But the slaves of the Kings are gathered, and their host the battle
      abides,
    And forth in the front of the Niblungs the golden Sigurd rides;
    And Gunnar smites on his right hand, and Hogni smites on the left,
    And glad is the heart of Guttorm, and the Southland host is cleft
    As the grey bill reapeth the willows in the autumn of the year,
    When the fish lie still in the eddies, and the rain-flood draweth
      anear.

    Now sheathed is the Wrath of Sigurd; for as wax withstands the flame,
    So the Kings of the land withstood him and the glory of his fame. 
    And before the grass is growing, or the kine have fared from the stall,
    The song of the fair-speech-masters goes up in the Niblung hall,
    And they sing of the golden Sigurd and the face without a foe,
    And the lowly man exalted and the mighty brought alow: 
    And they say, when the sun of summer shall come aback to the land,
    It shall shine on the fields of the tiller that fears no heavy hand;
    That the sheaf shall be for the plougher, and the loaf for him that
      sowed,
    Through every furrowed acre where the Son of Sigmund rode.

    Full dear was Sigurd the Volsung to all men most and least,
    And now, as the spring drew onward, ’twas deemed a goodly feast
    For the acre-biders’ children by the Niblung Burg to wait,
    If perchance the Son of Sigmund should ride abroad by the gate: 
    For whosoever feared him, no little-one, forsooth,
    Would shrink from the shining eyes and the hand that clave out truth
    From the heart of the wrack and the battle:  it was then, as his gold
      gear burned
    O’er the balks of the bridge and the river, that oft the mother turned,
    And spake to the laughing baby:  “O little son, and dear,
    When I from the world am departed, and whiles a-nights ye hear
    The best of man-folk longing for the least of Sigurd’s days,
    Thou shalt hearken to their story, till they tell forth all his praise,
    And become beloved and a wonder, as thou sayest when all is sung,
    ‘And I too once beheld him in the days when I was young.’”

    Men say that the white-armed Gudrun, the lovely Giuki’s child,
    Looked long on Sigurd’s visage in the winter weather wild
    On the eve of the Kings’ departure; and she bore him wine and spake: 
    “Thou goest to the war, O Sigurd, for the Niblung brethren’s sake;
    And so women send their kindred on many a doubtful tide,
    And dead full oft on the death-field shall the hope of their lives
      abide;
    Nor must they fear beforehand, nor weep when all is o’er;
    But thou, our guest and our stranger, thou goest to the war,
    And who knows but thine hand may carry the hope of all the earth;
    Now therefore if thou deemest that my prayer be aught of worth,
    Nor wilt scorn the child of a Niblung that prays for things to come,
    Pledge me for thy glad returning, and the sheaves of fame borne home!”