Till his heart hath heard her meaning at the golden bed he stares,
    And the last of the words she speaketh flit empty past his ears;
    For he knows that the tale of the night-tide hath been told and
      understood,
    And now of her shame was he deeming e’en worse than Brynhild would. 
    So he turns from her face and the chamber with his glory so undone,
    That he saith the Gods did evil when the mighty work they won,
    And wrought the Burg of the Niblungs, and fashioned his fathers’ days,
    And led them on to the harvest of the deeds and the people’s praise. 
    And nought he sees to amend it, save the hungry eyeless sword,
    And the war without hope or honour, and the strife without reward.

    So alone he goeth his ways, and the morn to the noontide falls,
    And the sun goeth down in the heavens, and fades from the Niblung
      walls,
    And the dusk and the dark draw over, and no man the King may see. 
    But Sigurd sits in the hall mid the war-dukes’ company: 
    Alone of the Kings in the Doom-ring, and the council of the wise,
    By the street and the wharf and the burg-gate he shines in the
      people’s eyes;
    Stately and lovely to look on he heareth of good and of ill,
    And he knitteth up and divideth, with life and death at his will.

    Of the exceeding great grief and mourning of Brynhild.

    Now the sun cometh up in the morning and shines o’er holt and heath,
    And the wall of the mighty mountains, and the sheep-fed slopes beneath,
    And the horse-fed plain and the river, and the acres of the wheat,
    And the herbs of bane and of healing, and the garden hedges sweet;
    It shines on the sea and the shepherd, and the husbandman’s desire;
    On the Niblung Burg it shineth and smiteth the vanes afire;
    And in Gudrun’s bower it shineth, and seeth small joy therein,
    For hushed the fair-clad maidens the work of women win;
    Then Gudrun looketh about her, and she saith: 
                                                  “Why sit ye so,
    That I hearken but creak of the loom-stock and the battens’ homeward
      blow? 
    Why is your joy departed and your sweet speech fallen dumb? 
    Are the Niblungs fled from the battle, is their war-host overcome? 
    Have the Norns given forth their shaming? have they fallen in the
      fight? 
    Yet the sun shines notwithstanding, and the world around is bright.”

    Then answered a noble woman, and the wise of maids was she: 
    “Thou knowest, O lovely lady, that nought of this may be;
    Yet with woe that the world shall hearken the glorious house is filled,
    On the hearth of all men hallowed the cup of joy is spilled. 
    —­A dread, an untimely hour, an exceeding evil day!”