“I woke, and I wept,” said Gudrun, “for the dear thing I had loved: 
    Then I slept, and again as aforetime were the gates of the dream-hall
      moved,
    And I went in the land of shadows; and lo I was crowned as a queen,
    And I sat in the summer-season amidst my garden green;
    And there came a hart from the forest, and in noble wise he went,
    And bold he was to look on, and of fashion excellent
    Before all beasts of the wild-wood; and fair gleamed that glorious-one,
    And upreared his shining antlers against the very sun. 
    So he came unto me and I loved him, and his head lay kind on my knees,
    And fair methought the summer, and a time of utter peace. 
    Then darkened all the heavens and dreary grew the tide,
    And medreamed that a queen I knew not was sitting by my side,
    And from out of the din and the darkness, a hand and an arm there came,
    And a golden sleeve was upon it, and red rings of the Queen-folk’s
      fame: 
    And the hand was the hand of a woman:  and there came a sword and a
      thrust
    And the blood of the lovely wood-deer went wide about the dust. 
    Then I cried aloud in my sorrow, and lo, in the wood I was,
    And all around and about me did the kin of the wild-wolves pass. 
    And I called them friends and kindred, and upreared a battle-brand,
    And cried out in a tongue that I knew not, and red and wet was my hand. 
    Lo now, the dream I have told thee, and nought have I held aback. 
    O Brynhild, what wilt thou tell me of treason and murder and wrack?”

    Long Brynhild stood and pondered and weary-wise was her face,
    And she gazed as one who sleepeth, till thus she spake in a space: 
    “One dream in twain hast thou told, and I see what I saw e’en now,
    But beyond is nought but the darkness and the measureless midnight’s
      flow: 
    Thy dream is all areded; I may tell thee nothing more: 
    Thou shalt live and love and lose, and mingle in murder and war. 
    Is it strange, O child of the Niblungs, that thy glory and thy pain
    Must be blent with the battle’s darkness and the unseen hurrying bane? 
    Do ye, of all folk on the earth, pray God for the changeless peace,
    And not for the battle triumphant and the fruit of fame’s increase? 
    For the rest, thou mayst not be lonely in thy welfare or thy woe,
    But hearts with thine heart shall be tangled:  but the queen and the
      hand thou shalt know. 
    When we twain are wise together; thou shalt know of the sword and the
      wood,
    Thou shalt know of the wild-wolves’ howling and thy right-hand wet
      with blood,
    When the day of the smith is ended, and the stithy’s fire dies out,
    And the work of the master of masters through the feast-hall goeth
      about.”

    They stand apart by the high-seat, and each on each they gaze
    As though they forgat the summer, and the tide of the passing days,
    And abode the deeds unborn and the Kings’ deaths yet to be,
    As the merchant bideth deedless the gold in his ships on the sea.