’neath the boughs of the Branstock green,
    With thine earls and thy lords about thee as the Volsung fashion
      hath been. 
    And there shall all ye remember how I loved the Volsung name,
    Nor spared to spend for its blooming my joy, and my life, and my fame. 
    For hear thou:  that Sinfiotli, who hath wrought out our desire,
    Who hath compassed about King Siggeir with this sea of a deadly fire,
    Who brake thy grave asunder—­my child and thine he is,
    Begot in that house of the Dwarf-kind for no other end than this;
    The son of Volsung’s daughter, the son of Volsung’s son. 
    Look, look! might another helper this deed with thee have done?”

    And indeed as the word she uttereth, high up the red flames flare
    To the nether floor of the heavens:  and yet men see them there,
    The golden roofs of Siggeir, the hall of the silver door
    That the Goths and the Gods had builded to last for evermore.

    She said:  “Farewell, my brother, for the earls my candles light,
    And I must wend me bedward lest I lose the flower of night.”

    And soft and sweet she kissed him, ere she turned about again,
    And a little while was Signy beheld of the eyes of men;
    And as she crossed the threshold day brightened at her back,
    Nor once did she turn her earthward from the reek and the whirling
      wrack,
    But fair in the fashion of Queens passed on to the heart of the hall.

    And then King Siggeir’s roof-tree upheaved for its utmost fall,
    And its huge walls clashed together, and its mean and lowly things
    The fire of death confounded with the tokens of the kings. 
    A sign for many people on the land of the Goths it lay,
    A lamp of the earth none needed, for the bright sun brought the day.

    How Sigmund cometh to the Land of the Volsungs again, and of the
    death of Sinfiotli his Son.

    Now Sigmund the king bestirs him, and Sinfiotli, Sigmund’s son,
    And they gather a host together, and many a mighty one;
    Then they set the ships in the sea-flood and sail from the
      stranger’s shore,
    And the beaks of the golden dragons see the Volsungs’ land once more: 
    And men’s hearts are fulfilled of joyance; and they cry, The sun
      shines now
    With never a curse to hide it, and they shall reap that sow! 
    Then for many a day sits Sigmund ’neath the boughs of the Branstock
      green,
    With his earls and lords about him as the Volsung wont hath been. 
    And oft he thinketh on Signy and oft he nameth her name,
    And tells how she spent her joyance and her lifedays and her fame
    That the Volsung kin might blossom and bear the fruit of worth
    For the hope of unborn people and the harvest of the earth. 
    And again he thinks of the word that he spake that other day,
    How he should abide there lonely when his kin was passed away,
    Their glory and sole avenger, their after-summer seed.