“So he spake; but a little season nought answered Reidmar the wise,
    But turned his face from the Treasure, and peered with eager eyes
    Endlong the hall and athwart it, as a man may chase about
    A ray of the sun of the morning that a naked sword throws out;
    And lo from Loki’s right-hand came the flash of the fruitful ring,
    And at last spake Reidmar scowling: 
                                        ’Ye wait for my yea-saying
    That your feet may go free on the earth, and the fear of my toils may
      be done
    That then ye may say in your laughter:  The fools of the time agone! 
    The purblind eyes of the Dwarf-kind! they have gotten the garnered
      sheaf
    And have let their Masters depart with the Seed of Gold and of Grief: 
    O Loki, friend of Allfather, cast down Andvari’s ring,
    Or the world shall yet turn backward and the high heavens lack a king.’

    “Then Loki drew off the Elf-ring and cast it down on the heap,
    And forth as the gold met gold did the light of its glory leap: 
    But he spake:  ’It rejoiceth my heart that no whit of all ye shall lack,
    Lest the curse of the Elf-king cleave not, and ye ’scape the utter
      wrack.’

    “Then laughed and answered Reidmar:  ’I shall have it while I live,
    And that shall be long, meseemeth:  for who is there may strive
    With my sword, the war-wise Fafnir, and my shield that is Regin the
      Smith? 
    But if indeed I should die, then let men-folk deal therewith,
    And ride to the golden glitter through evil deeds and good. 
    I will have my heart’s desire, and do as the high Gods would.’

    “Then I loosed the Gods from their shackles, and great they grew on
      the floor
    And into the night they gat them; but Odin turned by the door,
    And we looked not, little we heeded, for we grudged his mastery;
    Then he spake, and his voice was waxen as the voice of the winter sea: 

    “’O Kings, O folk of the Dwarfs, why then will ye covet and rue? 
    I have seen your fathers’ fathers and the dust wherefrom they grew;
    But who hath heard of my father or the land where first I sprung? 
    Who knoweth my day of repentance, or the year when I was young? 
    Who hath learned the names of the Wise-one or measured out his will? 
    Who hath gone before to teach him, and the doom of days fulfill? 
    Lo, I look on the Curse of the Gold, and wrong amended by wrong,
    And love by love confounded, and the strong abased by the strong;
    And I order it all and amend it, and the deeds that are done I see,
    And none other beholdeth or knoweth; and who shall be wise unto me? 
    For myself to myself I offered, that all wisdom I might know,
    And fruitful I waxed of works, and good and fair did they grow;
    And I knew, and I wrought and fore-ordered; and evil sat by my side,
    And myself by myself hath been doomed, and I look for the fateful tide;
    And I deal with the generations, and the men mine hand hath made,
    And myself by myself shall be grieved, lest the world and its
      fashioning fade.’