So now, when all things were ready, in the first of the autumn tide
    Adown unto the swan-bath the Volsung Children ride;
    And lightly go a shipboard, a goodly company,
    Though the tale thereof be scanty and their ships no more than three: 
    But kings’ sons dealt with the sail-sheets and earls and dukes of war
    Were the halers of the hawsers and the tuggers at the oar. 
    So they drew the bridges shipward, and left the land behind,
    And fair astern of the longships sprang up a following wind;
    So swift o’er AEgir’s acre those mighty sailors ran,
    And speedier than all other ploughed down the furrows wan. 
    And they came to the land of the Goth-folk on the even of a day;
    And lo by the inmost skerry a skiff with a sail of grey
    That as they neared the foreshore ran Volsung’s ship aboard,
    And there was come white-hand Signy with her latest warning word.

    “O strange,” she said, “meseemeth, O sweet, your gear to see,
    And the well-loved Volsung faces, and the hands that cherished me. 
    But short is the time that is left me for the work I have to win,
    Though nought it be but the speaking of a word ere the worst begin. 
    For that which I spake aforetime, the seed of a boding drear,
    It hath sprung, it hath blossomed and born rank harvest of the spear;
    Siggeir hath dight the death-snare; he hath spread the shielded net. 
    But ye come ere the hour appointed, and he looks not to meet you yet. 
    Now blest be the wind that wafted your sails here over-soon,
    For thus have I won me seaward ’twixt the twilight and the moon,
    To pray you for all the world’s sake turn back from the murderous
      shore. 
    —­Ah take me hence, my father, to see my land once more!”

    Then sweetly Volsung kissed her:  “Woe am I for thy sake,
    But earth the word hath hearkened, that yet unborn I spake;
    How I ne’er would turn me backward from the sword or the fire of bale;
    —­I have held that word till today, and today shall I change the tale? 
    And look on these thy brethren, how goodly and great are they,
    Wouldst thou have the maidens mock them, when this pain hath past away
    And they sit at the feast hereafter, that they feared the deadly
      stroke? 
    Let us do our day’s work deftly for the praise and the glory of folk;
    And if the Norns will have it that the Volsung kin shall fail,
    Yet I know of the deed that dies not, and the name that shall ever
      avail.”

    But she wept as one sick-hearted:  “Woe’s me for the hope of the morn! 
    Yet send me not back unto Siggeir and the evil days and the scorn: 
    Let me bide the death as ye bide it, and let a woman feel
    That hope of the death of battle and the rest of the foeman’s steel.”