And he hearkens Greyfell’s going as he wends adown the lea,
    And his heart for love is craving, and the deeds he deems shall be;
    And he hears the Wrath’s sheath tinkling as he rides the daisies down
    And he thinks of his love laid safely in the arms of his renown. 
    But lo, as he rides the meadows, before him now he sees
    A builded burg arising amid the leafy trees,
    And a white-walled house on its topmost with a golden roof-ridge done,
    And thereon the clustering dove-kind in the brightness of the sun. 
    So Sigurd stayed to behold it, for the heart within him laughed,
    But e’en then, as the arrow speedeth from the mighty archer’s draught,
    Forth fled the falcon unhooded from the hand of Sigurd the King,
    And up, and over the tree-boughs he shot with steady wing: 
    Then the Volsung followed his flight, for he looked to see him fall
    On the fluttering folk of the doves, and he cried the backward call
    Full oft and over again; but the falcon heeded it nought,
    Nor turned to his kingly wrist-perch, nor the folk of the pigeons
      sought,
    But flew up to a high-built tower, and sat in the window a space,
    Crying out like the fowl of Odin when the first of the morning they
      face,
    And then passed through the open casement as an erne to his eyrie goes.

    Much marvelled the Son of Sigmund, and rode to the fruitful close: 
    For he said:  Here a great one dwelleth, though none have told me
      thereof,
    And he shall give me my falcon, and his fellowship and love. 
    So he came to the gate of the garth, and forth to the hall-door rode,
    And leapt adown from Greyfell, and entered that fair abode;
    For full lovely was it fashioned, and great was the pillared hall,
    And fair in its hangings were woven the deeds that Kings befall,
    And the merry sun went through it and gleamed in gold and horn;
    But afield or a-fell are its carles, and none labour there that morn,
    And void it is of the maidens, and they weave in the bower aloft,
    Or they go in the outer gardens ’twixt the rose and the lily soft: 
    So saith Sigurd the Volsung, and a door in the corner he spies
    With knots of gold fair-carven, and the graver’s masteries: 
    So he lifts the latch and it opens, and he comes to a marble stair,
    And aloft by the same he goeth through a tower wrought full fair. 
    And he comes to a door at its topmost, and lo, a chamber of Kings,
    And his falcon there by the window with all unruffled wings.

    But a woman sits on the high-seat with gold about her head,
    And ruddy rings on her arms, and the grace of her girdle-stead;
    And sunlit is her rippled linen, and the green leaves lie at her feet,
    And e’en as a swan on the billow where the firth and the out-sea meet. 
    On the dark-blue cloths she