She falleth aback in the high seat, and the eagles cry from aloof,
    While Grimhild’s eyes wide-open stare up at the Niblung roof: 
    But they see not, nought are they doing to feed her fear or desire;
    And her heart, the forge of sorrow, dead, cold, is its baneful fire;
    And her cunning hand is helpless, for her hopeless soul is gone;
    Far off belike it drifteth from the waste her labour won.

    Fair now through midmost ocean King Gunnar’s dragons run,
    And the green hills round about them gleam glorious with the sun;
    The keels roll down the sea-dale, and welter up the steep,
    And o’er the brow hang quivering ere again they take the leap;
    For the west wind pipes behind them, and no land is on their lea,
    As the mightiest of earth’s peoples sails down the summer sea: 
    And as eager as the west-wind, no duller than the foam
    They spread all sails to the breezes, and seek their glory home: 
    Six days they sail the sea-flood, and the seventh dawn of day
    Up-heaveth a new country, a land far-off and grey;
    Then Knefrud biddeth heed it, and he saith:  “Lo, the Eastland shore,
    And the land few ships have sailed to, by the mirk-wood covered o’er.”

    Then riseth the cry and the shouting as the golden beaks they turn,
    For all hearts for the land of cities, and the hall of Atli yearn: 
    But a little after the noontide is the Niblung host embayed,
    And betwixt the sheltering nesses the ocean-wind is laid: 
    No whit they brook delaying:  but their noblest and their best
    Toss up the shaven oar-blades, and toil and mock at rest: 
    Full swift they skim the swan-mead till the tall masts quake and reel,
    And the oaken sea-burgs quiver from bulwark unto keel. 
    It is Gunnar goes the foremost with the tiller in his hand,
    And beside him standeth Knefrud and laughs on Atli’s land: 
    And so fair are the dragons driven, that by ending of the day
    On the beach by the ebb left naked the sea-beat keels they lay: 
    Then they look aloft from the foreshore, and lo, King Atli’s steeds
    On the brow of the mirk-wood standing, well dight for the warriors’
      needs,
    The red and the roan together, and the dapple-grey and the black;
    Nor bits nor silken bridles, nor golden cloths they lack,
    And the horse-lads of King Atli with that horse-array are blent,
    And their shout of salutation o’er the oozy sand is sent: 
    Then no more will the Niblungs tarry when they see that ready band
    But they leap adown from the long-ships, and waist-deep they wade the
      strand,
    And they in their armour of onset, beshielded, and sword by the side,
    E’en as men returning homeward to their loves and their friends that
      abide. 
    The first of all goeth Gunnar, and Hogni the wise cometh after,
    And wringeth the sea from his kirtle; and all men hearken his laughter,
    As his feet on the earth stand firm, and the sun in the west goeth
      down,
    And the Niblungs stand on the foreshore ’twixt the sea and the
      mirk-wood brown.