out his lips doth pass: 
  “When thou lookest on me, O Goddess, thou seest Gunnar the King,
  The King and the lord of the Niblungs, and the chief of their warfaring. 
  But art thou indeed that Brynhild of whom is the rumour and fame,
  That she bideth the coming of kings to ride her Wavering Flame,
  Lest she wed the little-hearted, and the world grow evil and vile? 
  For if thou be none other I will speak again in a while.”

  She said:  “Art thou Gunnar the Stranger!  O art thou the man that I see? 
  Yea, verily I am Brynhild; what other is like unto me? 
  O men of the Earth behold me! hast thou seen, O labouring Earth,
  Such sorrow as my sorrow, or such evil as my birth?”

  Then spake the Wildfire’s Trampler that Gunnar’s image bore: 
  “O Brynhild, mighty of women, be thou glorious evermore! 
  Thou seest Gunnar the Niblung, as he sits mid the Niblung lords,
  And rides with the gods of battle in the fore-front of the swords.”

* * * * *

  Hard rang his voice in the hall, and a while she spake no word,
  And there stood the Image of Gunnar, and leaned on his bright blue sword: 
  But at last she cried from the high-seat:  “If I yet am alive and awake,
  I know no words for the speaking, nor what answer I may make.” 
  She ceased and he answered nothing; and a hush on the hall there lay
  And the moon slipped over the windows as he clomb the heavenly way;
  And no whit stirred the raiment of Brynhild:  till she hearkened the Wooer’s
       voice,
  As he said:  “Thou art none of the women that swear and forswear and rejoice,
  Forgetting the sorrow of kings and the Gods and the labouring earth. 
  Thou shall wed with King Gunnar the Niblung and increase his worth with thy
       worth.”

* * * * *

  So spake he in semblance of Gunnar, and from off his hand he drew
  A ring of the spoils of the Southland, a marvel seen but of few,
  And he set the ring on her finger, and she turned to her lord and spake: 
  “I thank thee, King, for thy goodwill, and thy pledge of love I take. 
  Depart with my troth to thy people:  but ere full ten days are o’er
  I shall come to the Sons of the Niblungs, and then shall we part no more
  Till the day of the change of our life-days, when Odin and Freyia shall
       call. 
  Lo, here, my gift of the morning! ’twas my dearest treasure of all;
  But thou art become its master, and for thee was it fore-ordained,
  Since thou art the man of mine oath and the best that the earth hath
       gained.”

  And lo, ’twas the Grief of Andvari, and the lack that made him loth,
  The last of the God-folk’s ransom, the Ring of Hindfell’s oath;
  Now on Sigurd’s hand it shineth, and long he looketh thereon,
  But it gave him back no memories of the days that were bygone.