But he looked to the right and the left, and he knew there was ruin
      and lack,
    And the death of yestereven, and the days that should never come back;
    And he strove, but nought he remembered of the matters that he would,
    Save that great was the flood of sorrow that had drowned his days of
      good: 
    Then he deemed that the sons of the earl-folk, e’en mid their praising
      word,
    Were looking on his trouble as a people sore afeard;
    And the gifts that the Gods had given the pride in his soul awoke,
    And kindled was Sigurd’s kindness by the trouble of the folk;
    And he thought:  I shall do and undo, as while agone I did,
    And abide the time of the dawning, when the night shall be no more hid! 
    Then he lifted his head like a king, and his brow as a God’s was clear,
    And the trouble fell from the people, and they cast aside their fear;
    And scarce was his glory abated as he sat in the seat of the Kings
    With the Niblung brethren about him, and they spake of famous things,
    And the dealings of lords of the earth; but he spake and answered again
    And thrust by the grief of forgetting, and his tangled thought and
      vain,
    And cast his care on the morrow, that the people might be glad. 
    Yet no smile there came to Sigurd, and his lips no laughter had;
    But he seemeth a king o’er-mighty, who hath won the earthly crown,
    In whose hand the world is lying, who no more heedeth renown.

    But now speaketh Grimhild the Queen:  “Rise, daughter of my folk,
    For thou seest my son is weary with the weight of the careful yoke;
    Go, bear him the wine of the Kings, and hail him over the gold,
    And bless the King for his coming to the heart of the Niblung fold.”

    Upriseth the white-armed Gudrun, and taketh the cup in her hand;
    Dead-pale in the night of her tresses by Sigurd doth she stand,
    And strives with the thought within her, and finds no word to speak: 
    For such is the strength of her anguish, as well might slay the weak;
    But her heart is a heart of the Queen-folk and of them that bear
      earth’s kings,
    And her love of her lord seems lovely, though sore the torment wrings,
    —­How fares it with words unspoken, when men are great enow,
    And forth from the good to the good the strong desires shall flow? 
    Are they wasted e’en as the winds, the barren maids of the sky,
    Of whose birth there is no man wotteth, nor whitherward they fly?

    Lo, Sigurd lifteth his eyes, and he sees her silent and pale,
    But fair as Odin’s Choosers in the slain kings’ wakening dale,
    But sweet as the mid-fell’s dawning ere the grass beginneth to move;
    And he knows in an instant of time that she stands ’twixt death and
      love,
    And that no man, none of the