But for me hath been foaled the war-horse, the grey steed swift as
the cloud,
And for me were the edges smithied, and the Wrath cries out aloud;
And a voice hath called from the darkness, and I ride to the
Glittering Heath;
To smite on the door of Destruction, and waken the warder of Death.”
So they kissed, the wise and
the wise, and the child from the elder
turned;
And again in the glimmering
house-ways the golden Sigurd burned;
He stood outside in the sunlight,
and tarried never a deal,
But leapt on the cloudy Greyfell
with the clank of gold and steel,
And he rode through the sinking
day to the walls of the kingly stead,
And came to Regin’s
dwelling when the wind was fallen dead,
And the great sun just departing:
then blood-red grew the west,
And the fowl flew home from
the sea-mead, and all things sank to rest.
Sigurd rideth to the Glittering Heath.
Again on the morrow morning
doth Sigurd the Volsung ride,
And Regin, the Master of Masters,
is faring by his side,
And they leave the dwelling
of kings and ride the summer land,
Until at the eve of the day
the hills are on either hand:
Then they wend up higher and
higher, and over the heaths they fare
Till the moon shines broad
on the midnight, and they sleep ’neath the
heavens bare;
And they waken and look behind
them, and lo, the dawning of day
And the little land of the
Helper and its valleys far away;
But the mountains rise before
them, a wall exceeding great.
Then spake the Master of Masters:
“We have come to the garth and the
gate:
There is youth and rest behind
thee and many a thing to do,
There is many a fond desire,
and each day born anew;
And the land of the Volsungs
to conquer, and many a people’s praise:
And for me there is rest it
maybe, and the peaceful end of days.
We have come to the garth
and the gate; to the hall-door now shall
we win,
Shall we go to look on the
high-seat and see what sitteth therein?”
“Yea, and what else?”
said Sigurd, “was thy tale but mockeries,
And have I been drifted hither
on a wind of empty lies?”
“It was sooth, it was
sooth,” said Regin, “and more might I have
told
Had I heart and space to remember
the deeds of the days of old.”
And he hung down his head
as he spake it, and was silent a little
space;
And when it was lifted again
there was fear in the Dwarf-king’s face.
And he said: “Thou
knowest my thought, and wise-hearted art thou grown:
It were well if thine eyes
were blinder, and we each were faring alone,
And I with my eld and my wisdom,
and thou with thy youth and thy might;
Yet whiles I dream I have