“By the Earth that groweth and giveth, and by all the Earth’s increase
  That is spent for Gods and man-folk; by the sun that shines on these;
  By the Salt-Sea-Flood that beareth the life and death of men;
  By the Heavens and Stars that change not, though earth die out again;
  By the wild things of the mountain, and the houseless waste and lone;
  By the prey of the Goths in the thicket and the holy Beast of Son,
  I hallow me to Odin for a leader of his host,
  To do the deeds of the Highest, and never count the cost: 
  And I swear, that whatso great-one shall show the day and the deed,
  I shall ask not why nor wherefore, but the sword’s desire shall speed: 
  And I swear to seek no quarrel, nor to swerve aside for aught,
  Though the right and the left be blooming, and the straight way wend to
       nought: 
  And I swear to abide and hearken the prayer of any thrall,
  Though the war-torch be on the threshold and the foemen’s feet in the hall: 
  And I swear to sit on my throne in the guise of the kings of the earth,
  Though the anguish past amending, and the unheard woe have birth: 
  And I swear to wend in my sorrow that none shall curse mine eyes
  For the scowl that quelleth beseeching, and the hate that scorneth the wise. 
  So help me Earth and Heavens, and the Under-sky and Seas,
  And the Stars in their ordered houses, and the Norns that order these!”

  And he drank of the Cup of the Promise, and fair as a star he shone,
  And all men rejoiced and wondered, and deemed Earth’s glory won.

  Then came the girded maidens, and the slim earls’ daughters poured,
  And uprose the dark-haired Gunnar and bare was the Niblung sword;
  Blue it gleamed in the hand of the folk-king as he laid it low on the Beast,
  And took oath as the Goths of aforetime in the hush of the people’s feast: 
  “I will work for the craving of Kings, and accomplish the will of the great,
  Nor ask what God withstandeth, nor hearken the tales of fate;
  When a King my life hath exalted, and wrought for my hope and my gain,
  For every deed he hath done me, thereto shall I fashion twain. 
  I shall bear forth the fame of the Niblungs through all that hindereth;
  In my life shall I win great glory, and be merry in my death.”

  So sweareth the lovely war-king and drinketh of the Cup,
  And the joy of the people waxeth and their glad cry goeth up. 
  But again came the girded maidens:  earls’ daughters pour the wine,
  And bare is the blade of Hogni in the feast-hall over the Swine;
  Then he cries o’er the hallowed Wood-beast:  “Earth, hearken, how I swear,
  To beseech no man for his helping, and to vex no God with prayer;
  And to seek out the will of the Norns, and look in the eyes of the curse;
  And to laugh while the love aboundeth, lest the glad world grow into worse;
  Then if in the murder I laugh not, O Earth, remember my name,
  And oft tell it aloud to the people for the Niblungs’ fated shame!”