She said:  “Thou livest, thou livest! the leeches shall heal thee still.”

  “Nay,” said he, “my heart hath hearkened to Odin’s bidding and will;
  For today have mine eyes beheld him:  nay, he needed not to speak: 
  Forsooth I knew of his message and the thing he came to seek. 
  And now do I live but to tell thee of the days that are yet to come: 
  And perchance to solace thy sorrow; and then will I get me home
  To my kin that are gone before me.  Lo, yonder where I stood
  The shards of a glaive of battle that was once the best of the good: 
  Take them and keep them surely.  I have lived no empty days;
  The Norns were my nursing mothers; I have won the people’s praise. 
  When the Gods for one deed asked me I ever gave them twain;
  Spendthrift of glory I was, and great was my life-days’ gain;
  Now these shards have been my fellow in the work the Gods would have,
  But today hath Odin taken the gift that once he gave. 
  I have wrought for the Volsungs truly, and yet have I known full well
  That a better one than I am shall bear the tale to tell: 
  And for him shall these shards be smithied; and he shall be my son
  To remember what I have forgotten and to do what I left undone.”

* * * * *

  Then failed the voice of Sigmund; but so mighty was the man,
  That a long while yet he lingered till the dusky night grew wan,
  And she sat and sorrowed o’er him, but no more a word he spake. 
  Then a long way over the sea-flood the day began to break;
  And when the sun was arisen a little he turned his head
  Till the low beams bathed his eyen, and there lay Sigmund dead. 
  And the sun rose up on the earth; but where was the Volsung kin
  And the folk that the Gods had begotten the praise of all people to win?

How King Sigmund the Volsung was laid in mound on the sea-side of the Isle-realm.

  Now Hiordis looked from the dead, and her eyes strayed down to the sea,
  And a shielded ship she saw, and a war-dight company,
  Who beached the ship for the landing:  so swift she fled away,
  And once more to the depth of the thicket, wherein her handmaid lay: 
  And she said:  “I have left my lord, and my lord is dead and gone,
  And he gave me a charge full heavy, and here are we twain alone,
  And earls from the sea are landing:  give me thy blue attire,
  And take my purple and gold and my crown of the sea-flood’s fire,
  And be thou the wife of King Volsung when men of our names shall ask,
  And I will be the handmaid:  now I bid thee to this task,
  And I pray thee not to fail me, because of thy faith and truth,
  And because I have ever loved thee, and thy mother fostered my youth.”

* * * * *

  So the other nought gainsaith it and they shift their raiment there: 
  But well-spoken was the maiden, and a woman tall and fair.