and rejoice in his majesty. 
    For the will of the Norns is accomplished, and outworn is Grimhild’s
      spell,
    And nought now shall blind or help him, and the tale shall be to tell: 
    He hath seen the face of Brynhild, and he knows why she hath come,
    And that his is the hand that hath drawn her to the Cloudy People’s
      home: 
    He knows of the net of the days, and the deeds that the Gods have bid,
    And no whit of the sorrow that shall be from his wakened soul is hid: 
    And his glory his heart restraineth, and restraineth the hand of the
      strong
    From the hope of the fools of desire and the wrong that amendeth wrong;
    And he seeth the ways of the burden till the last of the uttermost end. 
    But for all the measureless anguish, and the woe that nought may amend,
    His heart speeds back to Hindfell, and the dawn of the wakening day;
    And the hours betwixt are as nothing, and their deeds are fallen away
    As he looks on the face of Brynhild; and nought is the Niblung folk,
    But they two are again together, and he speaketh the words he spoke,
    When he swore the love that endureth, and the truth that knoweth not
      change;
    And Brynhild’s face drew near him with eyes grown stern and strange. 
    —­Lo, such is the high Gods’ sorrow, and men know nought thereof,
    Who cry out o’er their undoing, and wail o’er broken love. 
    Now she stands on the floor of the high-seat, and for e’en so little
      a space
    As men may note delaying, she looketh on Sigurd’s face,
    Ere she saith: 
                  “I have greeted many in the Niblungs’ house today,
    And for thee is the last of my greetings ere the feast shall wear away: 
    Hail, Sigurd, son of the Volsungs! hail, lord of Odin’s storm! 
    Hail, rider of the wasteland and slayer of the Worm! 
    If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth,
    I pray that thou mayst win it, nor forget its might and worth.”

All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew,
But gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall he answer
thereto,
While the death that amendeth lingers? and they twain shall dwell for
awhile
In the Niblung house together by the hearth that forged the guile;
Yet amid the good and the guileless, and the love that thought no
wrong,
Shall they fashion the deeds to remember, and the fame that endureth
for long: 
And oft shall he look on Brynhild, and oft her words shall he hear,
And no hope and no beseeching in his inmost heart shall stir. 
So he spake as a King of the people in whom all fear is dead,
And his anguish no man noted, as the greeting-words he said: 

    “Hail, fairest of all things fashioned! hail, thou desire of eyes! 
    Hail, chooser of the mightiest, and teacher of the wise! 
    Hail, wife of my brother Gunnar! in might may thy days endure,
    And in peace without a trouble that the world’s weal may be sure!”