Then leapt those twain to their feet lest the sword and the murder fall
    On their hearts in their narrow lair and they die without a stroke;
    But e’en as they met the torch-light and the din and tumult of folk,
    Lo there on the very threshold did Signy the Volsung stand,
    And one of her last-born children she had on either hand;
    For the children had cried:  “We have seen them—­those two among the
      wine,
    And their hats are wide and white, and their garments tinkle and
      shine.” 
    So while men ran to their weapons, those children Signy took,
    And went to meet her kinsmen:  then once more did Sigmund look
    On the face of his father’s daughter, and kind of heart he grew,
    As the clash of the coming battle anigh the doomed men drew: 
    But wan and fell was Signy; and she cried: 
                                                “The end is near! 
    —­And thou with the smile on thy face and the joyful eyes and clear! 
    But with these thy two betrayers first stain the edge of fight,
    For why should the fruit of my body outlive my soul tonight?”

    But he cried in the front of the spear-hedge; “Nay this shall be far
      from me
    To slay thy children sackless, though my death belike they be. 
    Now men will be dealing, sister, and old the night is grown,
    And fair in the house of my fathers the benches are bestrown.”

    So she stood aside and gazed:  but Sinfiotli taketh them up
    And breaketh each tender body as a drunkard breaketh a cup;
    With a dreadful voice he crieth, and casteth them down the hall,
    And the Goth-folk sunder before them, and at Siggeir’s feet they fall.

    But the fallow blades leapt naked, and on the battle came,
    As the tide of the winter ocean sweeps up to the beaconing flame. 
    But firm in the midst of onset Sigmund the Volsung stood,
    And stirred no more for the sword-strokes than the oldest oak of the
      wood
    Shall shake to the herd-boys’ whittles:  white danced his war-flame’s
      gleam,
    And oft to men’s beholding his eyes of God would beam
    Clear from the sword-blades’ tangle, and often for a space
    Amazed the garth of murder stared deedless on his face;
    Nor back nor forward moved he:  but fierce Sinfiotli went
    Where the spears were set the thickest, and sword with sword was blent;
    And great was the death before him, till he slipped in the blood and
      fell: 
    Then the shield-garth compassed Sigmund, and short is the tale to tell;
    For they bore him down unwounded, and bonds about him cast: 
    Nor sore hurt is Sinfiotli, but is hoppled strait and fast.