“Such oft betide,” saith Hogni, “as the lives of men flit by;
    But the evil day is a day, and on each day groweth a deed,
    And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful tale shall speed. 
    Lo now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass,
    Lest men say it, ’They loathed the evil and they brought the evil to
      pass.’”

    So they spake, and their hearts were heavy, and they longed for the
      morrow morn,
    And the morrow of tomorrow, and the new day yet to be born.

    But Brynhild cried to her maidens:  “Now open ark and chest,
    And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best,
    Red rings that the Dwarf-lords fashioned, fair cloths that queens have
      sewed,
    To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road.”

    They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear;
    But she laughed mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashioned
      fair: 
    She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan;
    As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone: 
    And they that stood about her, their hearts were raised aloft
    Amid their fear and wonder:  then she spake them kind and soft: 

    “Now give me the sword, O maidens, wherewith I sheared the wind
    When the Kings of Earth were gathered to know the Chooser’s mind.”

    All sheathed the maidens brought it, and feared the hidden blade,
    But the naked blue-white edges across her knees she laid,
    And spake:  “The heaped-up riches, the gear my fathers left,
    All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from battle reft,
    All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor,
    And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of Brynhild’s store.”

    They brought them mid their weeping, but none put forth a hand
    To take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land: 
    There they stand and weep before her, and some are moved to speech,
    And they cast their arms about her and strive with her, and beseech
    That she look on her loved-ones’ sorrow and the glory of the day. 
    It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands away
    And she said:  “Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the gold
    In remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old.”

    Then she spake:  “Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him? 
    For new things are mine eyes beholding and the Niblung house grows dim,
    And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speak
    When the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak.”