In the deedless dark he rideth, and all things he remembers save one,
    And nought else hath he care to remember of all the deeds he hath done: 
    He hasteneth not nor stayeth; he lets the dark die out
    Ere he comes to the burg of Brynhild and rides it round about;
    And he lets the sun rise upward ere he rideth thence away,
    And wendeth he knoweth not whither, and he weareth down the day;
    Till lo, a plain and a river, and a ridge at the mountains’ feet
    With a burg of people builded for the lords of God-home meet. 
    O’er the bridge of the river he rideth, and unto the burg-gate comes
    In no lesser wise up-builded than the gate of the heavenly homes: 
    Himseems that the gate-wards know him, for they cry out each to each,
    And as whispering winds in the mountains he hears their far-off speech. 
    So he comes to the gate’s huge hollow, and amidst its twilight goes,
    And his horse is glad and remembers, and that road of King-folk knows;
    And the winds are astir in its arches with the sound of swords unseen,
    And the cries of kings departed, and the battles that have been.

    So into a garth of warriors from that dusk he rideth out
    And no man stayeth nor hindereth; there he gazeth round about,
    And seeth a glorious dwelling, a mighty far-famed place,
    As the last of the evening sunlight shines fair on his weary face;
    And there is a hall before him, and huge in the even it lies,
    A mountain grey and awful with the Dwarf-folk’s masteries: 
    And the houses of men cling round it, and low they seem and frail,
    Though the wise and the deft have built them for a long-enduring tale: 
    There the wind sings loud in the wall-nook, and the spears are sparks
      on the wall,
    And the swords are flaming torches as the sun is hard on his fall: 
    He falls, and the even dusketh o’er that sword-renowned close,
    But Sigurd bideth and broodeth for the Niblung house he knows,
    And he hath a thought within him that he rideth forth from shame,
    And that men have forgotten the greeting and are slow to remember his
      fame.

    But forth from the hall came a shouting, and the voice of many men,
    And he deemed they cried “Hail, Sigurd! thou art welcome home again!”
    Then he looked to the door of the feast-hall and behold it seemed to
      him
    That its wealth of graven stories with more than the dusk was dim;
    With the waving of white raiment and the doubtful gleam of gold. 
    Then there groweth a longing within him, nor his heart will he
      withhold;
    But he rideth straight to the doorway, and the stories of the door: 
    And there sitteth Giuki the ancient, the King, the wise of war,
    And Grimhild the kin of the God-folk, the wife of the glittering eyes;
    And there is the goodly Gunnar,