king ’twixt the night of his wavy hair: 
    And there is the wise-heart Hogni; and his lips are close and thin,
    And grey and awful his eyen, and a many sights they win: 
    And there is Guttorm the youngest, of the fierce and wandering glance,
    And the heart that never resteth till the swords in the war-wind dance: 
    And there is Gudrun his daughter, and light she stands by the board,
    And fair are her arms in the hall as the beaker’s flood is poured: 
    She comes, and the earls keep silence; she smiles, and men rejoice;
    She speaks, and the harps unsmitten thrill faint to her queenly voice.

    So blossom the days of the Niblungs, and great is their hope’s increase
    ’Twixt the merry days of battle and the tide of their guarded peace: 
    There is many a noon of joyance, and many an eve’s delight,
    And many a deed for the doing ’twixt the morning and the night.

Now betimes on a morning of summer that Giuki’s daughter arose,
Alone went the fair-armed Gudrun to her flowery garden-close;
And she went by the bower of women, and her damsels saw her thence,
And her nurse went down to meet her as she came by the rose-hung fence,
And she saw that her eyes were heavy as she trod with doubtful feet
Betwixt the rose and the lily, nor blessed the blossoms sweet: 
And she spake: 
“What ails thee, daughter, as one asleep to tread
O’er the grass of the merry summer and the daisies white and red? 
And to have no heart for the harp-play, or the needle’s mastery,
Where the gold and the silk are framing the Swans of the Goths on the
sea,
And helms and shields of warriors, and Kings on the hazelled isle? 
Why hast thou no more joyance on the damsels’ glee to smile? 
Why biddest thou not to the wild-wood with horse and hawk and hound? 
Why biddest thou not to the heathland and the eagle-haunted ground
To meet thy noble brethren as they ride from the mountain-road? 
Hast thou deemed the hall of the Niblungs a churlish poor abode? 
Wouldst thou wend away from thy kindred, and scorn thy fosterer’s
praise? 
—­Or is this the beginning of love and the first of the troublous
days?”

    Then spake the fair-armed Gudrun:  “Nay, nought I know of scorn
    For the noble kin of the Niblungs, or the house where I was born;
    No pain of love hath smit me, and no evil days begin,
    And I shall be fain tomorrow of the deeds that the maidens win: 
    But if I wend the summer in dull unlovely seeming,
    It comes of the night, O mother, and the tide of last night’s
      dreaming.”

    Then spake the ancient woman:  “Thy dream to me shalt thou show;
    Such oft foretell but the weather, and the airts whence the wind
      shall blow.”