They are gone—the
lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth:
It shall labour and bear the
burden as before that day of their birth:
It shall groan in its blind
abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped,
And the hour that Brynhild
hath hastened, and the dawn that waketh the
dead:
It shall yearn, and be oft-times
holpen, and forget their deeds no
more,
Till the new sun beams on
Baldur, and the happy sealess shore.
BOOK IV.
GUDRUN.
HEREIN IS TOLD OF THE
DAYS OF THE NIBLUNGS AFTER THEY SLEW SIGURD,
AND OF THEIR WOEFUL
NEED AND FALL IN THE HOUSE OF KING ATLI.
King Atli wooeth and weddeth Gudrun.
Hear now of those Niblung
war-kings, how in glorious state they dwell;
They do and undo at their
pleasure and wear their life-days well;
They deal out doom to the
people, and their hosts of war array,
Nor storm nor wind nor winter
their eager swords shall stay:
They ride the lealand highways,
they ride the desert plain,
They cry out kind to the Sea-god
and loose the wave-steed’s rein:
They climb the unmeasured
mountains, and gleam on the world beneath,
And their swords are the blinding
lightning, and their shields are the
shadow of death:
When men tell of the lords
of the Goth-folk, of the Niblungs is their
word,
All folk in the round world’s
compass of their mighty fame have heard:
They are lords of the Ransom
of Odin, the uncounted sea-born Gold,
The Grief of the wise Andvari,
the Death of the Dwarfs of old,
The gleaming Load of Greyfell,
the ancient Serpent’s Bed,
The store of the days forgotten,
by the dead heaped up for the dead.
Lo, such are the Kings of
the Niblungs, but yet they crave and desire
Lest the world hold greater
than they, lest the Gods and their kindred
be higher.
Fair, bright is their hall
in the even; still up to the cloudy roof
There goeth the glee and the
singing while the eagles chatter aloof,
And the Gods on the hangings
waver in the doubtful wind of night;
Still fair are the linen-clad
damsels, still are the war-dukes bright;
Men come and go in the even;
men come and go in the morn;
Good tidings with the daybreak,
fair fame with the glooming is born:
—But no tidings
of Sigurd and Brynhild, and whoso remembereth their
days
Turns back to the toil or
the laughter from his words of lamenting or
praise,
Turns back to the glorious
Gunnar, casts hope on the Niblung name,
Doeth deeds from the morn
to the even, and beareth no burden of shame.