Clear, sharp, in the house of the stranger did the voice of the
fearless ring:
"O sister, O daughter of Giuki, O child of my mother's womb,
By what death shall the Niblungs perish, what day is the day of their
doom?"
Forth then from the lips of Gudrun a dreadful voice was borne:
"Ye shall die to-day, O brethren, at the hands of a King forsworn."
As she spake the outer door-leaves clashed to with a mighty sound,
And the outer air was troubled with a new noise gathering around:
As of leaves in the midmost summer ere the dusk of the even warm.
When the winds in the hillsides gathered go forth before the storm;
Men abode, and a wicket opened on the feast-hall's inner side
And the Niblungs looked for the coming of King Atli in his pride:
But one man entered only, and he thin and old and spare,
A swordless man and a little--yet was King Atli there.
He looked not once on the Niblungs, but forth to the high-seat went,
And stood aloof from Gudrun with his eyes to the hall-floor bent:
Thence came a voice from his lips, and men heard, for the hush was
great.
And the hearts of the bold were astonished 'neath the overhanging fate.
"Ye are come, O Kings of the Niblungs, ye are come, O slayers of men!
But how great, and where is the ransom that shall buy your departure
again?"
Then spake the wise-heart Hogni: "Do the bidden guests so long
To depart to the night and the silence from the fire and the wine and
the song?
Fear not! the feast shall be merry, and here we abide in thine hall,
Till thou and the great feast-master shall bid the best befall."
There were cries of men in the city, there was clang and clatter of
steel.
And high cried the thin-voiced Atli, the lord of the Eastland weal:
"Ye are come in your pride, O Niblungs; but this day of days is mine:
Will ye die? will ye live and be little? Hear now the token and sign!"
Great then grew the voices without, with one name was the city filled,
Yea, all the world it might be, and all sounds of the earth were
stilled
With that cry of the name of Atli: but Gunnar stood for a space
Till the cry was something sunken, then he put back the helm from his
face
And spread out his hands before him, and his hands were empty and bare
As he stood in the front of the Niblungs like a great God smiling and
fair:
"We shall live and never be little, we shall die and be masters of
fame:
I know not thy will, O Atli, nor what thou wouldst with thy name."
"Ye shall know my will," said Atli, "ye shall do it, or do no more
The deeds of the days of the living: ye shall render the garnered
store,
Ye shall give forth the Gold of Sigurd, the wealth of the uttermost
strand."
"To give a gift," cried Hogni, "we came to King Atli's land:
Tomorn for a little season thou shalt be the richest fool
Of all kings ever told of; and the rest let the high Gods rule."
"O King of the East," said Gunnar, "great gifts for thee draw nigh,
But the treasure of the Niblungs in their guarded house shall lie."
"What then will ye do?" quoth Atli; "have ye seen the fish in the net?"
"Eve telleth of deeds," said Gunnar, "and it is but the morning as
yet."
Said Atli: "Yea, will ye die? are there no deeds left you to do?"
"We shall smite with the sword," said the Niblung, "and tomorn will we
journey anew."
"Craftsmaster Hogni," said Atli, "where then are the shifts of the
wise?"
Said Hogni: "To smite with the sword, and go glad from the country of
lies."
"So died the fool," said Atli, "as Hogni dieth today."
"Smote the blind and the aimless," said Hogni, "and Baldur passed
away."
Said Atli: "Yet may ye live in the wholesome light of the sun,
And your latter days be as plenteous as the deeds your hands have
done."
"Dost thou hearken, O sword," said Gunnar, "and yet thou liest in
peace?
When then wilt thou look on the daylight, that the words of the
mocker may cease?"
"Thou, Hogni the wise," said Atli, "art thou weary of wisdom and lore,
Wilt thou die with these fools of the sword, and be mocked mid the
blind of the war?"
"Many things have I learned," said Hogni, "but today's task, easy it
is;
For men die every hour and they wage no master for this.
--Get hence, thou evil King, thou liar and traitor of kings,
Lest the edge of my sword be thy portion and not the ruddy rings!"
Then Atli shrank from before him, and the eyes of his intent,
And no more words he cast them, but forth from the hall he went,
And again were the Niblung children alone in the hall of their foes
With the wan and silent woman: but without great clamour arose,
And the clashing of steel against steel, and the crying of man unto
man,
And the wind of that summer morning through the Eastland banners ran:
Then so loud o'er all was winded a mighty horn of fight,
That unheard were the shouts of the Niblungs as Gunnar's sword leapt
white.
But Hogni turned to the great-one who the Niblung trumpet bore,
And he took the mighty metal, and kissed the brass of war,
And its shattering blast went forward, and beat back from the
gable-wall
And shook the ancient timbers, and the carven work of the hall:
Then it was to the Niblung warriors as their very hearts they heard
Cry out, not glad nor sorry, nor hoping, nor afeard,
But touched by the hand of Odin, smit with foretaste of the day,
When the fire shall burn up fooling, and the veil shall fall away;
When bare-faced, all unmingled, shall the evil stand in the light,
And men's deeds shall be nothing doubtful, nor the foe that they shall
smite.
In the hall was the voice of the trumpet, but therein might it nowise
abide,
But over burg and lealand it spread full far and wide,
And strong men quaked as they heard it in the guarded chamber of stone,
And the lord of weaponed kinsfolk was as one that sitteth alone
In a land by the foeman wasted, and no man to his neighbour spoke,
But they thought on the death of Atli and the slaughter of the folk.
_Of the Battle in Atli's Hall._
Ye shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the
house
Were many carven doorways whose work was glorious
With marble stones and gold-work, and their doors of beaten brass:
Lo now, in the merry morning how the story cometh to pass!
--While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears,
And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears,
All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel,
The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal:
They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe,
And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know:
Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runs
All adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty-ones;
All eyes are set upon them, hard drawn is every breath,
Ere the foremost points be mingled and death be blent with death.
--All eyes save the eyes of Hogni; but e'en as the edges meet,
He turneth about for a moment to the gold of the kingly seat,
Then aback to the front of battle; there then, as the lightning-flash
Through the dark night showeth the city when the clouds of heaven
clash,
And the gazer shrinketh backward, yet he seeth from end to end
The street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend,
And the pavement where his footsteps yestre'en returning trod,
Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God;
So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know,
Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted brow,
With half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and cold
Laid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's moveless fold.
Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from where he stood,
And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe-man in a wood:
Before his sword was a champion and the edges clave to the chin,
And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that should fall
therein,
Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung host of war
Was swept by the leaping iron, as the rock anigh the shore
By the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment Gunnar stayed,
As high in his hand unbloodied he shook his awful blade;
And he cried:
"O Eastland champions, do ye behold it here,
The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have no fear,
But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's will it be!
Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden guests are we:
So forbear, if ye wander hood-winked, nor for nothing slay and be
slain;
For I know not what to tell you of the dead that live again."
So he saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on
high,
But all about and around him goes up a bitter cry
From the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steel
Sends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reel
Behind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo, have ye seen the corn,
While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind-streak overborne
When the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black,
And the smitten wood-side roareth 'neath the driving thunder-wrack?
So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East
As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast.
There he smote and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his
edges stopped;
He smote and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he
lopped;
There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred;
Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the
dead;
And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a
throat he thrust,
But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the
ruddy dust,
And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet:
Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;
Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell,
Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell,
And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew,
And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;
And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite.
And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight,
And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes,
And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.
Now fell the sword of Gunnar and rose up red in the air,
And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and
clear,
And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the rings
Of a giant of King Atli, and a murder-wolf of kings;
But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his
breast,
And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest,
But fell upon Atli's brother and stayed not in his brain;
Then he fell and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain,
And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe and thrust a lord in the throat,
And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote;
Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their
war-shields drave
While the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he
clave
Whom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold;
And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar and over his war-shield rolled
And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on,
And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won,
And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst,
As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed,
And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung song
Through the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong:
Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood,
And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet
with blood.
Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home
As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam:
They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the
wall,
And a few last spears from the fleeing amidst their shield-hedge fall:
But the doors clash to in their faces, as the fleeing rout they drive,
And fain would follow after; and none is left alive
In the feast-hall of King Atli, save those fishes of the net,
And the white and silent woman above the slaughter set.
Then biddeth the heart-wise Hogni, and men to the windows climb,
And uplift the war-grey corpses, dead drift of the stormy time,
And cast them adown to their people: thence they come aback and say
That scarce shall ye see the houses, and no whit the wheel-worn way
For the spears and shields of the Eastlands that the merchant city
throng:
And back to the Niblung burg-gate the way seemed weary-long.
Yet passeth hour on hour, and the doors they watch and ward,
But a long while hear no mail-clash, nor the ringing of the sword;
Then droop the Niblung children, and their wounds are waxen chill,
And they think of the Burg by the river, and the builded holy hill,
And their eyes are set on Gudrun as of men who would beseech;
But unlearned are they in craving and know not dastard's speech.
Then doth Giuki's first-begotten a deed most fair to be told,
For his fair harp Gunnar taketh, and the warp of silver and gold;
With the hand of a cunning harper he dealeth with the strings,
And his voice in their midst goeth upward, as of ancient days he sings,
Of the days before the Niblungs, and the days that shall be yet;
Till the hour of toil and smiting the warrior hearts forget,
Nor hear the gathering foemen, nor the sound of swords aloof:
Then clear the song of Gunnar goes up to the dusky roof;
And the coming spear-host tarries, and the bearers of the woe
Through the cloisters of King Atli with lingering footsteps go.
But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees,
And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees:
Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo, the open door,
And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor,
For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe,
And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.
Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid;
But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid,
And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall,
And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall;
For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes,
And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise,
And he saith: We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days,
And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.
Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth aback
That the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack:
Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat,
And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet,
That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithal
He casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall:
But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to the fight,
Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite:
Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side;
As Death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he
stride.
And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of men
From the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again.
Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold;
But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they behold
Upright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more.
Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war,
And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.
Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat,
And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the
harp-strings ran,
And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of
man,
And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning,
And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring;
He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding
of broil,
And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is
fashioned of toil:
Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise,
When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead
shall arise,
And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall
pray,
And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost
day.
So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he saw
His sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw:
But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was,
And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass,
Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown.
And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.
Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose,
And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes:
They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of
dead;
No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led,
But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from
afar,
Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war:
Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen
acold,
And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold:
Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King,
Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring;
And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded
sore,
And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore,
So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall;
And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.
Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves
accurst,
But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and
thirst;
And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood,
Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they
stood
And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote,
Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat,
Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields aside
And caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside,
And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death:
And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath;
Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born,
Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn;
But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forth
To the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.
Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last;
Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them
cast,
And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away,
For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay,
Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore
The cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war;
But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown,
So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown;
And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes;
Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close,
Nor looked on the foemen's faces as their wild eyes drew anear,
And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their
fear;
But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk,
Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.
Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal,
Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel,
And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly now
As the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough
When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land.
There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand,
There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes,
And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise,
And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of
war.
Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar,
And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran:
But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man,
And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the sea
The doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery,
And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps,
And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps:
So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hall
Did the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall:
Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lie
Till the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.
_Of the Slaying of the Niblung Kings._
Lo now, 'tis an hour or twain, and a labour lightly won
By the serving-men of Atli, and the Niblung blood is gone
From the golden house of his greatness, and the Eastland dead no more
Lie in great heaps together on Atli's mazy floor:
Then they cast fair summer blossoms o'er the footprints of the dead,
They wreathe round Atli's high-seat and the benches fair bespread,
And they light the odorous torches, and the sun of the golden roof,
Till the candles of King Atli hold dusky night aloof.
So they toil and are heavy-hearted, nor know what next shall betide,
As they look on the stranger-woman in the heart of Atli's pride.
Now stand they aback for the trumpet and the merry minstrelsy,
For they tremble before King Atli, and golden-clad is he,
And his golden crown is heavy and he strides exceeding slow,
With the wise and the mighty about him, through the house of the
Niblungs' woe.
There then by the Niblung woman on the throne he sat him down,
And folk heard the gold gear tinkle and the rings of the Eastland
crown:
Folk looked on his rich adornment, on King Atli's pride they gazed,
And the bright beams wearied their eyen, by the glory were they dazed;
There the councillors kept silence and the warriors clad in steel,
All men lowly, all men mighty, that had care of Atli's weal;
Yea there in the hall were they waiting for the word to come from his
lips,
As they of the merchant-city behold the shield-hung ships
Sweep slow through the windless haven with their gaping heads of gold,
And they know not their nation and names, nor hath aught of their
errand been told.
But King Atli looketh before him, and is grown too great to rejoice,
And he speaks and the world is troubled, though thin and scant be his
voice:
"Bring forth the fallen and conquered, bring forth the bounden thrall,
That they who were once the Niblungs did once King Hogni call."
So they brought him fettered and bound; and scarce on his feet he
stood,
But men stayed him up by the King; for the sword had drunk of his
blood,
And the might of his body had failed him, and yet so great was he
That the East-folk cowered before him and the might of his majesty.
Then spake the all-great Atli: "Thou yielded thrall of war,
I would hear thee tell of the Treasure, the Hoard of the kings of
yore!"
But words were grown heavy to Hogni, and scarce he spake with a smile:
"Let the living seek their desire; for indeed thou shalt live for a
while."
"Wilt thou speak and live," said Atli, "nor pay for the blood thou
hast spilt?"
Said he: "Thou art waxen so mighty, thou mayst have the Gold when thou
wilt."
Said the King: "I will give thee thy life, and forgive thee measureless
woe."
"It was gathered for thee," said Hogni, "and fashioned long ago."
"Speak, man o'ercome," quoth Atli: "Is life so little a thing?"
"Art thou mighty? put forth thine hand and gather the Gold!" said the
King.
"Wilt thou tell of the Gold," said the East-King, "the desire of many
eyes?"
"Yea, once on a day," said Hogni, "when the dead from the sea shall
arise."
Said he: "So great is my longing, that, O foe, I would have thee live,
Yea, live and be great as aforetime, if this word thou yet wouldst
give."
Said the Niblung: "Thee shall I heed, or the longing of thy pride?
I, who heeded Sigurd nothing, who thrust mine oath aside,
When the years were young and goodly and the summer bore increase!
Shall I crave my life of the greedy and pray for days of peace?
I, who whetted the sword for Sigurd, and bared the blade in the morn,
And smote ere the sun's uprising, and left my sister forlorn:
'Yea I lied,' quoth the God-loved Singer, 'when the will of the Gods I
told!'
--Stretch forth thine hand, O Mighty, and take thy Treasure of Gold!"
Then was Atli silent a little, for anger dulled his thought,
And the heaped-up wealth of the Eastland seemed an idle thing and
nought:
He turned and looked upon Gudrun as one who was fain to beseech,
But he saw her eyes that beheld not, and her lips that knew no speech,
And fear shot across his anger, and guile with his wrath was blent,
And he spake aloud to the war-lords:
"O ye, shall the eve be spent,
Nor behold the East rejoicing? what a mock for the Gods is this,
That men ever care for the morrow, nor nurse their toil-won bliss!
Lo now, this hour I speak in is the first of the seven-days' feast,
And the spring of our exultation o'er the glory of the East:
Draw nigh, O wise, O mighty, and gather words to praise
The hope of the King accomplished in the harvest of his days:
Bear forth this slave of the Niblungs to the pit and the chamber of
death,
That he hearken the council of night, and the rede that tomorrow saith,
And think of the might of King Atli, and his hand that taketh his own,
Though the hill-fox bark at his going, and his path with the bramble
be grown."
So they led the Niblung away from the light and the joy of the feast,
In the chamber of death they cast him, and the pit of the Lord of the
East:
And thralls were the high King's warders; yet sons of the wise withal
Came down to sit with Hogni in the doomed man's darkling hall;
For they looked in his face and feared, lest Atli smite too nigh
The kin of the Gods of Heaven, and more than a man's child die.
But 'neath the golden roof-sun, at beginning of the night,
Is the seven-days' feast of triumph in the hall of Atli dight;
And his living Earls come thither in peaceful gold attire,
And the cups on the East-King's tables shine out as a river of fire,
And sweet is the song of the harp-strings, and the singers' honeyed
words;
While wide through all the city do wives bewail their lords,
And curse the untimely hour and the day of the land forlorn,
And the year that the Earth shall rue of, and children never born.
But Atli spake to his thrall-folk, and they went, and were little
afraid
To take the glorious Gunnar, and the King in shackles laid:
They deemed they should live for ever, and eat and sleep as the swine,
To them were the tales of the singers no token and no sign;
For the blossom of the Niblungs they rolled amid the dust,
That well-renownèd Gunnar 'neath Atli's chair they thrust;
The feet of the Eastland liar on Gunnar's neck are set,
And by Atli Gudrun sitteth, and nought she stirreth yet.
Outbrake the glee of the dastards, and they that had not dared
To meet the swords of the Niblungs, no whit the God-folk feared:
They forgat that the Norns were awake, and they praised the master of
guile
The war-spent conquering Atli and the face without a smile;
And the tumult of their triumph and the wordless mingled roar
Went forth from that hall of the Eastlands and smote the heavenly
floor.
At last spake Atli the mighty: "Stand up, thou war-won thrall,
Whom they that were once the Niblungs did once King Gunnar call!"
From the dust they dragged up Gunnar, and set him on his feet,
And the heart within him was living and the pride for a war-king meet;
And his glory was nothing abated, and fair he seemed and young,
As the first of the Cloudy Kings, fresh shoot from the sower sprung.
But Atli looked upon him, and a smile smoothed out his brow
As he said: "What thoughtest thou, Gunnar, when thou layst in the dust
e'en now?"
He said: "Of Valhall I thought, and the host of my fathers' land,
And of Hogni that thou hast slaughtered, and my brother Sigurd's hand."
Said Atli: "Think of thy life, and the days that shall be yet,
And thyself, maybe, as aforetime, in the throne of thy father set."
"O Eastland liar," said Gunnar, "no more will I live and rue."
Said Atli: "The word I have spoken, thy word may yet make true."
"I weary of speech," said the Niblung, "with those that are lesser
than I."
"Yet words of mine shalt thou hearken," said Atli, "or ever thou die."
"So crieth the fool," said Gunnar, "on the God that his folly hath
slain."
Said Atli: "Forth shall my word, nor yet shall be gathered again."
"Yet meeter were thy silence; for thy folk make ready to sing."
"O Gunnar, I long for the Gold with the heart and the will of a king."
"This were good to tell," said Gunnar, "to the Gods that fashioned the
earth!"
"Make me glad with the Gold," said Atli, "live on in honour and worth!"
With a dreadful voice cried Gunnar: "O fool, hast thou heard it told
Who won the Treasure aforetime and the ruddy rings of the Gold?
It was Sigurd, child of the Volsungs, the best sprung forth from the
best:
He rode from the North and the mountains and became my summer-guest.
My friend and my brother sworn: he rode the Wavering Fire
And won me the Queen of Glory and accomplished my desire;
The praise of the world he was, the hope of the biders in wrong,
The help of the lowly people, the hammer of the strong:
Ah, oft in the world henceforward shall the tale be told of the deed,
And I, e'en I, will tell it in the day of the Niblungs' Need:
For I sat night-long in my armour, and when light was wide o'er the
land
I slaughtered Sigurd my brother, and looked on the work of mine hand.
And now, O mighty Atli, I have seen the Niblungs' wreck,
And the feet of the faint-heart dastard have trodden Gunnar's neck;
And if all be little enough, and the Gods begrudge me rest,
Let me see the heart of Hogni cut quick from his living breast,
And laid, on the dish before me: and then shall I tell of the Gold,
And become thy servant, Atli, and my life at thy pleasure hold.
O goodly story of Gunnar, and the King of the broken troth
In the heavy Need of the Niblungs, and the Sorrow of Odin the Goth!"
Grim then waxed Atli bemocked, yet he pondered a little while,
For yet with his bitter anger strove the hope of his greedy guile,
And as one who falleth a-dreaming he hearkened Gunnar's word,
While his eyes beheld that Treasure, and the rings of the Ancient
Hoard.
But he spake low-voiced to his sword-carles, and they heard and
understood,
And departed swift from the feast-hall to do the work he would.
To the chamber of death they gat them, to the pit they went adown,
And saw the wise men sitting round the war-king of renown:
Then they spake: "We are Atli's bondmen, and Atli's doom we bring:
We shall carve the heart from thy body, and thou living yet, O King."
Then Hogni laughed, for they feared him; and he said: "Speed ye the
work!
For fain would I look on the storehouse where such marvels used to
lurk,
And the forge of fond desires, and the nurse of life that fails.
Take heed now! deeds are doing for the fashioners of tales."
But they feared as they looked on the Niblung, and the wise men
hearkened and spake,
And bade them abide for a season, yea even for Atli's sake,
For the night-slaying is as the murder; and they looked on each other
and feared,
For Atli's bitter whisper their very hearts had heard:
Then they said: "The King makes merry, as a well the white wine
springs,
And the red wine runs as a river; and what are the hearts of kings,
That men may know them naked from the hearts of bond and thrall?
Nor go we empty-handed to King Atli in his hall."
So the sword-carles spake to each other, and they looked and a man
they saw,
Who should hew the wood if he lived, and for thralls the water should
draw,
A thrall-born servant of servants, begetter of thralls on the earth:
And they said: "If this one were away, scarce greater were waxen the
dearth
That this morning hath wrought on the Eastland; for the years shall
eke out his woe,
And no day his toil shall lessen, and worse and worse shall he grow."
They drew the steel new-whetted, on the thrall they laid the hand;
For they said: "All hearts be fashioned as the heart of the King of
the land."
But the thrall was bewildered with anguish, and wept and bewailed him
sore
For the loss of his life of labour, and the grief that long he bore.
But wroth was the son of Giuki and he spake: "It is idle and vain,
And two men for one shall perish, and the knife shall be whetted again.
It is better to die than be sorry, and to hear the trembling cry,
And to see the shame of the poor: O fools, must the lowly die
Because kings strove with swords? I bid you to hasten the end,
For my soul is sick with confusion, and fain on the way would I wend."
But the life of the thrall is over, and his fearful heart they set
On a fair wide golden platter, and bear it ruddy wet
To the throne of the triumphing East-King; he looketh, and feareth
withal
Lest the house should fail about him and the golden roof should fall:
But Gunnar laughed beside him, and spake o'er the laden gold:
"O heart of a feeble trembler, no heart of Hogni the bold!
A gold dish bears thee quaking, yet indeed thou quakedst more
When the breast of the helpless dastard the burden of thee bore."
The great hall was smitten silent and its mirth to fear was turned,
For the wrath of the King was kindled, and the eyes of Atli burned,
And he cried as they trembled before him: "Let me see the heart of my
foe!
Fear ye to mock King Atli till his head in the dust be alow!"
Then the sword-carles flee before him, and are angry with their dread,
For they fear the living East-King yet more than the Niblung dead:
They come to the pit and the death-house, and the whetted steel they
bear;
They are pale before King Hogni; as winter-wolves they glare
Whom the ravening hunger driveth, when the chapmen journey slow,
And their horses faint in the moon-dusk, and stumble through the snow.
But Hogni laughed before them, and he saith: "Now welcome again,
Now welcome again, war-fellows! Was Atli hood-winked then?
I looked that ye should be speedy; and, forsooth, ye needs must haste,
Lest more lives than one this even for Atli's will ye waste."
About him throng the sword-men, and they shout as the war-fain cry
In the heart of the bitter battle when their hour is come to die,
And they cast themselves upon him, as on some wide-shielded man
That fierce in the storm of Odin upreareth edges wan.
With the bound man swift is the steel: sore tremble the sons of the
wise,
And their hearts grow faint within them; yet no man hideth his eyes
As the edges deal with the mighty: nor dreadful is he now,
For the mock from his mouth hath faded, and the threat hath failed
from his brow,
And his face is as great and Godlike as his fathers of old days,
As fair as an image fashioned in remembrance of their praise:
But fled is the spirit of Hogni, and every deed he did,
The seed of the world it lieth, in the hand of Odin hid.
On the gold is the heart of Hogni, and men bear it forth to the King,
As he sits in the hall of his triumph mid the glee and the
harp-playing:
Lo, the heart of a son of Giuki! and Gunnar liveth yet,
And the white unangry Gudrun by the Eastland King is set:
Upriseth the soul of Atli, and his breast is swollen with pride,
And he laughs in the face of Gunnar and the woman set by his side:
Then he looks on his living earls, and they cast their cry to the roof,
And it clangs o'er the woeful city and wails through the night aloof;
All the world of man-folk hearkeneth, and hath little joy therein,
Though the men of the East in glory high-tide with Atli win.
But fair is the face of Gunnar as the token draweth anigh;
And he saith: "O heart of Hogni, on the gold indeed dost thou lie,
And as little as there thou quakest far less wert thou wont to quake
When thou lay'st in the breast of the mighty, and wert glad for his
gladness' sake,
And wert sorry with his sorrow; O mighty heart, farewell!
Farewell for a little season, till thy latest deed I tell."
Then was Gunnar silent a little, and the shout in the hall had died,
And he spoke as a man awakening, and turned on Atli's pride.
"Thou all-rich King of the Eastlands, e'en such a man might I be
That I might utter a word, and the heart should be glad in thee,
And I should live and be sorry; for I, I only am left
To tell of the ransom of Odin, and the wealth from the toiler reft.
Lo, once it lay in the water, hid, deep adown it lay,
Till the Gods were grieved and lacking, and men saw it and the day:
Let it lie in the water once more, let the Gods be rich and in peace!
But I at least in the world from the words and the babble shall cease."
So he spake and Atli beheld him, and before his eyes he shrank:
Still deep of the cup of desire the mighty Atli drank,
And to overcome seemed little if the Gold he might not have,
And his hard heart craved for a while to hold the King for a slave,
A bondman blind and guarded in his glorious house and great:
But he thought of the overbold, and of kings who have dallied with
fate,
And died bemocked and smitten; and he deemed it worser than well
While the last of the sons of Giuki hangeth back from his journey to
Hell:
So he turneth away from the stranger, and beholdeth Gudrun his wife,
Not glad nor sorry by seeming, no stirrer nor stayer of strife:
Then he looked at his living earl-folk, and thought of his groves of
war,
And his realm and the kindred nations, and his measureless guarded
store:
And he thought: Shall Atli perish, shall his name be cast to the dead,
Though the feeble folk go wailing? Then he cried aloud and said:
"Why tarry ye, Sons of the Morning? the wain for the bondman is dight;
And the folk that are waiting his body have need of no sunshine to
smite.
Go forth 'neath the stars and the night-wind; go forth by the cloud and
the moon,
And come back with the word in the dawning, that my house may be merry
at noon!"
Then the sword-folk rise round Gunnar, round the fettered and bound
they throng,
As men in the bitter battle round the God-kin over-strong;
They bore him away to the doorway, and the winds were awake in the
night,
And the wood of the thorns of battle in the moon shone sharp and
bright;
But Gunnar looked to the heavens, and blessed the promise of rain,
And the windy drift of the clouds, and the dew on the builded wain:
And the sword-folk tarried a little, and the sons of the wise were
there,
And beheld his face o'er the war-helms, and the wavy night of his hair.
Then they feared for the weal of Atli, and the Niblung's harp they
brought,
And they dealt with the thralls of the sword, and commanded and
besought,
Till men loosened the gyves of Gunnar, and laid the harp by his side,
Then the yoke-beasts lowed in the forecourt and the wheels of the
waggon cried,
And the war-thorns clashed in the night, and the men went dark on
their way,
And the city was silent before them, on the roofs the white moon lay.
Now they left the gate and the highway, and came to a lonely place,
Where the sun all day had been shining on the desert's empty face;
Then the moon ran forth from a cloud, the grey light shone and showed
The pit of King Atli's adders in the land without a road,
Digged deep adown in the desert with shining walls and smooth
For the Serpents' habitation, and the folk that know not ruth.
Therein they thrust King Gunnar, and he bare of his kingly weed,
But they gave his harp to the Niblung, and his hands of the gyves they
freed;
They stood around in their war-gear to note what next should befall
For the comfort of King Atli, and the glee of the Eastland hall.
Still hot was that close with the sun, and thronged with the coiling
folk,
And about the feet of Gunnar their hissing mouths awoke:
But he heeded them not nor beheld them, and his hands in the
harp-strings ran,
As he sat him down in the midmost on a sun-scorched rock and wan:
And he sighed as one who resteth on a flowery bank by the way
When the wind is in the blossoms at the even-tide of day:
But his harp was murmuring low, and he mused: Am I come to the death,
And I, who was Gunnar the Niblung? nay, nay, how I draw my breath,
And love my life as the living! and so I ever shall do,
Though wrack be loosed in the heavens and the world be fashioned anew.
But the worms were beholding their prey, and they drew around and
nigher,
Smooth coil, and flickering tongue, and eyes as the gold in the fire;
And he looked and beheld them and spake, nor stilled his harp
meanwhile:
"What will ye? O thralls of Atli, O images of guile?"
Then, he rose at once to his feet, and smote the harp with his hand,
And it rang as if with a cry in the dream of a lonely land;
Then he fondled its wail as it faded, and orderly over the strings
Went the marvellous sound of its sweetness, like the march of Odin's
kings
New-risen for play in the morning when o'er meadows of God-home they
wend,
And hero playeth with hero, that their hands may be deft in the end.
But the crests of the worms were uplifted, though coil on coil was
stayed,
And they moved but as dark-green rushes by the summer river swayed.
Then uprose the Song of Gunnar, and sang o'er his crafty hands,
And told of the World of Aforetime, unshapen, void of lands;
Yet it wrought, for its memory bideth, and it died and abode its doom;
It shaped, and the Upper-Heavens, and the hope came forth from its
womb.
Great then grew the voice of Gunnar, and his speech was sweet on the
wild,
And the moon on his harp was shining, and the hands of the Niblung
child:
"So perished the Gap of the Gaping, and the cold sea swayed and sang,
And the wind came down on the waters, and the beaten rock-walls rang;
Then the Sun from the south came shining, and the Starry Host stood
round,
And the wandering Moon of the heavens his habitation found;
And they knew not why they were gathered, nor the deeds of their
shaping they knew:
But lo, Mid-Earth the Noble 'neath their might and their glory grew,
And the grass spread over its face, and the Night and the Day were
born,
And it cried on the Death in the even, and it cried on the Life in the
morn:
Yet it waxed and waxed, and knew not, and it lived and had not learned;
And where were the Framers that framed, and the Soul and the Might
that had yearned?
"On the Thrones are the Powers that fashioned, and they name the Night
and the Day,
And the tide of the Moon's increasing, and the tide of his waning away:
And they name the years for the story; and the Lands they change and
change,
The great and the mean and the little, that this unto that may be
strange:
They met, and they fashioned dwellings, and the House of Glory they
built;
They met, and they fashioned the Dwarf-kind, and the Gold and the
Gifts and the Guilt.
"There were twain, and they went upon earth, and were speechless
unmighty and wan;
They were hopeless, deathless, lifeless, and the Mighty named them Man:
Then they gave them speech and power, and they gave them colour and
breath;
And deeds and the hope they gave them, and they gave them Life and
Death;
Yea, hope, as the hope of the Framers; yea, might, as the Fashioners
had,
Till they wrought, and rejoiced in their bodies, and saw their sons
and were glad:
And they changed their lives and departed, and came back as the leaves
of the trees
Come back and increase in the summer:--and I, I, I am of these;
And I know of Them that have fashioned, and the deeds that have
blossomed and grow;
But nought of the Gods' repentance, or the Gods' undoing I know."
Then falleth the speech of Gunnar, and his lips the word forget,
But his crafty hands are busy, and the harp is murmuring yet.
And the crests of the worms have fallen, and their flickering tongues
are still,
The Roller and the Coiler, and Greyback, lord of ill,
Grave-groper and Death-swaddler, the Slumberer of the Heath,
Gold-wallower, Venom-smiter, lie still, forgetting death,
And loose are coils of Long-back; yea, all as soft are laid
As the kine in midmost summer about the elmy glade;
--All save the Grey and Ancient, that holds his crest aloft,
Light-wavering as the flame-tongue when the evening wind is soft:
For he comes of the kin of the Serpent once wrought all wrong to nurse,
The bond of earthly evil, the Midworld's ancient curse.
But Gunnar looked and considered, and wise and wary he grew,
And the dark of night was waning and chill in the dawning it grew;
But his hands were strong and mighty and the fainting harp he woke,
And cried in the deadly desert, and the song from his soul out-broke:
"O Hearken, Kindreds and Nations, and all Kings of the plenteous earth.
Heed, ye that shall come hereafter, and are far and far from the birth!
I have dwelt in the world aforetime, and I called it the garden of God;
I have stayed my heart with its sweetness, and fair on its freshness I
trod;
I have seen its tempest and wondered, I have cowered adown from its
rain,
And desired the brightening sunshine, and seen it and been fain;
I have waked, time was, in its dawning; its noon and its even I wore;
I have slept unafraid of its darkness, and the days have been many and
more:
I have dwelt with the deeds of the mighty; I have woven the web of the
sword;
I have borne up the guilt nor repented; I have sorrowed nor spoken the
word;
And I fought and was glad in the morning, and I sing in the night and
the end:
So let him stand forth, the Accuser, and do on the death-shoon to wend;
For not here on the earth shall I hearken, nor on earth for the
dooming shall stay,
Nor stretch out mine hand for the pleading; for I see the spring of
the day
Round the doors of the golden Valhall, and I see the mighty arise,
And I hearken the voice of Odin, and his mouth on Gunnar cries,
And he nameth the Son of Giuki, and cries on deeds long done,
And the fathers of my fathers, and the sons of yore agone.
"O Odin, I see, and I hearken; but, lo thou, the bonds on my feet,
And the walls of the wilderness round me, ere the light of thy land I
meet!
I crave and I weary, Allfather, and long and dark is the road;
And the feet of the mighty are weakened, and the back is bent with the
load."
Then fainted the song of Gunnar, and the harp from his hand fell down,
And he cried: "Ah, what hath betided? for cold the world hath grown,
And cold is the heart within me, and my hand is heavy and strange;
What voice is the voice I hearken in the chill and the dusk and the
change?
Where art thou, God of the war-fain? for this is the death indeed;
And I unsworded, unshielded, in the Day of the Niblungs' Need!"
He fell to the earth as he spake, and life left Gunnar the King,
For his heart was chilled for ever by the sleepless serpent's sting,
The grey Worm, Great and Ancient--and day in the East began,
And the moon was low in the heavens, and the light clouds over him ran.
_The Ending of Gudrun._
Men sleep in the dwelling of Atli through the latter hours of night,
Though the comfortless women be wailing as they that love not light
Men sleep in the dawning-hour, and bowed down is Atli's head
Amidst the gold and the purple, and the pillows of his bed:
But hark, ere the sun's uprising, when folk see colours again,
Is the trample of steeds in the fore-court, and the noise of steel and
of men
And Atli wakeneth and riseth, and is clad in purple and pall,
And he goeth forth from the chamber and meeteth his earls in the hall
A king full great and mighty, if a great king ever hath been;
And over his head on the high-seat still sitteth Gudrun the Queen.
Then he said: "Whence come ye, children? whence come ye, Lords of the
East?
Shall today be for evil and mourning or a day of joyance and feast?"
They said: "Today shall be wailing for the foes of the Eastland kin;
But for them that love King Atli shall the day of feasts begin:
For we come from the land deserted, and the heath without a way,
And now are the earth's folk telling of the Niblungs passed away."
Then King Atli turned unto Gudrun, and the new sun shone through the
door,
The long beams fell from the mountains and lighted Atli's floor:
Then he cried: "Lo, the day-light, Gudrun! and the Cloudy Folk is gone;
There is glory now in the Eastland, and thy lord is king alone."
But Gudrun rose from the high-seat, and her eyes on the King she
turned;
And he stood rejoicing before her, and his crown in the sunlight
burned,
With the golden gear was he swaddled, and he held the red-gold rod
That the Kings of the East had carried since first they came from God:
Down she came, and men kept silence, and the earls beheld her face,
As her raiment rustled about her in the morning-joyous place:
So she stood amidst of the sun-beams, by King Atli's board she stood,
And men looked and wondered at her, would she speak them ill or good:
She wept not, and she sighed not, nor smiled in the stranger land,
But she stood before King Atli, and the cup was in her hand.
Then she spake: "Take, King, and drink it! for earth's mightiest men
prevail,
And to thee is the praise and the glory, and the ending of the tale:
There are men to the dead land faring, but the dark o'er their heads
is deep,
They cry not, they return not, and no more renown they reap;
But we do our will without them, nor fear their speech or frown;
And glad shall be our uprising, and light our lying-down."
She said: "A maid of maidens my mother reared me erst;
By the side of the glorious Gunnar my early days were nursed;
By the side of the heart-wise Hogni I went from field to flower,
Joy rose with the sun's uprising, nor sank in the twilight hour;
Kings looked and laughed upon us as we played with the golden toy:
And oft our hands were meeting as we mingled joy with joy."
More she spake: "O King command me! for women's knees are weak,
And their feet are little steadfast, and their hands for comfort seek:
On the earth the blossom falleth when the branch is dried with day,
And the vine to the elm-bough clingeth when men smite the roots away."
Then drank the Eastland Atli as he looked in Gudrun's face,
And beheld no wrath against him, and no hate of the coming days;
Then he spake: "O mighty woman, this day the feast shall be
For the heritance of Atli, and the gain of mine and me:
For this day the Eastland people such great dominion win,
That a world to their will new-fashioned 'neath their glory shall
begin.
Yet, since the mighty are fallen, and kings are gone from earth,
Let these at the feast be remembered, and their ancient deeds of worth.
So I bid thee, O King's Daughter, sit by Atli at the feast,
To praise thy kin departed and Atli's weal increased;
And the heirship-feast and the death-feast today shall be as one;
And then shalt thou wake tomorrow with all thy mourning done,
And all thy will accomplished, and thy glory great and sure.
That for ever and for ever shall the tale thereof endure."
He spake in the sunny morning, and Gudrun answered and said:
"Thou hast bidden me feast, O Atli, and thy will shall be obeyed:
And well I thank thee, great-one, for the gifts thine hand would give;
For who shall gainsay the mighty, and the happy Kings that live?
Thou hast swallowed the might of the Niblungs, and their glory lieth
in thee:
Live long, and cherish thy wealth, that the world may wonder and see!"
Therewith to the bower of queens the Niblung wendeth her way,
And in all the glory of women the folk her body array:
Forth she comes with the crown on her head and the ivory rod in her
hand,
With queens for her waiting-women, and the hope of many a land:
There she goes in that wonder of houses when the high-tide of Atli is
dight,
And her face is as fair as the sea, and her eyen are glittering bright.
By Atli's side she sitteth, o'er the earls they twain are set,
And shields of the ancient wise-ones on the wall are hanging yet,
And the golden sun of the roof-sky, the sun of Atli's pride,
Through the beams where day but glimmers casts red light far and wide:
The beakers clash thereunder, the red wine murmureth speech,
And the eager long-beard warriors cast praises each to each
Of the blossoming tree of the Eastland:--and tomorrow shall be as
today,
Yea, even more abundant, and all foes have passed away.
It was then in the noon-tide moment; o'er the earth high hung the sun,
When the song o'er the mighty Niblungs in a stranger-house was begun,
And their deeds were told by the foemen, and the names of hope they had
Rang sweet in the hall of the murder to make King Atli glad:
It is little after the noon-tide when thereof they sing no more,
Nor tell of the strife that has been, and the leaping flames of war,
And the vengeance lulled for ever and the wrath that shall never awake:
For where is the kin of Hogni, and who liveth for Gunnar's sake?
So men in the hall make merry, nor note the afternoon,
And the time when men grow weary with the task that ends not soon;
The sun falls down unnoted, and night and her daughter are nigh,
And a dull grey mist and awful hangeth over the east of the sky,
And spreadeth, though winds are sleeping, and riseth higher and higher;
But the clouds hang high in the west as a sea of rippling fire,
That the face of the gazer is lighted, if unto the west ye gaze,
And white walls in the lonely meadows grow ruddy under the blaze;
Yet brighter e'en than the cloud-sea, far-off and clear serene,
Mid purple clouds unlitten the light lift lieth between;
And who looks, save the lonely shepherd on the brow of the houseless
hill,
Who hath many a day seen no man to tell him of good or of ill?
Day dies, and the storm-threats perish, and the stars to the heaven
are come,
And the white moon climbeth upward and hangs o'er the Eastland home;
But no man in the hall of King Atli shall heed the heavens without,
For Atli's roof is their heaven, and thereto they cast the shout,
And this, the glory they builded, is become their God to praise,
The hope of their generations, the giver of goodly days:
No more they hearken the harp-strings, no more they hearken the song;
All the might of the deedful Niblungs is a tale forgotten long,
And yester-morning's murder is as though it ne'er had been;
They heed not the white-armed Gudrun, the glorious Stranger-Queen,
They heed not Atli triumphant, for they also, they are Kings,
They are brethren of the God-folk and the fashioners of things;
Nay, the Gods,--and the Gods have sorrow, and these shall rue no more,
These world-kings, these prevailers, these beaters-down of war:
What golden house shall hold them, what nightless shadowless heaven?
--So they feast in the hall of Atli, and that eve is the first of the
seven.
So they feast, and weary, and know not how weary they are grown,
As they stretch out hands to gather where their hands have never sown;
They are drunken with wine and with folly, and the hope they would
bring to pass
Of the mirth no man may compass, and the joy that never was,
Till their heads hang heavy with slumber, and their hands from the
wine-cup fail,
And blind stray their hands in the harp-strings and their mouths may
tell no tale.
Now the throne of Atli is empty, low lieth the world-king's head
Mid the woven gold and the purple, and the dreams of Atli's bed,
And Gudrun lieth beside him as the true by the faithful and kind,
And every foe is departed, and no fear is left behind:
Lo, lo, the rest of the night-tide for which all kings would long,
And all warriors of the people that have fought with fear and wrong.
Yet a while;--it was but an hour and the moon was hung so high,
As it seemed that the silent night-tide would never change and die;
But lo, how the dawn comes stealing o'er the mountains of the east,
And dim grows Atli's roof-sun o'er yestereven's feast;
Dim yet in the treasure-houses lie the ancient heaps of gold,
But slowly come the colours to the Dwarf-wrought rings of old:
Yet a while; and the day-light lingers: yea, yea, is it darker than
erst?
Hath the day into night-tide drifted, the day by the twilight nursed?
Are the clouds in the house of King Atli? Or what shines brighter that
morn,
In helms and shields of the ancient, and swords by dead kings borne?
Have the heavens come down to Atli? Hath his house been lifted on high,
Lest the pride of the triumphing World-King should fade in the world
and die?
Lo, lo, in the hall of the Murder where the white-armed Gudrun stands,
Aloft by the kingly high-seat, and nought empty are her hands;
For the litten brand she beareth, and the grinded war-sword bare:
Still she stands for a little season till day groweth white and fair
Without the garth of King Atli; but within, a wavering cloud
Rolls, hiding the roof and the roof-sun; then she stirreth and crieth
aloud:
"Alone was I yestereven: and alone in the night I lay,
And I thought on the ancient fathers, and longed for the dawning of
day:
Then I rose from the bed of the Eastlands; to the Holy Hearth I went;
And lo, how the brands were abiding the hand of mine intent!
Then I caught them up with wisdom, with care I bore them forth,
And I laid them amidst of the treasures and dear things of uttermost
worth;
'Neath the fair-dight benches I laid them and the carven work of the
hall;
I was wise, as the handmaid arising ere the sun hath litten the wall,
When the brands on the hearth she lighteth that her work betimes she
may win,
That her hand may toil unchidden, and her day with praise begin.
--Begin, O day of Atli! O ancient sun, arise,
With the light that I loved aforetime, with the light that blessed
mine eyes,
When I woke and looked on Sigurd, and he rose on the world and shone!
And we twain in the world together! and I dwelt with Sigurd alone."
She spake; and the sun clomb over the Eastland mountains' rim
And shone through the door of Atli and the smoky hall and dim,
But the fire roared up against him, and the smoke-cloud rolled aloof,
And back and down from the timbers, and the carven work of the roof;
There the ancient trees were crackling as the red flames shot aloft
From the heart of the gathering smoke-cloud; there the far-fetched
hangings soft,
The gold and the sea-born purple, shrank up in a moment of space,
And the walls of Atli trembled, and the ancient golden place.
But the wine-drenched earls were awaking, and the sleep-dazed warriors
stirred,
And the light of their dawning was dreadful; wild voice of the day
they heard,
And they knew not where they were gotten, and their hearts were
smitten with dread,
And they deemed that their house was fallen to the innermost place of
the dead,
The hall for the traitors builded, the house of the changeless plain;
They cried, and their tongues were confounded, and none gave answer
again:
They rushed, and came nowhither; each man beheld his foe,
And smote as the hopeless and dying, nor brother brother might know,
The sons of one mother's sorrow in the fire-blast strove and smote,
And the sword of the first-begotten was thrust in the father's throat,
And the father hewed at his stripling; the thrall at the war-king
cried,
And mocked the face of the mighty in that house of Atli's pride.
There Gudrun stood o'er the turmoil; there stood the Niblung child;
As the battle-horn is dreadful, as the winter wind is wild,
So dread and shrill was her crying and the cry none heeded or heard,
As she shook the sword in the Eastland, and spake the hidden word:
"The brand for the flesh of the people, and the sword for the King of
the world!"
Then adown the hall and the smoke-cloud the half-slaked torch she
hurled
And strode to the chamber of Atli, white-fluttering mid the smoke;
But their eyen met in the doorway and he knew the hand and the stroke,
And shrank aback before her; and no hand might he upraise,
There was nought in his heart but anguish in that end of Atli's days.
But she towered aloft before him, and cried in Atli's home:
"Lo, lo, the day-light, Atli, and the last foe overcome!"
And with all the might of the Niblungs she thrust him through and fled,
And the flame was fleet behind her and hung o'er the face of the dead.
There was none to hinder Gudrun, and the fire-blast scathed her nought,
For the ways of the Norns she wended, and her feet from the wrack they
brought
Till free from the bane of the East-folk, the swift pursuing flame,
To the uttermost wall of Atli and the side of the sea she came:
She stood on the edge of the steep, and no child of man was there:
A light wind blew from the sea-flood and its waves were little and
fair,
And gave back no sign of the burning, as in twinkling haste they ran,
White-topped in the merry morning, to the walls and the havens of man.
Then Gudrun girded her raiment, on the edge of the steep she stood,
She looked o'er the shoreless water, and cried out o'er the measureless
flood:
"O Sea, I stand before thee; and I who was Sigurd's wife!
By his brightness unforgotten I bid thee deliver my life
From the deeds and the longing of days, and the lack I have won of the
earth,
And the wrong amended by wrong, and the bitter wrong of my birth!"
She hath spread out her arms as she spake it, and away from the earth
she leapt,
And cut off her tide of returning; for the sea-waves over her swept,
And their will is her will henceforward; and who knoweth the deeps of
the sea,
And the wealth of the bed of Gudrun, and the days that yet shall be?
Ye have heard of Sigurd aforetime, how the foes of God he slew;
How forth from the darksome desert the Gold of the Waters he drew;
How he wakened Love on the Mountain, and wakened Brynhild the Bright,
And dwelt upon Earth for a season, and shone in all men's sight.
Ye have heard of the Cloudy People, and the dimming of the day,
And the latter world's confusion, and Sigurd gone away;
Now ye know of the Need of the Niblungs and the end of broken troth,
All the death of kings and of kindreds and the sorrow of Odin the Goth.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes
Page Problem Correction
v Siggier Siggeir
7 he said: O Guest, begin; he said: "O Guest, begin;
17 to meet his guests by the way. to meet his guests by the way."
28 wend the ways of his fate." wend the ways of his fate.'"
30 and said: What is it and said: "What is it
42 Sinfioli's Sinfiotli's
57 Sigmund's loins shall grow.' Sigmund's loins shall grow."
64 waded the swathes of the sword waded the swathes of the sword.
99 the blood of the Worm was mine the blood of the Worm was mine.
128 and the Gods are yet but young. and the Gods are yet but young."
140 All hail, O Day "All hail, O Day
141 the Sting of the Sleepful Thorn! the Sting of the Sleepful Thorn!'
143 I needs must speak thy speech.' I needs must speak thy speech."
183 as the sun-beams hide the way as the sun-beams hide the way.
189 God that is smitten nor smites God that is smitten nor smites.
216 his worth with thy worth.' his worth with thy worth."
237 'A witless lie is this; "A witless lie is this;
257 lord of all creatures should die lord of all creatures should die.
281 asembled assembled
283 Now to day do we come Now today do we come
293 called their king with me.' called their king with me."
304 and they seem so gay and kind. and they seem so gay and kind,
338 Lords of the East Lords of the East?
The following words with and without hyphens are transcribed as in the
text:
a-cold acold
a-land aland
all-wise allwise
beshielded be-shielded
daylight day-light
Daylong Day-long
doorway door-way
downward down-ward
evermore ever-more
forecourt fore-court
forefront fore-front
foreordered fore-ordered
foreshore fore-shore
forthright forth-right
fosterbrethren foster-brethren
gemstones gem-stones
godlike god-like
goodwill good-will
gravemound grave-mound
greensward green-sward
handmaid hand-maid
harpstrings harp-strings
heavyhearted heavy-hearted
helpmate help-mate
lealand lea-land
leechcraft leech-craft
lifedays life-days
longships long-ships
manchild man-child
manfolk's man-folk's
manlike manlike
midnoon mid-noon
moonlit moon-lit
moonrise moon-rise
noontide noon-tide
O'ershort O'er-short
oakwood oak-wood
outbrake out-brake
overworn over-worn
sidelong side-long
songcraft song-craft
spearwood spear-wood
springtide spring-tide
storehouse store-house
sunbeams sun-beams
sunbright sun-bright
sunlit sun-lit
today to-day
tonight to-night
torchlight torch-light
trothplight troth-plight
upbuilded up-builded
upheaveth up-heaveth
upraised up-raised
warfarings war-farings
warflame war-flame
wargear war-gear
wildfire wild-fire
woodways wood-ways
yestereve yester-eve
yestereven yester-even
The following words with and without accented vowels are transcribed as in
the text:
accursed accursèd
assured assurèd
beloved belovèd
changed changèd
crooked crookèd
crowned crownèd
heaped heapèd
loved lovèd
sheathed sheathèd
Son Sôn