For the first cried out in the desert:  “O mighty Sigmund’s son,
    How long wilt thou sit and tarry now the dear-bought roast is done?”

    And the second:  “Volsung, arise! for the horns blow up to the hall,
    And dight are the purple hangings, and the King to the feasting
      should fall.”

    And the third:  “How great is the feast if the eater eat aright
    The Heart of the wisdom of old and the after-world’s delight!”

    And the fourth:  “Yea, what of Regin? shall he scatter wrack o’er the
      world? 
    Shall the father be slain by the son, and the brother ’gainst brother
      be hurled?”

    And the fifth:  “He hath taught a stripling the gifts of a God to give: 
    He hath reared up a King for the slaying, that he alone might live.”

    And the sixth:  “He shall waken mighty as a God that scorneth at truth;
    He hath drunk of the blood of the Serpent, and drowned all hope and
      ruth.”

    And the seventh:  “Arise, O Sigurd, lest the hour be overlate! 
    For the sun in the mid-noon shineth, and swift is the hand of Fate: 
    Arise! lest the world run backward and the blind heart have its will,
    And once again be tangled the sundered good and ill;
    Lest love and hatred perish, lest the world forget its tale,
    And the Gods sit deedless, dreaming, in the high-walled heavenly vale.”

    Then swift ariseth Sigurd, and the Wrath in his hand is bare,
    And he looketh, and Regin sleepeth, and his eyes wide-open glare;
    But his lips smile false in his dreaming, and his hand is on the sword;
    For he dreams himself the Master and the new world’s fashioning-lord. 
    And his dream hath forgotten Sigurd, and the King’s life lies in the
      pit;
    He is nought; Death gnaweth upon him, while the Dwarfs in mastery sit.

    But lo, how the eyes of Sigurd the heart of the guileful behold,
    And great is Allfather Odin, and upriseth the Curse of the Gold,
    And the Branstock bloometh to heaven from the ancient wondrous root;
    The summer hath shone on its blossoms, and Sigurd’s Wrath is the fruit: 
    Dread then he cried in the desert:  “Guile-master, lo thy deed! 
    Hast thou nurst my life for destruction, and my death to serve thy
      need? 
    Hast thou kept me here for the net and the death that tame things die? 
    Hast thou feared me overmuch, thou Foe of the Gods on high? 
    Lest the sword thine hand was wielding should turn about and cleave
    The tangled web of nothing thou hadst wearied thyself to weave. 
    Lo here the sword and the stroke! judge the Norns betwixt us twain! 
    But for me, I will live and die not, nor shall all my hope be vain.”