For no meat there they linger, and they tarry for no sleep,
    But aloft to the golden saddles those Giuki’s children leap,
    And forth from the side of the sea-flood they ride the mirk-wood’s
      ways,
    Loud then is the voice of King Hogni and he sets forth Atli’s praise,
    As they ride through the night of the tree-boughs till the earthly
      night prevails,
    And along the desert sea-strand the wind of ocean wails.

    There none hath tethered the dragons, or inboard handled the oars,
    And the tide of the sea cometh creeping along the stranger-shores,
    Till those golden dragons are floated, and their unmanned oars awash
    In the sandy waves of the shallows, from stem to tiller clash: 
    Then setteth a wind from the shore, and the night is waxen a-cold,
    And seaward drift the long-ships with their raiment and vessels of
      gold,
    And their Gods with mastery carven:  and who knoweth the story to tell,
    If their wrack came ever to shoreward in some place where fishers
      dwell,
    Or sank in midmost ocean, and lay on the sea-floor wan
    Where the pale sea-goddess singeth o’er the bane of many a man?

    Atli speaketh with the Niblungs.

    Three days the Niblung warriors the ways of the mirk-wood ride
    Till they come to a land of cities and the peopled country-side,
    And the land’s-folk run from their labour, and the merchants throng
      the street
    And the lords of many a city the stranger kings would meet. 
    But nought will the Niblungs tarry; swift through Atli’s weal they
      wend,
    For their hearts are exceeding eager for their journey’s latter end. 
    Three days they ride that country, and many a city leave,
    But the fourth dawn mighty mountains by the inner sea upheave. 
    Then they ride a little further, and Atli’s burg they see
    With the feet of the mountains mingled above the flowery lea,
    And yet a little further, and lo, its long white wall,
    And its high-built guarded gateways, and its towers o’erhung and tall;
    And ever all along them the glittering spear-heads run,
    As the sparks of the white wood-ashes when the cooking-fire is done.

    Then they look to the right and the left hand, and see no folk astir,
    And no reek from the homestead chimneys; and no toil of men they hear: 
    But the hook hangs lone in the vineyard, and the scythe is lone in the
      hay,
    The bucket thirsts by the well-side, the void cart cumbers the way. 
    Then doubt on the war-host falleth, and they think:  Well were we then,
    When once we rode in the Westland and saw the brown-faced men
    Peer through the hawthorn hedges as the Niblung host went by. 
    Yet they laugh and make no semblance of any fear drawn nigh. 
    Yea, Knefrud looked upon them, and with chilly voice he spake: