She ceased, and no voice gave answer save the voice of smitten harps,
    As the hands of the music-weavers went o’er their golden warps;
    Then high o’er the warriors towering, as the king-leek o’er the grass,
    Out into the world of sunlight through the door those Brethren pass,
    And all the host of the warriors, the women’s silent woe,
    The steel and the feet soft-falling o’er the ancient threshold go,
    While all alone on the high-seat the god-born Grimhild sits: 
    There hearkeneth she steeds’ neighing, and the champing of the bits,
    And the clash of steel-clad champions, as at last they leap aloft,
    And cries and women’s weeping ’mid the music breathing soft;
    Then the clattering of the horse-hoofs, and the echo of the gate
    With the wakened sword-song singing o’er departure of the great,
    Till the many mingled voices are swallowed up and stilled,
    And all the air by seeming with an awful sound is filled,
    The cry of the Niblung trumpet, as men reach the unwalled space: 
    So whiles in a mighty city, and a many-peopled place,
    When the rain falls down ’mid the babble, nor ceaseth rattle of wheels,
    And with din of wedding joy-bells the minster steeple reels,
    Lo, God sends down his thunder, and all else is hushed as then,
    And it is as the world’s beginning, and before the birth of men.

    Long sitteth the god-born Grimhild till all is silent there,
    For afar down the meadows with the host all people fare;
    Then bitter groweth her visage, in the hush she crieth and saith: 

    “O ye—­whom then shall I cry on, ye that hunt my sons unto death,
    And overthrow our glory, and bring our labour to nought—­
    Ye Gods, ye had fashioned the greatest, and to make them greater I
      wrought,
    And to strengthen your hands for the battle, and uplift your hearts
      for the end: 
    But ye, ye have fashioned confusion, and the great with the little ye
      blend,
    Till no more on the earth shall be living the mighty that mock at your
      death,
    Till like the leaves men tremble, like the dry leaves quake at a
      breath. 
    I have wrought for your lives and your glory, and for this have I
      strengthened my guile,
    That the earth your hands uplifted might endure, nor pass in a while
    Like the clouds of latter morning that melt in the first of the night.”

    She rose up great and dreadful, and stood on the floor upright,
    And cast up her hands to the roof-tree, and cried aloud and said: 

    “Woe to you that have made me for nothing! for the house of the
      Niblungs is dead,
    Empty and dead as the desert, where the sun is idle and vain
    And no hope hath the dew to cherish, and no deed abideth the rain!”