in their mighty life rejoice. 
    Glad then grows the King of the people, and the sweetness filleth his
      heart,
    And he turneth about a little, and speaketh to Knefrud apart: 
    “What sayest thou, lord of the Eastland, how with Gudrun’s heart it
      fares? 
    Is she sunk in the day of dominion and the burden that it bears,
    Or remembereth she her brethren and her father and her folk?”

    Then Knefrud looked upon Gunnar, and forth from the teeth he spoke: 
    “It is e’en as I said, King Gunnar:  all eves she stands by the gate
    The coming of her kindred through the dusky tide to wait: 
    Each day in the dawn she ariseth, and saith the time is at hand
    When the feet of the Niblung War-Kings shall tread King Atli’s land: 
    Then she praiseth the wings of the dove, and the wings of the
      wayfaring crane
    ’Gainst whom the wind prevails not, and the tempest driveth in vain;
    And she praiseth the waves of the ocean, how they toil and toil and
      blend,
    Till they break on the strand beloved, and the Niblung earth in the
      end.”

    He spake, and the song rose upward and the wine of Kings was poured,
    And Gunnar heard in the wall-nook how the wind went forth abroad,
    And he dreamed, and beheld the ocean, and all kingdoms of the earth,
    And the world lay fair before him and his worship and his worth.

    Then again spake the Eastland liar:  “O King, I may not hide
    That great things in the land of Atli thy mighty soul abide;
    For the King is spent and war-weak, nor rejoiceth more in strife;
    And his sons, the children of Gudrun, now look their first on life: 
    For this end meseems is his bidding, that no worser men than ye
    May sit in the throne of Atli and the place where he wont to be.”

    In the tuneful hall of the Niblungs that Eastland liar spake,
    And he heard the song of the mighty o’er Gunnar’s musing break,
    And his cold heart gladdened within him as man cried out to man,
    And fair ’twixt horn and beaker the red wine bubbled and ran.

    At last spake Gunnar the Niblung as his hand on the cup he laid: 
    “A great king craveth our coming, and no more shall he be gainsayed: 
    We will go to look on Atli, though the Gods and the Goths forbid;
    Nought worse than death meseemeth on the Niblungs’ path is hid,
    And this shall the high Gods see to, but I to the Niblung name,
    And the day of deeds to accomplish, and the gathering-in of fame.”

    Up he stood with the bowl in his right-hand, and mighty and great he
      was,
    And he cried:  “Now let the beakers adown the benches pass;
    Let us drink dear draughts and glorious, though the last farewell it
      be,
    And this draught that I drink have sundered my father’s house and me.”