So he spake and Atli beheld him, and before his eyes he shrank: 
    Still deep of the cup of desire the mighty Atli drank,
    And to overcome seemed little if the Gold he might not have,
    And his hard heart craved for a while to hold the King for a slave,
    A bondman blind and guarded in his glorious house and great: 
    But he thought of the overbold, and of kings who have dallied with
      fate,
    And died bemocked and smitten; and he deemed it worser than well
    While the last of the sons of Giuki hangeth back from his journey to
      Hell: 
    So he turneth away from the stranger, and beholdeth Gudrun his wife,
    Not glad nor sorry by seeming, no stirrer nor stayer of strife: 
    Then he looked at his living earl-folk, and thought of his groves of
      war,
    And his realm and the kindred nations, and his measureless guarded
      store: 
    And he thought:  Shall Atli perish, shall his name be cast to the dead,
    Though the feeble folk go wailing?  Then he cried aloud and said: 

    “Why tarry ye, Sons of the Morning? the wain for the bondman is dight;
    And the folk that are waiting his body have need of no sunshine to
      smite. 
    Go forth ’neath the stars and the night-wind; go forth by the cloud and
      the moon,
    And come back with the word in the dawning, that my house may be merry
      at noon!”

    Then the sword-folk rise round Gunnar, round the fettered and bound
      they throng,
    As men in the bitter battle round the God-kin over-strong;
    They bore him away to the doorway, and the winds were awake in the
      night,
    And the wood of the thorns of battle in the moon shone sharp and
      bright;
    But Gunnar looked to the heavens, and blessed the promise of rain,
    And the windy drift of the clouds, and the dew on the builded wain: 
    And the sword-folk tarried a little, and the sons of the wise were
      there,
    And beheld his face o’er the war-helms, and the wavy night of his hair. 
    Then they feared for the weal of Atli, and the Niblung’s harp they
      brought,
    And they dealt with the thralls of the sword, and commanded and
      besought,
    Till men loosened the gyves of Gunnar, and laid the harp by his side,
    Then the yoke-beasts lowed in the forecourt and the wheels of the
      waggon cried,
    And the war-thorns clashed in the night, and the men went dark on
      their way,
    And the city was silent before them, on the roofs the white moon lay.

    Now they left the gate and the highway, and came to a lonely place,
    Where the sun all day had been shining on the desert’s empty face;
    Then the moon ran forth from a cloud, the grey light shone and showed
    The pit of King Atli’s adders in the land without a road,