In such an hour, what are conquests of a glorious past, what are honors, crowns, loves, hates? The mind can think of little matters only:
His heart speeds back to Hindfell, and the dawn of the wakening day;
And the hours betwixt are as nothing, and their deeds are fallen away.
(P. 226.)
Is aught to be said to one in such a crisis, the words are weak and commonplace. There is Brynhild's greeting to Sigurd:
If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth,
I pray that thou mayst win it, nor forget its might and worth.
The shattered mind of Sigurd tries to grasp the meaning of the harmless words, and like common sounds that are so fearful in the night, the phrases assume a terrible import:
All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew.
Then again conies the dominant note of this story:
Gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall be answer thereto,
While the death that amendeth lingers?
Here is a hint of the end of all—"the death that amendeth," and from this point to the end of the story there is no gleam of happiness for anyone.