“He dwelleth above,” said Sigurd, “but I on the earth abide,
    And I came from the Glittering Heath the waves of thy fire to ride.”

    But therewith the sun rose upward and lightened all the earth,
    And the light flashed up to the heavens from the rims of the glorious
      girth;
    But they twain arose together, and with both her palms outspread,
    And bathed in the light returning, she cried aloud and said: 

    “All hail, O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things! 
    Hail, following Night, and thy Daughter that leadeth thy wavering
      wings! 
    Look down with unangry eyes on us today alive,
    And give us the hearts victorious, and the gain for which we strive! 
    All hail, ye Lords of God-home, and ye Queens of the House of Gold! 
    Hail, thou dear Earth that bearest, and thou Wealth of field and fold! 
    Give us, your noble children, the glory of wisdom and speech,
    And the hearts and the hands of healing, and the mouths and hands that
      teach!”

    Then they turned and were knit together; and oft and o’er again
    They craved, and kissed rejoicing, and their hearts were full and fain.

    Then Sigurd looketh upon her, and the words from his heart arise: 
    “Thou art the fairest of earth, and the wisest of the wise;
    O who art thou that lovest?  I am Sigurd, e’en as I told;
    I have slain the Foe of the Gods, and gotten the Ancient Gold;
    And great were the gain of thy love, and the gift of mine earthly days,
    If we twain should never sunder as we wend on the changing ways. 
    O who art thou that lovest, thou fairest of all things born? 
    And what meaneth thy sleep and thy slumber in the wilderness forlorn?”

    She said:  “I am she that loveth:  I was born of the earthly folk,
    But of old Allfather took me from the Kings and their wedding yoke: 
    And he called me the Victory-Wafter, and I went and came as he would,
    And I chose the slain for his war-host, and the days were glorious and
      good,
    Till the thoughts of my heart overcame me, and the pride of my wisdom
      and speech,
    And I scorned the earth-folk’s Framer and the Lord of the world I must
      teach: 
    For the death-doomed I caught from the sword, and the fated life I
      slew,
    And I deemed that my deeds were goodly, and that long I should do and
      undo. 
    But Allfather came against me and the God in his wrath arose;
    And he cried:  ’Thou hast thought in thy folly that the Gods have
      friends and foes,
    That they wake, and the world wends onward, that they sleep, and the
      world slips back,
    That they laugh, and the world’s weal waxeth, that they frown and
      fashion the wrack: 
    Thou hast cast up the curse against me; it shall fall aback on thine
      head;
    Go back to the sons of repentance, with the children of sorrow wed! 
    For the Gods are great unholpen, and their grief is seldom seen,
    And the wrong that they will and must be is soon as it had not been.’