But the Niblungs ride the forest and the dwellings of the deer,
And the wife of the Golden Sigurd to the ancient Burg they bear;
She speaks not of good nor of evil, and no change in her face men see,
Nay, not when the Niblung towers rise up above the lea;
Nay, not when they come to the gateway, and that builded gloom again
Swallows up the steed and its rider, and sword, and gilded wain;
Nay, not when to earth she steppeth, and her feet again pass o'er
The threshold of the Niblungs and the holy house of yore;
Nay, not when alone she lieth in the chamber, on the bed
Where she lay, a little maiden, ere her hope was born and dead:
Yea, how fair is her face on the morrow, how it winneth all people's
praise,
As the moon that forebodeth nothing on the night of the last of days.
Nought tarry the lords of King Atli, and the Niblungs stay them nought;
The doors of the treasure are opened and the gold and the tokens are
brought;
And all men in the hall are assembled, where Gunnar speaketh and saith:
"Go hence, O men of King Atli, and tell of our love and our faith
To thy master, the mighty of men: go take him this treasure of gold,
And show him how we have hearkened, and nought from his heart may
withhold,
Nay, not our best and our dearest, nay, not the crown of our worth,
Our sister, the white-armed Gudrun, the wise and the Queen of the
earth."
Then arose the cry of the people, and that Duke of Atli spake:
"We bless thee, O mighty Gunnar, for the Eastland Atli's sake,
And his kingdom as thy kingdom, and his men as thy men shall be,
And the gold in Atli's treasure is stored and gathered for thee."
So spake he amid their shouting, and the Queen from the high-seat
stept,
And Gudrun stood with the strangers, and there were women who wept,
But she wept no more than she smiled, nor spake, nor turned again
To that place in the ancient dwelling where once lay Sigurd slain.
But she mounteth the wain all golden, and the Earls to the saddle leap,
And forth they ride in the morning, and adown the builded steep
That hath no name for Gudrun, save the place where Sigurd fell,
The strong abode of treason, the house where murderers dwell.
Three days they ride the lealand till they come to the side of the sea:
Ten days they sail the sea-flood to the land where they would be:
Three days they ride the mirk-wood to the peopled country-side,
Three days through a land of cities and plenteous tilth they ride;
On the fourth the Burg of Atli o'er the meadows riseth up,
And the houses of his dwelling fine-wrought as a silver cup.
Far off in a bight of the mountains by the inner sea it stands,
Turned away from the house of Gudrun, and her kindred and their lands.
Then to right and to left looked Gudrun and beheld the outland folk,
With no love nor hate nor wonder, as out from the teeth she spoke
To that unfamiliar people that had seen not Sigurd's face.
There she saw the walls most mighty as they came to the fencèd place:
But lo, by the gate of the city and the entering in of the street
Is an host exceeding glorious, for the King his bride will greet:
So Gudrun stayeth her fellows, and lighteth down from the wain,
And afoot cometh Atli to meet hers and they meet in the midst, they
twain,
And he casteth his arms about her as a great man glad at heart;
Nought she smiles, nor her brow is knitted as she draweth aback and
apart,
No man could say who beheld her if sorry or glad she were;
But her steady eyes are beholding the King and the Eastland's Fear,
And she thinks: Have I lived too long? how swift doth the world grow
worse,
Though it was but a little season that I slept, forgetting the curse!
But the King speaks kingly unto her and they pass forth under the gate,
And she sees he is rich and mighty, though the Niblung folk be great;
So strong is his house upbuilded, so many are his lords,
So great the hosts for the murder and the meeting of the swords;
And she saith: It is surely enough and no further now shall I wend;
In this house, in the house of a stranger shall be the tale and the
end.
_Atli biddeth the Niblungs to him._
There now is Gudrun abiding, and gone by is the bloom of her youth,
And she dwells with a folk untrusty, and a King that knows not ruth:
Great are his gains in the world, and few men may his might withstand,
But he weigheth sore on his people and cumbers the hope of his land;
He craves as the sea-flood craveth, he gripes as the dying hour,
All folk lie faint before him as he seeketh a soul to devour:
Like breedeth like in his house, and venom, and guile, and the knife
Oft lie 'twixt brother and brother, and the son and the father's life:
As dogs doth Gudrun heed them, and looks with steadfast eyes
On the guile and base contention, and the strife of murder and lies.
So pass the days and the moons, and the seasons wend on their ways,
And there as a woman alone she sits mid the glory and praise:
There oft in the hall she sitteth, and as empty images
Are grown the shapes of the strangers, till her fathers' hall she sees:
Void then seems the throne of the King, and no man sits by her side
In the house of the Cloudy People and the place of her brethren's
pride;
But a dead man lieth before her, and there cometh a voice and a hand,
And the cloth is plucked from the dead, and, lo, the beloved of the
land,
The righter of wrongs, the deliverer, yea he that gainsayed no grace:
In a stranger's house is Gudrun and no change comes over her face,
But her heart cries: Woe, woe, woe, O woe unto me and to all!
On the fools, on the wise, on the evil let the swift destruction fall!
Cold then is her voice in the high-seat, and she hears not what it
saith;
But Atli heedeth and hearkeneth, for she tells of the Glittering Heath,
And the Load of the mighty Greyfell, and the Ransom of Odin the Goth:
Cold yet is her voice as she telleth of murder and breaking of troth,
Of the stubborn hearts of the Niblungs, and their hands that never
yield,
Of their craving that nought fulfilleth, of their hosts arrayed for the
field.
--What then are the words of King Atli that the cold voice answereth
thus?
"King, so shalt thou do, and be sackless of the vengeance that lieth
with us:
What words are these of my brethren, what words are these of my kin?
For kin upon kin hath pity, and good deeds do brethren win
For the babes of their mothers' bosoms, and the children of one womb:
But no man on me had pity, no kings were gathered for doom,
When I lifted my hands for the pleading in the house of my father's
folk;
When men turned and wrapped them in treason, and did on wrong as a
cloak:
I have neither brethren nor kindred, and I am become thy wife
To help thine heart to its craving, and strengthen thine hand in the
strife."
Thus she stirred up the lust of Atli, she, unmoved as a mighty queen,
While the fire that burned within her by no child of man was seen.
There oft in the bed she lieth, and beside her Atli sleeps,
And she seeth him not nor heedeth, for the horror over her creeps,
And her own cry rings through the chamber that along ago she cried,
And a man for his life-breath gasping is struggling by her side,
Yea, who but Sigurd the Volsung; and no man of men in death
Ere spake such words of pity as the words that now he saith,
As the words he speaketh ever while he riseth up on the sword,
The sword of the foster-brethren and the Kings that swore the word.
Lo, there she lieth and hearkeneth if yet he speak again,
And long she lieth hearkening and lieth by the slain.
So dreams the waking Gudrun till the morn comes on apace
And the daylight shines on Atli, and no change comes over her face,
And deep hush lies on the chamber; but loud cries out her heart:
How long, how long, O God-folk, will ye sit alone and apart,
And let the blood of Sigurd cry on you from the earth,
While crowned are the sons of murder with worship and with worth?
If ye tarry shall I tarry? From the darkness of the womb
Came I not in the days passed over for accomplishing your doom?
So she saith till the daylight brightens, and the kingly house is
astir,
And she sits by the side of Atli, and a woman's voice doth hear,
One who speaks with the voice of Gudrun, a queenly voice and cold:
"How oft shall I tell thee, Atli, of the wise Andvari's Gold,
The Treasure Regin craved for, the uncounted ruddy rings?
Full surely he that holds it shall rule all earthly kings:
Stretch forth thine hand, O Atli, for the gift is marvellous great,
And I am she that giveth! how long wilt thou linger and wait
Till the traitors come against thee with the war-torch and the steel,
And here in thy land thou perish, befooled of thy kingly weal?
Have I wedded the King of the Eastlands, the master of numberless
swords,
Or a serving-man of the Niblungs, a thrall of the Westland lords?"
So spake the voice of Gudrun; suchwise she cast the seed
O'er the gold-lust of King Atli for the day of the Niblungs' Need.
Who is this in the hall of King Gunnar, this golden-gleaming man?
Who is this, the bright and the silent as the frosty eve and wan,
Round whom the speech of wise-ones lies hid in bonds of fear?
Who this in the Niblung feast-hall as the moon-rise draweth anear?
Hark! his voice mid the glittering benches and the wine-cups of the
Earls,
As cold as the wind that bloweth where the winter river whirls,
And the winter sun forgetteth all the promise of the spring:
"Hear ye, O men of the Westlands, hear thou, O Westland King,
I have ridden the scorching highways, I have ridden the mirk-wood
blind,
I have sailed the weltering ocean your Westland house to find;
For I am the man called Knefrud with Atli's word in my mouth.
That saith: O noble Gunnar, come thou and be glad in the south,
And rejoice with Eastland warriors; for the feast for thee is dight,
And the cloths for thy coming fashioned my glorious hall make bright.
Knowst thou not how the sun of the heavens hangs there 'twixt floor
and roof.
How the light of the lamp all golden holds dusky night aloof?
How the red wine runs like a river, and the white wine springs as a
well,
And the harps are never ceasing of ancient deeds to tell?
Thou shalt come when thy heart desireth, when thou weariest thou shalt
go,
And shalt say that no such high-tide the world shall ever know.
Come bare and bald as the desert, and leave mine house again
As rich as the summer wine-burg, and the ancient wheat-sown plain!
Come, bid thy men be building thy store-house greater yet,
And make wide thy stall and thy stable for the gifts thine hand shall
get!
Yet when thou art gone from Atli he shall stand by his treasure of
gold,
He shall look through stall and stable, he shall ride by field and
fold,
And no ounce from the weight shall be lacking, of his beasts shall
lack no head,
If no thief hath stolen from Gunnar, if no beast in his land lie dead.
Yea henceforth let our lives be as one, let our wars and our
wayfarings blend,
That my name with thine may be told of when the song is sung in the
end,
That the ancient war-spent Atli may sit and laugh with delight
O'er thy feet the swift in battle, o'er thine hand uplifted to smite."
So spake the guileful Knefrud mid the silence of the wise,
Nor once his cold voice faltered, nor once he sank his eyes:
Then spake the glorious Gunnar:
"We hear King Atli's voice.
And the heart is glad within us that he biddeth us rejoice:
Yet the thing shall be seen but seldom that a Niblung fares from his
land
With eyes by the gold-lust blinded, with the greedy griping hand.
When thou farest aback unto Atli, thou shalt tell him how thou hast
been
In the house of the Westland Gunnar, and what things thine eyes have
seen:
Thou shalt tell of the seven store-houses with swords filled through
and through,
Gold-hilted, deftly smithied, in the Southland wave made blue:
Thou shalt tell of the house of the treasures and the Gold that lay
erewhile
On the Glittering Heath of murder 'neath the heart of the Serpent's
guile:
Thou shalt note our glittering hauberk, thou shalt strive to bend our
bow,
Thou shalt look on the shield of Gunnar that its white face thou mayst
know:
Thou shalt back the Niblung war-steed when the west wind blows its
most,
And see if it over-run thee; thou shalt gaze on the Niblung host
And be glad of the friends of Atli; thou shalt fare through stable and
stall,
And tell over the tale of the beast-kind, if the night forbear to fall;
Through the horse-mead shalt thou wander, through the meadows of the
sheep,
But forbear to count their thousands lest thou weary for thy sleep;
Thou shalt look if the barns be empty, though the wheat-field whiteneth
now,
In the midmost of the summer in the fields men cared to plough;
Thou shalt dwell with men that lack not, and the tillers fair and fain;
Thou shalt see, and long, and wonder, and tell thy King of his gain;
For in all that here thou beholdest hath he portion even as we;
Sweet bloometh his love in our midmost, and the fair time yet may be,
When we twain shall meet and be merry; and sure when our lives are done
No more shall men sunder our glory than the Gods have rent the sun.
Sit, mighty man, and be joyous: and then shalt thou cast us a word
And say how fareth our sister mid the glory of her lord."
Then Knefrud looked upon Gunnar, and spake, nor sank his eyes:
"Each morn at the day's beginning when the sun hath hope to arise
She looketh from Atli's tower toward the west part and the grey,
To see the Niblung spear-heads gleam down the lonely way:
Each eve at the day's departing on the topmost tower she stands,
And looketh toward the mirk-wood and the sea of the western lands:
There long in the wind she standeth, and the even grown acold,
To see the Niblung war-shields come forth from out the wold."
Then Gunnar turneth to Hogni, and he saith: "O glorious lord,
What saith thine heart to the bidding, and Atli's loving word?"
"I have done many deeds," said Hogni, "I have worn the smooth and the
rough,
While the Gods looked on from heaven, and belike I have done enough,
And no deed for me abideth, but rather the sleep and the rest
But thou, O Son of King Giuki, art our eldest and our best,
And fair lie the fields before thee wherein thine hand shall work:
By the wayside of the greedy doth many a peril lurk;
Full wise is the great one meseemeth who bideth his ending at home
When the winds and the waves may be dealing with hate that hath far
to come."
"I hearken thy word," said Gunnar, "and I know in very deed
That long-lived and happy are most men that hearken Hogni's rede.
Hear thou, O Eastland War-god, and bear this answer aback,
That nought may the earth of my people King Giuki's children lack,
And that here in the land am I biding till the Norns my life shall
change;
Howbeit, if here were Atli, his face were scarce more strange
Than that daughter of my father whom sore I long to see:
Let him come, and sit with the Niblungs, and be called their king
with me."
Then spake the guileful Knefrud, and his word was exceeding proud:
"It is little the wont of Atli to sit at meat with a crowd;
Yet know, O Westland Warrior, that thy message shall be done.
Since the Cloudy Folk make ready new lodging for the sun."
He laughed, and the wise kept silence, and Gunnar heeded him nought:
On the daughter of his people was set the Niblung's thought,
So sore he longed to behold her; for his life seemed wearing away,
And the wealth and the fame he had gathered seemed nought by the
earlier day,
The day of love departed, and of hope forgotten long.
But Hogni laughs with the stranger, and cries out for harp and song,
And the glee rises up as a river when the mountain-tops grow clear,
When seaward drift the rain-clouds, and the end of day is near;
As of birds in the green groves singing is the Niblung manhood's voice,
And the Earls without foreboding in their mighty life rejoice.
Glad then grows the King of the people, and the sweetness filleth his
heart,
And he turneth about a little, and speaketh to Knefrud apart:
"What sayest thou, lord of the Eastland, how with Gudrun's heart it
fares?
Is she sunk in the day of dominion and the burden that it bears,
Or remembereth she her brethren and her father and her folk?"
Then Knefrud looked upon Gunnar, and forth from the teeth he spoke:
"It is e'en as I said, King Gunnar: all eves she stands by the gate
The coming of her kindred through the dusky tide to wait:
Each day in the dawn she ariseth, and saith the time is at hand
When the feet of the Niblung War-Kings shall tread King Atli's land:
Then she praiseth the wings of the dove, and the wings of the
wayfaring crane
'Gainst whom the wind prevails not, and the tempest driveth in vain;
And she praiseth the waves of the ocean, how they toil and toil and
blend,
Till they break on the strand belovèd, and the Niblung earth in the
end."
He spake, and the song rose upward and the wine of Kings was poured,
And Gunnar heard in the wall-nook how the wind went forth abroad,
And he dreamed, and beheld the ocean, and all kingdoms of the earth,
And the world lay fair before him and his worship and his worth.
Then again spake the Eastland liar: "O King, I may not hide
That great things in the land of Atli thy mighty soul abide;
For the King is spent and war-weak, nor rejoiceth more in strife;
And his sons, the children of Gudrun, now look their first on life:
For this end meseems is his bidding, that no worser men than ye
May sit in the throne of Atli and the place where he wont to be."
In the tuneful hall of the Niblungs that Eastland liar spake,
And he heard the song of the mighty o'er Gunnar's musing break,
And his cold heart gladdened within him as man cried out to man,
And fair 'twixt horn and beaker the red wine bubbled and ran.
At last spake Gunnar the Niblung as his hand on the cup he laid:
"A great king craveth our coming, and no more shall he be gainsayed:
We will go to look on Atli, though the Gods and the Goths forbid;
Nought worse than death meseemeth on the Niblungs' path is hid,
And this shall the high Gods see to, but I to the Niblung name,
And the day of deeds to accomplish, and the gathering-in of fame."
Up he stood with the bowl in his right-hand, and mighty and great he
was,
And he cried: "Now let the beakers adown the benches pass;
Let us drink dear draughts and glorious, though the last farewell it
be,
And this draught that I drink have sundered my father's house and me."
He drank, and all men drank with him, and the hearts of the Earls
arose,
As of them that snatch forth glory from the deadly wall of foes:
With the joy of life were they drunken and no man knew for why,
And the voice of their exultation rose up in an awful cry;
--It is joy in the mouths that utter, it is hope in the hearts that
crave,
And think of no gainsaying, and remember nought to save;
But without the women hearken, and the hearts within them sink;
And they say: What then betideth that our lords forbear to drink,
And wail and weep in the night-tide and cry the Gods to aid?
Why then are the Kings tormented, and the warriors' hearts afraid?
Then the deadened sound sweeps landward, and the hearts of the
field-folk fail,
And they say: Is there death in the Burg, that thence goeth the cry and
the wail?
Lo, lo, the feast-hall's windows! blood-red through the dark they
shine:
Why is weeping the song of the Niblungs, and blood the warrior's wine?
But therein are the torches tossing, and the shields of men upborne,
And the death-blades yet unbloodied cast up 'twixt bowl and horn,
And all rest of heart is departed as men speak of the mirk-wood's ways,
And the fame of outland countries, and the green sea's troublous days.
But Gunnar arose o'er the people, as a mighty King he spake:
"O ye of the house of Giuki that are joyous for my sake,
What then shall be left to the Niblungs if we return no more?
Then let the wolves be warders of the Niblungs' gathered store!
On the hearth let the worm creep over where the fire now flares aloft!
And the adder coil in the chambers where the Niblung wives sleep soft!
Let the master of the pine-wood roll huge in the Niblung porch,
And the moon through the broken rafters be the Niblungs' feastful
torch!"
Glad they cried on the glorious Gunnar; for they saw the love in his
eyes,
And with joy and wine were they drunken, and his words passed over the
wise,
As oft o'er the garden lilies goes the rising thunder-wind,
And they know no other summer, and no spring that was they mind.
But Hogni speaketh to Knefrud: "Lo, Gunnar's word is said:
How fares it, lord, with Gudrun? remembereth she the dead?"
Then the liar laughed out and answered: "Ye shall go tomorrow morn;
The man to turn back Gunnar shall never now be born:
Each day-spring the white Gudrun on Sigurd's glory cries,
All eves she wails on Sigurd when the fair sun sinks and dies!"
"Thou sayest sooth," said Hogni, "one day we twain shall wend
To the gate of the Eastland Atli, that our tale may have an end.
Long time have I looked for the journey, and marvelled at the day,
With what eyes I shall look on Sigurd, what words his mouth shall say."
Then he raiseth the cup for Gunnar, and men see his glad face shine
As he crieth hail and glory o'er the bubbles of the wine;
And they drink to the lives of the brethren, and men of the latter
earth
May not think of the height of their hall-glee, or measure out their
mirth:
So they feast in the undark even to the midmost of the night.
Till at last, with sleep unwearied, they weary with delight,
And pass forth to the beds blue-covered, and leave the hearth acold:
They sleep; in the hall grown silent scarce glimmereth now the gold:
For the moon from the world is departed, and grey clouds draw across,
To hide the dawn's first promise and deepen earthly loss.
The lone night draws to its death, and never another shall fall
On those sons of the feastful warriors in the Niblungs' holy hall.
_How the Niblungs fare to the Land of King Atli._
Now when the house was silent, and all men in slumber lay,
And yet two hours were lacking of the dawning-tide of day,
The sons of his foster-mother doth the heart-wise Hogni find;
In the dead night, speaking softly, he showeth them his mind,
And they wake and hearken and heed him, and arise from the bolster
blue,
Nor aught do their stout hearts falter at the deed he bids them do.
So he and they go softly while all men slumber and sleep,
And they enter the treasure-houses, and come to their midmost heap;
But so rich in the night it glimmers that the brethren hold their
breath,
While Hogni laugheth upon it:--long it lay on the Glittering Heath,
Long it lay in the house of Reidmar, long it lay 'neath the waters wan;
But no long while hath it tarried in the houses and dwellings of man.
Nor long these linger before it; they set their hands to the toil,
And uplift the Bed of the Serpent, the Seed of murder and broil;
No word they speak in their labour, but bear out load on load
To great wains that out in the fore-court for the coming Gold abode:
Most huge were the men, far mightier than the mightiest fashioned now,
But the salt sweat dimmed their eyesight and flooded cheek and brow
Ere half the work was accomplished; and by then the laden wains
Came groaning forth from the gateway, dawn drew on o'er the plains;
And the ramparts of the people, those walls high-built of old,
Stood grey as the bones of a battle in a dale few folk behold:
But in haste they goad the yoke-beasts, and press on and make no
speech,
Though the hearts are proud within them and their eyes laugh each at
each.
No great way down from the burg-gate, anigh to the hallowed field,
There lieth a lake in the river as round as Odin's shield,
A black pool huge and awful: ten long-ships of the most
Therein might wager battle, and the sunken should be lost
Beyond all hope of diver, yea, beyond the plunging lead;
On either side its rock-walls rise up to a mighty head,
But by green slopes from the meadows 'tis easy drawing near
To the brow whence the dark-grey rampart to the water goeth sheer:
'Tis as if the Niblung River had cleft the grave-mound through
Of the mightiest of all Giants ere the Gods' work was to do;
And indeed men well might deem it, that fearful sights lie hid
Beneath the unfathomed waters, the place to all forbid;
No stream the black deep showeth, few winds may search its face,
And the silver-scaled sea-farers love nought its barren space.
There now the Niblung War-king and the foster-brethren twain
Lead up their golden harvest and stay it wain by wain,
Till they hang o'er the rim scarce balanced: no glance they cast below
To the black and awful waters well known from long ago,
But they cut the yoke-beasts' traces, and drive them down the slopes,
Who rush through the widening daylight, and bellow forth their hopes
Of the straw-stall and the barley: but the Niblungs turn once more,
Hard toil the warrior cart-carles for the garnering of their store,
And shoulder on the wain-wheels o'er the edge of the grimly wall,
And stand upright to behold it, how the waggons plunge and fall.
Down then and whirling outward the ruddy Gold fell forth,
As a flame in the dim grey morning, flashed out a kingdom's worth,
Then the waters, roared above it, the wan water and the foam
Flew up o'er the face of the rock-wall as the tinkling Gold fell home,
Unheard, unseen for ever, a wonder and a tale,
Till the last of earthly singers from, the sons of men shall fail:
Then the face of the further waters a widening ripple rent
And forth from hollow places strange sounds as of talking went,
And loud laughed Hogni in answer; but not so long he stayed
As that half the oily ripple in long sleepy coils was laid,
Or the lapping fallen silent in the water-beaten caves;
Scarce streamward yet were drifting the foam-heaps o'er the waves.
When betwixt the foster-brethren down the slopes King Hogni strode
Toward the ancient Burg of his fathers, as a man that casteth a load:
No word those fellows had spoken since he whispered low and light
O'er the beds of the foster-brethren in the dead hour of the night,
But his face was proud and glorious as he strode the war-gate through,
And went up to his kingly chamber, and the golden bed he knew,
And lay down and slept by his help-mate as a play-spent child might
sleep
In some franklin's wealthy homestead, in the room the nurses keep.
Nought the sun on that morn delayeth, but light o'er the world's face
flies.
And awake by the side of King Hogni the wedded woman lies,
And her bosom is weary with sighing, and her eyes with dream-born
tears.
And a sound as of all confusion is ever in her ears:
Then she turneth and crieth to Hogni, as she layeth a hand on his
breast;
"Wake, wake, thou son of Giuki! save thy speech-friend all unrest!"
Then he waketh up as a child that hath slept in the summer grass,
And he saith: "What tidings, O Bera, what tidings come to pass?"
She saith, "Wilt thou wend with Gunnar to Atli over the main?"
Said Hogni: "Hast thou not heard it, how rich we shall come again?"
"Ye shall never come back," said Bera, "ye shall die by the inner sea."
"Yea, here or there," said Hogni, "my death no doubt shall be."
"O Hogni," she said, "forbear it, that snare of the Eastland wrong!
In the health and the wealth of the sunlight at home mayst thou tarry
for long:
For waking or sleeping I dreamed, and dreaming, the tokens I saw."
"Oft," he said, "in the hands of the house-wife comes the crock by its
fatal flaw:
An hundred earls shall slay me, or the fleeing night-thief's shaft,
The sickness that wasteth cities, or the unstrained summer draught:
Now as mighty shall be King Atli and the gathered Eastland force
As the fly in the wine desired, or the weary stumbling horse."
She said: "Wilt thou stay in the land, lest the noble faint and fail,
And the Gods have nought to tell of in the ending of the tale?
O King, save thou thine hand-maid, lest the bloom of Kings decay!"
He said: "Good yet were the earth, though all we should die in a day:
But so fares it with you, ye women: when your husband or brother shall
die,
Ye deem that the world shall perish, and the race of man go by."
"Sure then is thy death," she answered, "for I saw the Eastland flood
Break over the Burg of the Niblungs, and fill the hall with blood."
He said: "Shall we wade the meadows to the feast of Atli the King?
Then the blood-red blossoming sorrel about our legs shall cling."
Said Bera: "I saw thee coming with the face of other days;
But the flame was in thy raiment, and thy kingly cloak was ablaze."
"How else," said he, "O woman, wouldst thou have a Niblung stride,
Save in ruddy gold sun-lighted, through the house of Atli's pride?"
She said: "I beheld King Atli midst the place of sacrifice
And the holy grove of the Eastland in a king's most hallowed guise:
Then I looked, as with laughter triumphant he laid his gift in the
fire,
And lo, 'twas the heart of Hogni, and the heart of my desire;
But he turned and looked upon me as I sickened with fear and with love,
And I saw the guile of the greedy, and with speechless sleep I strove,
And had cried out curses against him, but my gaping throat was hushed,
Till the light of a deedless dawning o'er dream and terror rushed;
And there wert thou lying beside me, though but little joy it seemed,
For thou wert but an image unstable of the days before I dreamed."
Quoth Hogni, "Shall I arede it? Seems it not meet to thee
That the heart and the love of the Niblungs in Atli's hand should be,
When he stands by the high Gods' altars, and uplifts his heart for the
tide
When the kings of the world-great people to the Eastland house shall
ride?
Nay, Bera, wilt thou be weeping? but parting-fear is this;
Doubt not we shall come back happy from the house of Atli's bliss:
At least, when a king's hand offers all honour and great weal,
Wouldst thou have me strive to unclasp it to show the hidden steel?
With evil will I meet evil when it draweth exceeding near;
But oft have I heard of evil, whose father was but fear,
And his mother lust of living, and nought will I deal with it,
Lest the past, and those deeds of my doing be as straw when the fire
is lit.
Lo now, O Daughter of Kings, let us rise in the face of the day,
And be glad in the summer morning when the kindred ride on their way;
For tears beseem not king-folk, nor a heart made dull with dreams,
But to hope, if thou mayst, for ever, and to fear nought, well
beseems."
There the talk falls down between them, and they rise in the morn,
they twain,
And bright-faced wend through the dwelling of the Niblungs' glory and
gain.
Meanwhile awakeneth Gunnar, and looks on the wife by his side,
And saith: "Why weepest thou, Glaumvor, what evil now shall betide?"
She said: "I was waking and dreamed, or I slept and saw the truth;
The Norns are hooded and angry, and the Gods have forgotten their
ruth."
"Speak, sweet-mouthed woman," said Gunnar, "if the Norns are hard, I
am kind;
Though even the King of the Niblungs may loose not where they bind."
She said: "Wilt thou go unto Atli and enter the Burg of the East?
Wilt thou leave the house of the faithful, and turn to the murderer's
feast?"
"It is e'en as certain," said Gunnar, "as though I knocked at his gate,
If the winds and waters stay not, or death, or the dealings of Fate."
"Woe worth the while!" said Glaumvor, "then I talk with the dead
indeed:
And why must I tarry behind thee afar from the Niblungs' Need?"
He said: "Thou wert heavy-hearted last night for the parting-tide;
And alone in the dreamy country thy soul would needs abide,
And see not the King that loves thee, nor remember the might of his
hand;
So thou falledst a prey unholpen to the lies of the dreamy land."
"Ah, would they were lies," said Glaumvor, "for not the worst was this:
There thou wert in the holy high-seat mid the heart of the Niblung
bliss,
And a sword was borne into our midmost, and its point and its edge
were red,
And at either end the wood-wolves howled out in the day of dread;
With that sword wert thou smitten, O Gunnar, and the sharp point
pierced thee through.
And the kin were all departed, and no face of man I knew:
Then I strove to flee and might not; for day grew dark and strange,
And no moonrise and no morning the eyeless mirk would change."
"Such are dreams of the night," said Gunnar, "that lovers oft perplex,
When the sundering hour is coming with the cares that entangle and vex.
Yet if there be more, fair woman, when a king speaks loving words,
May I cast back words of anger, and the threat of grinded swords?"
"O yet wouldst thou tarry," said Glaumvor, "in the fair sun-lighted
day!
Nor give thy wife to another, nor cast thy kingdom away."
"Of what king of the people," said Gunnar, "hast thou known it written
or told,
That the word was born in the even which the morrow should withhold?"
"Alas, alas!" said Glaumvor, "then all is over and done!
For I dreamed of the hall of the Niblungs at the setting of the sun,
How dead women came in thither no worse than queens arrayed,
Who passed by the earls of the Niblungs, and their hands on thy
gown-skirt laid,
And hailed thee fair for their fellow, and bade thee come to their
hall.
O bethink thee, King of the Niblungs, what tidings shall befall!"
"Yea, shall they befall?" said Gunnar, "then who am I to strive
Against the change of my life-days, while the Gods on high are alive?
I shall ride as my heart would have me; let the Gods bestir them then,
And raise up another people in the stead of the Niblung men:
But at home shalt thou sit, King's Daughter, in the keeping of the
Fates,
And be blithe with the men of thy people and the guest within thy
gates,
Till thou know of our glad returning to the holy house and dear
Or the fall of Giuki's children, and a tale that all shall hear.
Arise and do on gladness, lest the clouds roll on and lower
O'er the heavy hearts of the people in the Niblungs' parting hour."
So he spake, and his love rejoiced her, and they rose in the face of
the day,
And no seeming shadow of evil on those bright-eyed King-folk lay.
Thus stirreth the house of the Niblungs, and awakeneth unto life;
And were there any envy, or doubt that breedeth strife,
'Twixt friends or kin or brethren, 'twas healed that self-same morn,
And peace and loving-kindness o'er all the house was borne,
Now arrayed are the earls and the warriors, and into the hall they come
When the morning sun is shining through the heart of their ancient
home;
And lo, how the allwise Grimhild is set in the golden seat,
The first of the way-fain warriors, and the first of the wives to
greet;
In the raiment of old she sitteth, aloft in the kingly place,
And all men marvel to see her and the glory of her face.
So all is dight for departing and the helms of the Niblung lords
Shine close as a river of fire o'er the hilts of hidden swords:
About and around are the women; and who e'er hath been heavy of heart,
If their hearts are light this morning when their fairest shall depart?
They hear the steeds in the forecourt; from the rampart of the wall
Comes the cry and noise of the warders as man to man doth call;
For the young give place to the old, and the strong carles labour to
show
The last-learned craft of battle to their fathers ere they go.
There is mocking and mirth and laughter as men tell to the ancient
sires
Of the four-sheared shaft of the gathering, and the horn, and the
beaconing fires.
Woe's me! but the women laugh not: do they hope that the sun may be
stayed,
And the journey of the Niblungs a little while delayed?
Or is not their hope the rather, that they do but dream in the night,
And that they shall awake in a little with the land's life faring
aright?
Ah, fair and fresh is the morning as ever a season hath been,
And the nourishing sun shines glorious on the toil of carle and quean,
And the wealth of the land desired, and all things are alive and awake;
Let them wait till the even bringeth sweet rest for hearts that ache.
Lo now, a stir by the doorway, and men see how great and grand
Come the Kings of Giuki begotten, all-armed, and hand in hand:
Where then shall the world behold them, such champions clad in steel,
Such hearts so free and bounteous, so wise for the people's weal?
Where then shall the world see such-like, if these must die as the
mean,
And fall as lowly people, and their days be no more seen?
They go forth fair and softly as they wend to the seat of the Kings,
And they smile in their loving-kindness as they talk of bygone things.
Are they not as the children of Giuki, that fared afield erewhile
In hope without contention, mid the youth that knew no guile?
Their wedded wives are beside them with faces proud and fair,
That smile, if the lips smile only, for the Eastland liar is there.
Fain the women are of those Brethren, and they seem so gay and kind,
That again the hope upspringeth of their lords abiding behind.
But Hogni spake to his brother, and they looked on the liar's son,
And clear ran King Gunnar's laughter as the summer waters run;
Then the Queens' hearts fainted within them, and with pain they drew
their breath;
For they knew that the King was merry and laughed in the face of death.
Fair now on the ancient high-seat, and the heart of the Niblung pride,
Stand those lovely lords of Giuki with their wedded wives beside.
And Gunnar cries: "O maidens, let the cup be in every hand,
For this morn for a little season we leave our fathers' land,
And love we leave behind us, and love abroad we bear,
And these twain shall meet in a little, and their meeting-tide be fair:
Rejoice, O Niblung children, be glad o'er the parting cup!
For meseems if the heavens were falling, our spears should hold them
up."
Then he leaped adown from the high-seat and amidst his men he stood,
And the very joy of God-folk ran through the Niblung blood,
And the glee of them that die not: there they drink in their mighty
hall,
And glad on the ancient fathers, and the sons of God they call:
The hope of their hearts goes upward in the last most awful voice,
And once more the quivering timbers of the Niblung home rejoice.
But exceeding proud sits Grimhild, and so wondrous is her state
That men deem they have never seen her so glorious and so great,
And she speaks, when again in the feast-hall is there silence save of
the mail
And the whispered voice of women, as they tell their latest tale:
"Go forth, O Kings, to dominion, and the crown of all your might,
And the tale from of old foreordered ere the day was begotten of night.
For all this is the work of the Norns, though ye leave a woman behind
Who hath toiled and toiled in the darkness, the road of fate to find:
Go glad, O children of Giuki; though scarce ye wot indeed
Of the labour of your mother to win your glory's meed.
Farewell, farewell, O children, till ye get you back again
To her that bore you in darkness, and brought you forth in pain!
Cast wide the doors for the King-folk, ring out O harpstrings now!
For the best e'er born of woman go forth with cloudless brow.
Be glad O ancient lintel, O threshold of the door,
For such another parting shall earth behold no more!"
She ceased, and no voice gave answer save the voice of smitten harps,
As the hands of the music-weavers went o'er their golden warps;
Then high o'er the warriors towering, as the king-leek o'er the grass,
Out into the world of sunlight through the door those Brethren pass,
And all the host of the warriors, the women's silent woe,
The steel and the feet soft-falling o'er the ancient threshold go,
While all alone on the high-seat the god-born Grimhild sits:
There hearkeneth she steeds' neighing, and the champing of the bits,
And the clash of steel-clad champions, as at last they leap aloft,
And cries and women's weeping 'mid the music breathing soft;
Then the clattering of the horse-hoofs, and the echo of the gate
With the wakened sword-song singing o'er departure of the great,
Till the many mingled voices are swallowed up and stilled,
And all the air by seeming with an awful sound is filled,
The cry of the Niblung trumpet, as men reach the unwalled space:
So whiles in a mighty city, and a many-peopled place,
When the rain falls down 'mid the babble, nor ceaseth rattle of wheels,
And with din of wedding joy-bells the minster steeple reels,
Lo, God sends down his thunder, and all else is hushed as then,
And it is as the world's beginning, and before the birth of men.
Long sitteth the god-born Grimhild till all is silent there,
For afar down the meadows with the host all people fare;
Then bitter groweth her visage, in the hush she crieth and saith:
"O ye--whom then shall I cry on, ye that hunt my sons unto death,
And overthrow our glory, and bring our labour to nought--
Ye Gods, ye had fashioned the greatest, and to make them greater I
wrought,
And to strengthen your hands for the battle, and uplift your hearts
for the end:
But ye, ye have fashioned confusion, and the great with the little ye
blend,
Till no more on the earth shall be living the mighty that mock at your
death,
Till like the leaves men tremble, like the dry leaves quake at a
breath.
I have wrought for your lives and your glory, and for this have I
strengthened my guile,
That the earth your hands uplifted might endure, nor pass in a while
Like the clouds of latter morning that melt in the first of the night."
She rose up great and dreadful, and stood on the floor upright,
And cast up her hands to the roof-tree, and cried aloud and said:
"Woe to you that have made me for nothing! for the house of the
Niblungs is dead,
Empty and dead as the desert, where the sun is idle and vain
And no hope hath the dew to cherish, and no deed abideth the rain!"
She falleth aback in the high seat, and the eagles cry from aloof,
While Grimhild's eyes wide-open stare up at the Niblung roof:
But they see not, nought are they doing to feed her fear or desire;
And her heart, the forge of sorrow, dead, cold, is its baneful fire;
And her cunning hand is helpless, for her hopeless soul is gone;
Far off belike it drifteth from the waste her labour won.
Fair now through midmost ocean King Gunnar's dragons run,
And the green hills round about them gleam glorious with the sun;
The keels roll down the sea-dale, and welter up the steep,
And o'er the brow hang quivering ere again they take the leap;
For the west wind pipes behind them, and no land is on their lea,
As the mightiest of earth's peoples sails down the summer sea:
And as eager as the west-wind, no duller than the foam
They spread all sails to the breezes, and seek their glory home:
Six days they sail the sea-flood, and the seventh dawn of day
Up-heaveth a new country, a land far-off and grey;
Then Knefrud biddeth heed it, and he saith: "Lo, the Eastland shore,
And the land few ships have sailed to, by the mirk-wood covered o'er."
Then riseth the cry and the shouting as the golden beaks they turn,
For all hearts for the land of cities, and the hall of Atli yearn:
But a little after the noontide is the Niblung host embayed,
And betwixt the sheltering nesses the ocean-wind is laid:
No whit they brook delaying: but their noblest and their best
Toss up the shaven oar-blades, and toil and mock at rest:
Full swift they skim the swan-mead till the tall masts quake and reel,
And the oaken sea-burgs quiver from bulwark unto keel.
It is Gunnar goes the foremost with the tiller in his hand,
And beside him standeth Knefrud and laughs on Atli's land:
And so fair are the dragons driven, that by ending of the day
On the beach by the ebb left naked the sea-beat keels they lay:
Then they look aloft from the foreshore, and lo, King Atli's steeds
On the brow of the mirk-wood standing, well dight for the warriors'
needs,
The red and the roan together, and the dapple-grey and the black;
Nor bits nor silken bridles, nor golden cloths they lack,
And the horse-lads of King Atli with that horse-array are blent,
And their shout of salutation o'er the oozy sand is sent:
Then no more will the Niblungs tarry when they see that ready band
But they leap adown from the long-ships, and waist-deep they wade the
strand,
And they in their armour of onset, beshielded, and sword by the side,
E'en as men returning homeward to their loves and their friends that
abide.
The first of all goeth Gunnar, and Hogni the wise cometh after,
And wringeth the sea from his kirtle; and all men hearken his laughter,
As his feet on the earth stand firm, and the sun in the west goeth
down,
And the Niblungs stand on the foreshore 'twixt the sea and the
mirk-wood brown.
For no meat there they linger, and they tarry for no sleep,
But aloft to the golden saddles those Giuki's children leap,
And forth from the side of the sea-flood they ride the mirk-wood's
ways,
Loud then is the voice of King Hogni and he sets forth Atli's praise,
As they ride through the night of the tree-boughs till the earthly
night prevails,
And along the desert sea-strand the wind of ocean wails.
There none hath tethered the dragons, or inboard handled the oars,
And the tide of the sea cometh creeping along the stranger-shores,
Till those golden dragons are floated, and their unmanned oars awash
In the sandy waves of the shallows, from stem to tiller clash:
Then setteth a wind from the shore, and the night is waxen a-cold,
And seaward drift the long-ships with their raiment and vessels of
gold,
And their Gods with mastery carven: and who knoweth the story to tell,
If their wrack came ever to shoreward in some place where fishers
dwell,
Or sank in midmost ocean, and lay on the sea-floor wan
Where the pale sea-goddess singeth o'er the bane of many a man?
_Atli speaketh with the Niblungs._
Three days the Niblung warriors the ways of the mirk-wood ride
Till they come to a land of cities and the peopled country-side,
And the land's-folk run from their labour, and the merchants throng
the street
And the lords of many a city the stranger kings would meet.
But nought will the Niblungs tarry; swift through Atli's weal they
wend,
For their hearts are exceeding eager for their journey's latter end.
Three days they ride that country, and many a city leave,
But the fourth dawn mighty mountains by the inner sea upheave.
Then they ride a little further, and Atli's burg they see
With the feet of the mountains mingled above the flowery lea,
And yet a little further, and lo, its long white wall,
And its high-built guarded gateways, and its towers o'erhung and tall;
And ever all along them the glittering spear-heads run,
As the sparks of the white wood-ashes when the cooking-fire is done.
Then they look to the right and the left hand, and see no folk astir,
And no reek from the homestead chimneys; and no toil of men they hear:
But the hook hangs lone in the vineyard, and the scythe is lone in the
hay,
The bucket thirsts by the well-side, the void cart cumbers the way.
Then doubt on the war-host falleth, and they think: Well were we then,
When once we rode in the Westland and saw the brown-faced men
Peer through the hawthorn hedges as the Niblung host went by.
Yet they laugh and make no semblance of any fear drawn nigh.
Yea, Knefrud looked upon them, and with chilly voice he spake:
"Now his guests doth Atli honour, and yet more will he do for your
sake,
Who hath hidden all his people, and holdeth his vassals at home
On the day that the mighty Niblungs adown his highway come,
Lest men fear as the finders of Gods, and tremble and cumber the ways,
And the voice of the singers fail them to sing of the Niblungs'
praise."
Men laughed as his voice they hearkened, and none bade turn again,
But the swords in the scabbards rattled as they rode with loosened
rein.
Now they ride in the Burg-gate's shadow from out the sunlit fields,
Till the spears aloft are hidden and Atli's painted shields;
And no captain cries from the rampart, nor soundeth any horn,
And the doors of oak and iron are shut this merry morn:
Then the Niblungs leap from the saddle, and the threats of earls arise,
And the wrath of Kings' defenders is waxing in their eyes;
But Knefrud looketh and laugheth, and he saith:
"So is Atli fain
Of the glory of the Niblungs and their honour's utmost gain:
By no feet but yours this morning will he have his threshold trod,
Nay, not by the world's most glorious, nay not by a wandering God."
Then Hogni looked on Knefrud as the bodily death shall gaze
On the last of the Kings of men-folk in the last of the latter days,
And he caught a staff from his saddle, a mighty axe of war,
And stood most huge of all men in face of Atli's door,
And upreared the axe against it with such wondrous strokes and great,
That the iron-knitted marvel hung shattered in the gate:
Through the rent poured the Niblung children, and in Atli's burg they
stood;
With none to bid them welcome, or ask them what they would.
But Hogni turned upon Knefrud, and spake: "I said, time was,
That we twain should ride out hither to bring a deed to pass:
And now one more deed abideth, and then no more for thee,
And another and another, and no more deeds for me."
'Gainst the liar's eyes one moment flashed out the axe-head's sheen,
And then was the face of Knefrud as though it ne'er had been,
And his gay-clad corpse lay glittering on the causeway in the sun.
No man cried out on Hogni or asked of the deed so done,
But their shielded ranks they marshalled and through Atli's burg they
strode:
There they see the merchant's dwelling, the rich man's fair abode,
The halls of doom, and the market, the loom and the smithying-booth,
The stall for the wares of the outlands, the temples high and smooth:
But all is hushed and empty, and no child of man they meet
As they thread the city's tangle, and enter street on street,
And leave the last forgotten, and of the next know nought.
So through the silent city by the Norns their feet are brought,
Till lo, on a hill's uprising a huge house they behold,
And a hall with gates all brazen, and roof of ruddy gold:
Then they know the house of Atli, and they trow that sooth it is
That the Lord of such a dwelling may give his guest-folk bliss:
Then they loosen the swords in their scabbards, and upraise a mighty
shout,
And the trumpet of the Niblungs through the lonely street rings out
And stilleth the wind in the wall-nook: but hark, as its echoes die,
How forth from that hall of the Eastlands comes the sound of
minstrelsy,
And the brazen doors swing open: but the Niblungs are at the door,
And the bidden guests of Atli o'er the fateful threshold pour;
There the music faileth before them, till its sound is over and done,
And fair in the city behind them lies the flood of the morning sun:
No man of the Niblungs murmureth, none biddeth turn aback
And still their hands are empty, and sleep the edges of wrack.
Huge, dim is the hall of Atli, and faint and far aloof,
As stars in the misty even, yet hang the lamps in the roof,
And but little daylight toucheth the walls and the hangings of gold:
No King and no earl-folk's children do the bidden guests behold,
Till they look aloft to the high-seat, and lo, a woman alone,
A white queen crowned, and silent as the ancient shapen stone
That men find in the dale deserted, as beneath the moon they wend,
When they weary even to slumber, and the journey draws to an end.
Chill then are the hearts of the warriors, for they know how they look
on a queen,
That Gudrun well-belovèd of the days that once have been;
Then were men that murmured on Sigurd, and as in some dream of the
night
They looked, but the left hand failed them, and there came no help
from the right.
But forth stood the mighty Gunnar, and men heard his kingly voice
As he spake: "O child of my father, I see thee again and rejoice,
Though I wot not where I have wended, or where thou dwellest on earth,
Or if this be the dead men's dwelling, or the hall of Atli's mirth!"