At last spake the all-wise Brynhild:  “Now night is beginning to fade,
    Fair-hung is the chamber of Kings, and the bridal bed is arrayed.”

    He rose and looked upon her:  as the moon at her utmost height,
    So pale was the visage of Brynhild, and her eyes as cold and bright: 
    Yet he stayed, nor stirred from the high-seat, but strove with the
      words for a space,
    Till she took the hand of the King and led him down from his place,
    And forth from the hall she led him to the chamber wrought for her
      love;
    The fairest chamber of earth, gold-wrought below and above,
    And hung were the walls fair-builded with the Gods and the kings of
      the earth
    And the deeds that were done aforetime, and the coming deeds of worth. 
    There they went in one bed together; but the foster-brother laid
    ’Twixt him and the body of Brynhild his bright blue battle-blade,
    And she looked and heeded it nothing; but e’en as the dead folk lie,
    With folded hands she lay there, and let the night go by: 
    And as still lay that Image of Gunnar as the dead of life forlorn,
    And hand on hand he folded as he waited for the morn. 
    So oft in the moonlit minster your fathers may ye see
    By the side of the ancient mothers await the day to be. 
    Thus they lay as brother by sister—­and e’en such had they been to
      behold,
    Had he borne the Volsung’s semblance and the shape she knew of old.

    Night hushed as the moon fell downward, and there came the leaden sleep
    And weighed down the head of the War-King, that he lay in slumber deep,
    And forgat today and tomorrow, and forgotten yesterday;
    Till he woke in the dawn and the daylight, and the sun on the gold
      floor lay,
    And Brynhild wakened beside him, and she lay with folded hands
    By the edges forged of Regin and the wonder of the lands,
    The Light that had lain in the Branstock, the hope of the Volsung Tree,
    The Sunderer, the Deliverer, the torch of days to be: 
    Then he strove to remember the night and what deeds had come to pass,
    And what deeds he should do hereafter, and what manner of man he was;
    For there in the golden chamber lay the dark unwonted gear,
    And beside his cheek on the pillow were long locks of the raven hair: 
    But at last he remembered the even and the deed he came to do,
    And he turned and spake to Brynhild as he rose from the bolster blue: 

    “I give thee thanks, fair woman, for the wedding-troth fulfilled;
    I have come where the Norns have led me, and done as the high Gods
      willed: 
    But now give we the gifts of the morning, for I needs must depart to
      my men
    And look on the Niblung children, and rule o’er the people again. 
    But I thank thee well for thy greeting, and thy glory that I have seen,