Far off in a bight of the mountains by the inner sea it stands,
    Turned away from the house of Gudrun, and her kindred and their lands. 
    Then to right and to left looked Gudrun and beheld the outland folk,
    With no love nor hate nor wonder, as out from the teeth she spoke
    To that unfamiliar people that had seen not Sigurd’s face. 
    There she saw the walls most mighty as they came to the fenced place: 
    But lo, by the gate of the city and the entering in of the street
    Is an host exceeding glorious, for the King his bride will greet: 
    So Gudrun stayeth her fellows, and lighteth down from the wain,
    And afoot cometh Atli to meet hers and they meet in the midst, they
      twain,
    And he casteth his arms about her as a great man glad at heart;
    Nought she smiles, nor her brow is knitted as she draweth aback and
      apart,
    No man could say who beheld her if sorry or glad she were;
    But her steady eyes are beholding the King and the Eastland’s Fear,
    And she thinks:  Have I lived too long? how swift doth the world grow
      worse,
    Though it was but a little season that I slept, forgetting the curse!

    But the King speaks kingly unto her and they pass forth under the gate,
    And she sees he is rich and mighty, though the Niblung folk be great;
    So strong is his house upbuilded, so many are his lords,
    So great the hosts for the murder and the meeting of the swords;
    And she saith:  It is surely enough and no further now shall I wend;
    In this house, in the house of a stranger shall be the tale and the
      end.

    Atli biddeth the Niblungs to him.

    There now is Gudrun abiding, and gone by is the bloom of her youth,
    And she dwells with a folk untrusty, and a King that knows not ruth: 
    Great are his gains in the world, and few men may his might withstand,
    But he weigheth sore on his people and cumbers the hope of his land;
    He craves as the sea-flood craveth, he gripes as the dying hour,
    All folk lie faint before him as he seeketh a soul to devour: 
    Like breedeth like in his house, and venom, and guile, and the knife
    Oft lie ’twixt brother and brother, and the son and the father’s life: 
    As dogs doth Gudrun heed them, and looks with steadfast eyes
    On the guile and base contention, and the strife of murder and lies.

    So pass the days and the moons, and the seasons wend on their ways,
    And there as a woman alone she sits mid the glory and praise: 
    There oft in the hall she sitteth, and as empty images
    Are grown the shapes of the strangers, till her fathers’ hall she sees: 
    Void then seems the throne of the King, and no man sits by her side
    In the house of the Cloudy People and the place of her brethren’s
      pride;