Then a red flush riseth against him in the face ne’er seen before,
    Save dimly in the mirror or the burnished targe of war,
    And the foster-brethren sunder, and the clasped hands fall apart;
    But a change cometh over Sigurd, and the fierce pride leaps in his
      heart;
    He knoweth the soul of Gunnar, and the shaping of his mind;
    He seeketh the words of Sigurd, and Gunnar’s voice doth he find,
    As he cries:  “I know thy bidding; let the world be lief or loth,
    The child is unborn that shall hearken how Sigurd rued his oath! 
    Well fare thou brother Gunnar! what deed shall I do this eve
    That I shall never repent of, that thine heart shall never grieve? 
    What deed shall I do this even that none else may bring to the birth,
    Nay, not the King of the Niblungs, and the lord of the best of the
      earth?”

    The flames rolled up to the heavens, and the stars behind were bright,
    Dark Hogni sat on his war-steed, and stared out into the night,
    And there stood Gunnar the King in Sigurd’s semblance wrapped,
    —­As Sigurd walking in slumber, for in Grimhild’s guile was he lapped,
    That his heart forgat his glory, and the ways of Odin’s lords,
    And the thought was frozen within him, and the might of spoken words.

    But Sigurd leapeth on Greyfell, and the sword in his hand is bare,
    And the gold spurs flame on his heels, and the fire-blast lifteth his
      hair;
    Forth Greyfell bounds rejoicing, and they see the grey wax red,
    As unheard the war-gear clasheth, and the flames meet over his head,
    Yet a while they see him riding, as through the rye men ride,
    When the word goes forth in the summer of the kings by the ocean-side;
    But the fires were slaked before him and the wild-fire burned no more
    Than the ford of the summer waters when the rainy time is o’er.

    Not once turned Sigurd aback, nor looked o’er the ashy ring,
    To the midnight wilderness drear and the spell-drenched Niblung King: 
    But he stayed and looked before him, and lo, a house high-built
    With its roof of the red gold beaten, and its wall-stones over-gilt: 
    So he leapt adown from Greyfell, and came to that fair abode,
    And dark in the gear of the Niblungs through the gleaming door he
      strode: 
    All light within was that dwelling, and a marvellous hall it was,
    But of gold were its hangings woven, and its pillars gleaming as glass,
    And Sigurd said in his heart, it was wrought erewhile for a God: 
    But he looked athwart and endlong as alone its floor he trod,
    And lo, on the height of the dais is upreared a graven throne,
    And thereon a woman sitting in the golden place alone;
    Her face is fair and awful, and a gold crown girdeth her head;
    And a sword of the kings she