He spake and awhile was silence, and then did the cry outbreak,
  And many there were of the Earl-folk that wept for Sigurd’s sake;
  And they wept for their little children, and they wept for those unborn,
  Who should know the earth without him and the world of his worth forlorn.

* * * * *

  So rent is the joy of the Niblungs; and their simple days and fain
  From that ancient house are departed, and who shall buy them again? 
  For he, the redeemer, the helper, the crown of all their worth,
  They looked upon him and wondered, they loved, and they thrust him forth.

Of the mighty Grief of Gudrun over Sigurd dead.

But as for the grief of Gudrun over Sigurd no man may tell it.  Long she lay on his body and spent herself in weeping, but at last she arose and cursed Brynhild and Gunnar and all the Niblung house, saying: 

  “O hearken, hearken Gunnar!  May the dear Gold drag thee adown,
  And Greyfell’s ruddy Burden, and the Treasure of renown,
  And the rings that ye swore the oath on! yea, if all avengers die,
  May Earth, that ye bade remember, on the blood of Sigurd cry! 
  Be this land as waste as the troth-plight that the lips of fools have sworn! 
  May it rain through this broken hall-roof, and snow on the hearth forlorn! 
  And may no man draw anigh it to tell of the ruin and the wrack! 
  Yea, may I be a mock for the idle if my feet come ever aback,
  If my heart think kind of the chambers, if mine eyes shall yearn to behold
  The fair-built house of my fathers, the house beloved of old!”

And therewith Gudrun fled forever from the Burg of the Niblungs, and none dared hinder or follow her, and none knew whither she turned for refuge.

Of the passing away of Brynhild.

  Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious sun,
  And the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done. 
  For out in the people’s meadows they raise a bale on high,
  The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie;
  Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour of sweet spice,
  Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs of untold price;
  The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts of the mighty horn
  From the topmost tower out-wailing o’er the woeful world are borne.

* * * * *

  But Brynhild cried to her maidens:  “Now open ark and chest,
  And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best,
  Red rings that the Dwarf-lords fashioned, fair cloths that queens have
       sewed,
  To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road.”

  They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear;
  But she laughed mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashioned fair: 
  She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan;
  As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone: 
  And they that stood about her, their hearts were raised aloft
  Amid their fear and wonder:  then she spake them kind and soft: