"Now his guests doth Atli honour, and yet more will he do for your sake,
Who hath hidden all his people, and holdeth his vassals at home
On the day that the mighty Niblungs adown his highway come,
Lest men fear as the finders of Gods, and tremble and cumber the ways,
And the voice of the singers fail them to sing of the Niblungs' praise."
Men laughed as his voice they hearkened, and none bade turn again,
But the swords in the scabbards rattled as they rode with loosened rein.
Now they ride in the Burg-gate's shadow from out the sunlit fields,
Till the spears aloft are hidden and Atli's painted shields;
And no captain cries from the rampart, nor soundeth any horn,
And the doors of oak and iron are shut this merry morn:
Then the Niblungs leap from the saddle, and the threats of earls arise,
And the wrath of Kings' defenders is waxing in their eyes;
But Knefrud looketh and laugheth, and he saith:
"So is Atli fain
Of the glory of the Niblungs and their honour's utmost gain:
By no feet but yours this morning will he have his threshold trod,
Nay, not by the world's most glorious, nay not by a wandering God."
Then Hogni looked on Knefrud as the bodily death shall gaze
On the last of the Kings of men-folk in the last of the latter days,
And he caught a staff from his saddle, a mighty axe of war,
And stood most huge of all men in face of Atli's door,
And upreared the axe against it with such wondrous strokes and great,
That the iron-knitted marvel hung shattered in the gate:
Through the rent poured the Niblung children, and in Atli's burg they stood;
With none to bid them welcome, or ask them what they would.
But Hogni turned upon Knefrud, and spake: "I said, time was,
That we twain should ride out hither to bring a deed to pass:
And now one more deed abideth, and then no more for thee,
And another and another, and no more deeds for me."
'Gainst the liar's eyes one moment flashed out the axe-head's sheen,
And then was the face of Knefrud as though it ne'er had been,
And his gay-clad corpse lay glittering on the causeway in the sun.
No man cried out on Hogni or asked of the deed so done,
But their shielded ranks they marshalled and through Atli's burg they strode:
There they see the merchant's dwelling, the rich man's fair abode,
The halls of doom, and the market, the loom and the smithying-booth,
The stall for the wares of the outlands, the temples high and smooth:
But all is hushed and empty, and no child of man they meet
As they thread the city's tangle, and enter street on street,
And leave the last forgotten, and of the next know nought.
So through the silent city by the Norns their feet are brought,
Till lo, on a hill's uprising a huge house they behold,
And a hall with gates all brazen, and roof of ruddy gold:
Then they know the house of Atli, and they trow that sooth it is
That the Lord of such a dwelling may give his guest-folk bliss:
Then they loosen the swords in their scabbards, and upraise a mighty shout,
And the trumpet of the Niblungs through the lonely street rings out
And stilleth the wind in the wall-nook: but hark, as its echoes die,
How forth from that hall of the Eastlands comes the sound of minstrelsy,
And the brazen doors swing open: but the Niblungs are at the door,
And the bidden guests of Atli o'er the fateful threshold pour;
There the music faileth before them, till its sound is over and done,
And fair in the city behind them lies the flood of the morning sun:
No man of the Niblungs murmureth, none biddeth turn aback
And still their hands are empty, and sleep the edges of wrack.
Huge, dim is the hall of Atli, and faint and far aloof,
As stars in the misty even, yet hang the lamps in the roof,
And but little daylight toucheth the walls and the hangings of gold:
No King and no earl-folk's children do the bidden guests behold,
Till they look aloft to the high-seat, and lo, a woman alone,
A white queen crowned, and silent as the ancient shapen stone
That men find in the dale deserted, as beneath the moon they wend,
When they weary even to slumber, and the journey draws to an end.
Chill then are the hearts of the warriors, for they know how they look on a queen,
That Gudrun well-belovèd of the days that once have been;
Then were men that murmured on Sigurd, and as in some dream of the night
They looked, but the left hand failed them, and there came no help from the right.
But forth stood the mighty Gunnar, and men heard his kingly voice
As he spake: "O child of my father, I see thee again and rejoice,
Though I wot not where I have wended, or where thou dwellest on earth,
Or if this be the dead men's dwelling, or the hall of Atli's mirth!"