sitteth, so fair and softly made
    Are her limbs by the linen hidden, and so white is she arrayed. 
    But a web of gold is before her, and therein by her shuttle wrought
    The early days of the Volsungs and the war by the sea’s rim fought,
    And the crowned queen over Sigmund, and the Helper’s pillared hall,
    And the golden babe uplifted to the eyes of duke and thrall;
    And there was the slender stripling by the knees of the Dwarf-folk’s
      lord,
    And the gift of the ancient Gripir, and the forging of the Sword;
    And there were the coils of Fafnir, and the hooded threat of death,
    And the King by the cooking-fire, and the fowl of the Glittering Heath;
    And there was the headless King-smith and the golden halls of the Worm,
    And the laden Greyfell faring through the land of perished storm;
    And there was the head of Hindfell, and the flames to the sky-floor
      driven;
    And there was the glittering shield-burg, and the fallow bondage riven;
    And there was the wakening woman and the golden Volsung done,
    And they twain o’er the earthly kingdoms in the lonely evening sun: 
    And there were fells and forests, and towns and tossing seas,
    And the Wrath and the golden Sigurd for ever blent with these,
    In the midst of the battle triumphant, in the midst of the war-kings’
      fall,
    In the midst of the peace well-conquered, in the midst of the praising
      hall.

    There Sigurd stood and marvelled, for he saw his deeds that had been,
    And his deeds of the days that should be, fair wrought in the golden
      sheen: 
    And he looked in the face of the woman, and Brynhild’s eyes he knew,
    But still in the door he tarried, and so glad and fair he grew,
    That the Gods laughed out in the heavens to see the Volsung’s seed;
    And the breeze blew in from the summer and over Brynhild’s weed,
    Till his heart so swelled with the sweetness that the fair word stayed
      in his mouth,
    And a marvel beloved he seemeth, as a ship new-come from the south: 
    And still she longed and beheld him, nor foot nor hand she moved
    As she marvelled at her gladness, and her love so well beloved. 
    But at last through the sounds of summer the voice of Sigurd came,
    And it seemed as a silver trumpet from the house of the fateful fame;
    And he spake:  “Hail, lady and queen! hail, fairest of all the earth! 
    Is it well with the hap of thy life-days, and thy kin and the house of
      thy birth?”

    She said:  “My kin is joyous, and my house is blooming fair,
    And dead, both root and branches, is the tree of their travail and
      care.”

    He spake:  “I have longed, I have wondered if thy heart were well at
      ease,
    If the hope of thy days had blossomed and born thee fair increase.”