“O wise-heart Hogni,” said Grimhild, “wilt thou strive with the hand
      of fate,
    And thrust back the hand of Odin that the Niblung glory will crown? 
    Wert thou born in a cot-carle’s chamber, or the bed of a King’s
      renown?”

    “I know not, I know not,” said Hogni, “but an unsure bridge is the sea,
    And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me. 
    I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,
    And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe.”

    They spake no word before him; but he said:  “I see the road;
    I see the ways we must journey—­I have long cast off the load,
    The burden of men’s bearing wherein they needs must bind
    All-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind: 
    So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforth
    Shall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale of the Niblung worth.”

    Therewith he went out from before them, and through chamber and hall
      he cried
    On the best of the Niblung earl-folk, for that now the Kings would
      ride: 
    Soon are all men assembled, and their shields are fresh and bright,
    Nor gold their raiment lacketh; then the strong-necked steeds they
      dight,
    They dight the wain for Grimhild, and she goeth up therein,
    And the well-clad girded maidens have left the work they win,
    To sit by the Mother of Kings and make her glory great: 
    Then to horse get the Kings of the Niblungs, and ride out by the
      ancient gate;
    And amidst its dusky hollows stir up the sound of swords: 
    Forth then from the hallowed houses ride on those war-fain lords,
    Till they come to the dales deserted, and the woodland waste and drear;
    There the wood-wolves shrink before them, fast flee the forest-deer,
    And the stony wood-ways clatter as the Niblung host goes by. 
    Adown by the feet of the mountains that eve in sleep they lie,
    And arise on the morrow-morning and climb the mountain-pass,
    And the sunless hollow places, and the slopes that hate the grass. 
    So they cross the hither ridges and ride a stony bent
    Adown to the dale of Thora, and the country of content;
    By the homes of a simple people, by cot and close they go,
    Till they come to Thora’s dwelling; but fair it stands and low
    Amidst of orchard-closes, and round about men win
    Fair work in field and garden, and sweet are the sounds therein.

    Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he stands
    To hearken the women’s voices and the sound of their labouring hands;
    And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears,
    The speech of his sister Gudrun:  his inmost heart it stirs,
    And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hall
    He stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.