"O ye, e'en such was my Sigurd among these Giuki's sons,
As the hart with the horns day-brightened mid the forest-creeping ones;
As the spear-leek fraught with wisdom mid the lowly garden grass;
As the gem on the gold band's midmost when the council cometh to pass,
And the King is lit with its glory, and the people wonder and praise.
—O people, Ah thy craving for the least of my Sigurd's days!
O wisdom of my Sigurd! how oft I sat with thee
Thou striver, thou deliverer, thou hope of things to be!
O might of my love, my Sigurd! how oft I sat by thy side,
And was praised for the loftiest woman and the best of Odin's pride!
But now am I as little as the leaf on the lone tree left,
When the winter wood is shaken and the sky by the North is cleft."
Then her speech grew wordless wailing, and no man her meaning knew;
Till she hushed her swift and turned her; for a laugh her wail pierced through,
As a whistling shaft the night-wind in some foe-encompassed wood;
And lo, by the nearest pillar the wife of Gunnar stood;
There stood the allwise Brynhild 'gainst the golden carving pressed,
As she stared at the wound of Sigurd and that rending of his breast:
But she felt the place fallen silent, and the speechless anger set
On her own chill, bitter sorrow; and the eyes of the women met,
And they stood in the hall together, as they stood that while ago,
When they twain in Brynhild's dwelling of days to come would know:
But every soul kept silence, and all hearts were chill as stone
As Brynhild spake:
"Thou woman, shall thine eyes be wet alone?
Shalt thou weep and speak in thy glory, when I may weep no more,
When I speak, and my speech is as silence to the man that loved me sore?"
Then folk heard the woe of Gudrun, and the bitterness of hate:
"Day cursed o'er every other! when they opened wide the gate,
And Kings in gold arrayed them, and all men the joy might hear,
As Greyfell neighed in the forecourt the world's delight to bear,
And my brethren shook the world-ways as they rode to Brynhild's bower,
—An ill day—an evil woman—a most untimely hour!"
But she wailed: "The seat is empty, and empty is the bed,
And earth is hushed henceforward of the words my speech-friend said!
Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki, and my brethren of one womb!
Lo, the deeds of the sons of Giuki for the latter days of doom!
O hearken, hearken Gunnar! May the dear Gold drag thee adown,
And Greyfell's ruddy Burden, and the Treasure of renown,
And the rings that ye swore the oath on! yea, if all avengers die,
May Earth, that ye bade remember, on the blood of Sigurd cry!
Be this land as waste as the trothplight that the lips of fools have sworn!
May it rain through this broken hall-roof, and snow on the hearth forlorn!
And may no man draw anigh it to tell of the ruin and the wrack!
Yea, may I be a mock for the idle if my feet come ever aback,
If my heart think kind of the chambers, if mine eyes shall yearn to behold
The fair-built house of my fathers, the house beloved of old!"
Then she waileth out before them, and hideth her face from the day,
And she casteth her down from the high-seat and fleeth fast away;
And forth from the Hall of the Niblungs, and forth from the Burg is she gone,
And forth from the holy dwellings, and a long way forth alone,
Till she comes to the lonely wood-waste, the desert of the deer
By the feet of the lonely mountains, that no man draweth anear;
But the wolves are about and around her, and death seems better than life,
And folding the hands and forgetting a merrier thing than strife;
And for long and long thereafter no man of Gudrun knows,
Nor who are the friends of her life-days, nor whom she calleth her foes.
But how great in the hall of the Niblungs is the voice of weeping and wail!
Men bide on the noon's departing, men bide till the eve shall fail,
Then they wend one after other to the sleep that all men win,
Till few are the hall-abiders, and the moon is white therein,
And no sound in the house may ye hearken save the ernes that stir o'erhead,
And the far-off wail o'er Guttorm and the wakeners o'er the dead:
But still by the carven pillar doth the all-wise Brynhild stand
A-gaze on the wound of Sigurd, nor moveth foot nor hand,
Nor speaketh word to any, of them that come or go
Round the evil deed of the Niblungs and the corner-stone of woe.
Of the passing away of Brynhild.
Once more on the morrow-morning fair shineth the glorious suns
And the Niblung children labour on a deed that shall be done.
For out in the people's meadows they raise a bale on high,
The oak and the ash together, and thereon shall the Mighty lie;
Nor gold nor steel shall be lacking, nor savour of sweet spice,
Nor cloths in the Southlands woven, nor webs of untold price:
The work grows, toil is as nothing; long blasts of the mighty horn
From the topmost tower out-wailing o'er the woeful world are borne.
But Brynhild lay in her chamber, and her women went and came,
And they feared and trembled before her, and none spake Sigurd's name;
But whiles they deemed her weeping, and whiles they deemed indeed
That she spake, if they might but hearken, but no words their ears might heed;
Till at last she spake out clearly:
"I know not what ye would;
For ye come and go in my chamber, and ye seem of wavering mood
To thrust me on, or to stay me; to help my heart in woe,
Or to bid my days of sorrow midst nameless folly go."