But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees, And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees: Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo! the open door, And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor, For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe, And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.
GUDRUN
Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid; But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid, And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall, And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall; For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes, And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise, And he saith: ‘We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days, And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.’
Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth aback That the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack: Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat, And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet, That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithal He casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall: But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to fight, Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite: Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side; As death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he stride. And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of men From the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again. Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold; But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they behold Upright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more, Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war, And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.
Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat, And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the harp-strings ran, And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of man, And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning, And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring; He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding of broil. And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is fashioned of toil: Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise, When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead shall arise, And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall pray, And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost day. So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he saw His sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw: But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was, And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass, Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown, And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.
THE SONS OF GIUKI
Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose, And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes: They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of dead; No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led, But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from afar, Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war: Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen acold, And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold: Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King, Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring; And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded sore, And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore, So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall; And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.
Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves accurst, But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and thirst; And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood, Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they stood, And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote, Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat, Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields aside And caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside, And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death: And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath; Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born, Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn; But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forth To the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.
Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last: Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast, And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away, For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay, Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore The cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war; But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown, So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown; And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes: Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close, Nor looked on the foeman's faces as their wild eyes drew anear, And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their fear; But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk, Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.
Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal, Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel, And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly now As the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough, When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land. There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand, There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes, And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise, And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of war. Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar, And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran: But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man, And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the sea The doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery, And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps, And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps: So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hall Did the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall: Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lie Till the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.