Now the king looks hard upon her, but he saith no word thereto,
And down again to the death-field with the women-folk they go. 
There they set their hands to the labour, and amidst the deadly mead
They raise a mound for Sigmund, a mighty house indeed;
And therein they set that folk-king, and goodly was his throne,
And dight with gold and scarlet:  and the walls of the house were done
With the cloven shields of the foemen, and banners borne to field;
But none might find his war-helm or the splinters of his shield,
And clenched and fast was his right hand, but no sword therein he had: 
For Hiordis spake to the shipmen: 

          
                                                          “Our lord and master bade

That the shards of his glaive of battle should go with our lady the

    Queen: 

And by them that lie a-dying a many things are seen.”

So there lies Sigmund the Volsung, and far away, forlorn
Are the blossomed boughs of the Branstock, and the house where he
was born. 
To what end was wrought that roof-ridge, and the rings of the silver
door,
And the fair-carved golden high-seat, and the many-pictured floor
Worn down by the feet of the Volsungs? or the hangings of delight,
Or the marvel of its harp-strings, or the Dwarf-wrought beakers bright? 
Then the Gods have fashioned a folk who have fashioned a house in vain;
It is nought, and for nought they battled, and nought was their joy
and their pain,
Lo, the noble oak of the forest with his feet in the flowers and grass,
How the winds that bear the summer o’er its topmost branches pass,
And the wood-deer dwell beneath it, and the fowl in its fair twigs
sing,
And there it stands in the forest, an exceeding glorious thing: 
Then come the axes of men, and low it lies on the ground,
And the crane comes out of the southland, and its nest is nowhere
found,
And bare and shorn of its blossoms is the house of the deer of the
wood. 
But the tree is a golden dragon; and fair it floats on the flood,
And beareth the kings and the earl-folk, and is shield-hung all
without: 
And it seeth the blaze of the beacons, and heareth the war-God’s shout. 
There are tidings wherever it cometh, and the tale of its time shall
be told
A dear name it hath got like a king, and a fame that groweth not old.

    Lo, such is the Volsung dwelling; lo, such is the deed he hath wrought
    Who laboured all his life-days, and had rest but little or nought,
    Who died in the broken battle; who lies with swordless hand
    In the realm that the foe hath conquered on the edge of a
      stranger-land.

    How Queen Hiordis is known; and how she abideth in the house of Elf
    the son of the Helper.

    Now asketh the king of those women where now in the world they will go,
    And Hiordis speaks for the twain; “This is now but a land of the foe
    And our lady and Queen beseecheth that unto thine house we wend
    And that there thou serve her kingly that her woes may have an end.”