"What then," said his brother Gunnar, "shall we thrust by Atli's word?
Shall we strive, while the world is mocking, with the might of the Eastland sword,
While the wise are mocking to see it, how the great devour the great?"
"O wise-heart Hogni," said Grimhild, "wilt thou strive with the hand of fate,
And thrust back the hand of Odin that the Niblung glory will crown?
Wert thou born in a cot-carle's chamber, or the bed of a King's renown?"
"I know not, I know not," said Hogni, "but an unsure bridge is the sea,
And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me.
I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,
And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe."
They spake no word before him; but he said: "I see the road;
I see the ways we must journey—I have long cast off the load,
The burden of men's bearing wherein they needs must bind
All-eager hope unseeing with eyeless fear and blind:
So today shall my riding be light; nor now, nor ever henceforth
Shall men curse the sword of Hogni in the tale of the Niblung worth."
Therewith he went out from before them, and through chamber and hall he cried
On the best of the Niblung earl-folk, for that now the Kings would ride:
Soon are all men assembled, and their shields are fresh and bright,
Nor gold their raiment lacketh; then the strong-necked steeds they dight,
They dight the wain for Grimhild, and she goeth up therein,
And the well-clad girded maidens have left the work they win,
To sit by the Mother of Kings and make her glory great:
Then to horse get the Kings of the Niblungs, and ride out by the ancient gate;
And amidst its dusky hollows stir up the sound of swords:
Forth then from the hallowed houses ride on those war-fain lords,
Till they come to the dales deserted, and the woodland waste and drear;
There the wood-wolves shrink before them, fast flee the forest-deer,
And the stony wood-ways clatter as the Niblung host goes by.
Adown by the feet of the mountains that eve in sleep they lie,
And arise on the morrow-morning and climb the mountain-pass,
And the sunless hollow places, and the slopes that hate the grass.
So they cross the hither ridges and ride a stony bent
Adown to the dale of Thora, and the country of content;
By the homes of a simple people, by cot and close they go,
Till they come to Thora's dwelling; but fair it stands and low
Amidst of orchard-closes, and round about men win
Fair work in field and garden, and sweet are the sounds therein.
Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he stands
To hearken the women's voices and the sound of their labouring hands;
And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears,
The speech of his sister Gudrun: his inmost heart it stirs,
And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hall
He stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.
On the high-seat sitteth Gudrun when she sees the man of war
Come gleaming into the chamber; then she standeth up on the floor,
And is great and goodly to look on mid the women of that place:
But she knoweth the guise of the Niblungs, and she knoweth Gunnar's face,
And at first she turneth to flee, as erewhile she fled away
When she rose from the wound of Sigurd and loathed the light of day:
But her father's heart rose in her, and the sleeping wrong awoke,
And she made one step from the high-seat before Queen Thora's folk;
And Gunnar moved from the threshold, and smiled as he drew anear,
And Hogni went behind him and the Mother of Kings was there;
And her maids and the Earls of the Niblungs stood gleaming there behind:
Lo, the kin and the friends of Gudrun, a smiling folk and kind!
In the midst stood Gudrun before them, and cried aloud and said:
"What! bear ye tidings of Sigurd? is he new come back from the dead?
O then will I hasten to greet him, and cherish my love and my lord,
Though the murderous sons of Giuki have borne the tale abroad."
Dead-pale she stood before them, and no mouth answered again,
And the summer morn grew heavy, and chill were the hearts of men
And Thora's people trembled: there the simple people first
Saw the horror of the King-folk, and mighty lives accurst.
All hushed stood the glorious Gunnar, but Hogni came before,
And he said: "It is sooth, my sister, that thy sorrow hath been sore,
That hath rent thee away from thy kindred and the folk that love thee most:
But to double sorrow with hatred is to cast all after the lost,
And to die and to rest not in death, and to loathe and linger the end:
Now today do we come to this dwelling thy grief and thy woe to amend,
And to give thee the gift that we may; for without thy love and thy peace
Doth our life and our glory sicken, though its outward show increase.
Lo, we bear thee rule and dominion, and hope and the glory of life,
For King Atli wooeth thee, Gudrun, for his queen and his wedded wife."