So now when Sigmund and Hiordis are wedded a month or more,
  And the Volsung bids men dight them to cross the sea-flood o’er,
  Lo, how there cometh the tidings of measureless mighty hosts
  Who are gotten ashore from their long-ships on the skirts of King Eylimi’s
       coasts.

  Sore boded the heart of the Isle-king of what the end should be. 
  But Sigmund long beheld him, and he said:  “Thou deem’st of me
  That my coming hath brought thee evil; but put aside such things;
  For long have I lived, and I know it, that the lives of mighty kings
  Are not cast away, nor drifted like the down before the wind;
  And surely I know, who say it, that never would Hiordis’ mind
  Have been turned to wed King Lyngi or aught but the Volsung seed. 
  Come, go we forth to the battle, that shall be the latest deed
  Of thee and me meseemeth:  yea, whether thou live or die,
  No more shall the brand of Odin at peace in his scabbard lie.”

  And therewith he brake the peace-strings and drew the blade of bale,
  And Death on the point abided, Fear sat on the edges pale.

  So men ride adown to the sea-strand, and the kings their hosts array
  When the high noon flooded heaven; and the men of the Volsungs lay,
  With King Eylimi’s shielded champions mid Lyngi’s hosts of war,
  As the brown pips lie in the apple when ye cut it through the core.

  But now when the kings were departed, from the King’s house Hiordis went,
  And before men joined the battle she came to a woody bent,
  Where she lay with one of her maidens the death and the deeds to behold.

  In the noon sun shone King Sigmund as an image all of gold,
  And he stood before the foremost and the banner of his fame,
  And many a thing he remembered, and he called on each earl by his name
  To do well for the house of the Volsungs, and the ages yet unborn. 
  Then he tossed up the sword of the Branstock, and blew on his father’s horn,
  Dread of so many a battle, doom-song of so many a man. 
  Then all the earth seemed moving as the hosts of Lyngi ran
  On the Volsung men and the Isle-folk like wolves upon the prey;
  But sore was their labour and toil ere the end of their harvesting day.

  On went the Volsung banners, and on went Sigmund before,
  And his sword was the flail of the tiller on the wheat of the
       wheat-thrashing floor,
  And his shield was rent from his arm, and his helm was sheared from his
       head: 
  But who may draw nigh him to smite for the heap and the rampart of dead? 
  White went his hair on the wind like the ragged drift of the cloud,
  And his dust-driven, blood-beaten harness was the death-storm’s angry
       shroud,
  When the summer sun is departing in the first of the night of wrack;
  And his sword was the cleaving lightning, that smites and is hurried aback
  Ere the hand may rise against it; and his voice was the following thunder.