His kind arms clung about her, and her face to his face he drew;
    “The life of the kings have I conquered, but this is strange and new;
    And from out the heart of the striving a lovelier thing is born,
    And the love of my love is sweeter and these hours before the morn.”

    Again she trembled before him and knew not what she feared,
    And her heart alone, unhidden, deemed her love too greatly dared;
    But the very body of Sigurd, the wonder of all men,
    Cast cherishing arms about her, and kissed her mouth again,
    And in love her whole heart melted, and all thought passed away,
    Save the thought of joy’s fulfilment and the hours before the day;
    She murmured words of loving as his kind lips cherished her breast,
    And the world waxed nought but lovely and a place of infinite rest.

    But it was long thereafter ere the sun rose o’er their love,
    And lit the world of autumn and the pale sky hung above;
    And it stirred the Gods in the heavens, and the Kings of the Goths it
      stirred,
    Till the sound of the world awakening in their latter dreams they
      heard;
    And over the Burg of the Niblungs the day spread fair and fresh
    O’er the hopes of the ancient people and those twain become one flesh.

    Sigurd rideth with the Niblungs, and wooeth Brynhild for King
    Gunnar.

    Now it fell on a day of the spring-tide that followed on these things,
    That Sigurd fares to the meadows with Gunnar and Hogni the Kings;
    For afar is Guttorm the youngest, and he sails the Eastern Seas,
    And fares with war-shield hoisted to win him fame’s increase. 
    So come the Kings to the Doom-ring, and the people’s Hallowed Field,
    And no dwelling of man is anigh it, and no acre forced to yield;
    There stay those Kings of the people alone in weed of war,
    And they cut a strip of the greensward on the meadow’s daisied floor,
    And loosen it clean in the midst, while its ends in the earth abide;
    Then they heave its midmost aloft, and set on either side
    An ancient spear of battle writ round with words of worth;
    And these are the posts of the door, whose threshold is of the earth
    And the skin of the earth is its lintel:  but with war-glaives gleaming
      bare
    The Niblung Kings and Sigurd beneath the earth-yoke fare;
    Then each an arm-vein openeth, and their blended blood falls down
    On Earth the fruitful Mother where they rent her turfy gown: 
    And then, when the blood of the Volsungs hath run with the Niblung
      blood,
    They kneel with their hands upon it and swear the brotherhood: 
    Each man at his brother’s bidding to come with the blade in his hand,
    Though the fire and the flood should sunder, and the very Gods
      withstand: 
    Each man to love and cherish