She spake: "Art thou come to behold me? thou, the mightiest and the worst
Of the pitiless betrayers, that the hope of my life hath nursed."
He said: "It is I that awake thee, and I give thee the life and the days
For fulfilling the deedful measure, and the cup of the people's praise."
She cried: "O the gifts of Sigurd!—Ah why didst thou cast me aside,
That we twain should be dwelling, the strangers, in the house of the Niblung pride?
What life is the death in life? what deeds—where the shame cometh up
Betwixt the speech of the wise-ones and the draught of the welcoming cup;
And the shame and repentance awaketh when the song in the harp is awake?
Where we rise in the morning for nothing, and lie down for no love's sake?
Where thou ridest forth to the battle and the dead hope dulleth thy light,
And with shame thy hand is cumbered when the sword is uplifted to smite?
O Sigurd, what hast thou done, that the gifts are cast aback?
—O nay, no life of repentance!—but the bitter sword and the wrack!"
"O Brynhild, live!" said the Volsung, "for what shall the world be then
When thou from the earth art departed, and the hallowed hearths of men?"
She said: "Woe worth the while for the word that hath come from thy mouth!
As the bitter weltering ocean to the shipman dying of drouth,
E'en so is the life thou biddest, since thou pitiedst not thine own,
Nor thy love, nor the hope of thy life-days, but must dwell as a glory alone!"
"It is truer to tell," said Sigurd, "that mine heart in thy love was enwrapped
Till the evil hour of the darkening, and the eyeless tangle had happed:
And thereof shalt thou know, O Brynhild, on one day better than I,
When the stroke of the sword hath been smitten, and the night hath seen me die:
Then belike in thy fresh-springing wisdom thou shalt know of the dark and the deed,
And the snare for our feet fore-ordered from whence they shall never be freed.
But for me, in the net I awakened and the toils that unwitting I wove,
And no tongue may tell of the sorrow that I had for thy wedded love:
But I dwelt in the dwelling of kings; so I thrust its seeming apart
And I laboured the field of Odin: and e'en this was a joy to my heart,
That we dwelt in one house together, though a stranger's house it were."
"O late, and o'erlate!" cried Brynhild—"may the dead folk hearken and hear?
All was and today it is not—And the Oath unto Gunnar is sworn,
Shall I live the days twice over, and the life thou hast made forlorn?"
And she heard the words of Hindfell and the oath of the earlier day,
Till the daylight darkened before her, and all memory passed away,
And she cried: "I may live no longer, for the Gods have forgotten the earth,
And my heart is the forge of sorrow, and my life is a wasting dearth."
Then once again spake Sigurd, once only and no more:
A pillar of light all golden he stood on the sunlit floor;
And his eyes were the eyes of Odin, and his face was the hope of the world,
And his voice was the thunder of even when the bolt o'er the mountains is hurled:
The fairest of all things fashioned he stood 'twixt life and death,
And the Wrath of Regin rattled, and the rings of the Glittering Heath,
As he cried:
"I am Sigurd the Volsung, and belike the tale shall be true
That no hand on the earth may hinder what my hand would fashion and do:
And what God or what man shall gainsay it if our love be greater than these,
The pride and the glory of Sigurd, and the latter days' increase?
O live, live, Brynhild belovèd! and thee on the earth will I wed,
And put away Gudrun the Niblung—and all those shall be as the dead."
But so swelled the heart within him as he cast the speech abroad,
That the golden wall of the battle, the fence unrent by the sword.
The red rings of the uttermost ocean on the breast of Sigurd brake:
And he saw the eyes of Brynhild, and turned from the word she spake: