But the lap of her linen raiment did Brynhild tear from her hold
And spake from her mouth brought nigher, and her voice was low and cold:
"Such pride and comfort in Sigurd henceforward mayst thou find,
Such joy of his life's endurance, as thou leav'st me joy behind!"
But turmoil of wrath wrapt Gudrun, that she knew not the day from the night,
And she hardened her heart for evil as the warriors when they smite:
And she cried: "Thou filled with murder, my love shall blossom and bloom
When thou liest in the hell forgotten! smite thence from the deedless gloom,
Smite thence at the lovely Sigurd, from the dark without a day!
Let the hand that death hath loosened the King of Glory slay!"
So died her words of anger, and her latter speech none heard,
Save the wind of the early night-tide and the leaves by its wandering stirred;
For amidst her wrath and her blindness was the hapless Brynhild gone:
And she fled from the Burg of the Niblungs and cried to the night alone:
"O Sigurd, O my Sigurd, what now shall give me back
One word of thy loving-kindness from the tangle and the wrack?
O Norns, fast bound from helping, O Gods that never weep,
Ye have left stark death to help us, and the semblance of our sleep!
Yet I sleep and remember Sigurd; and I wake and nought is there,
Save the golden bed of the Niblungs, and the hangings fashioned fair:
If I stretch out mine hand to take it, that sleep that the sword-edge gives,
How then shall I come on Sigurd, when again my sorrow lives
In the dreams of the slumber of death? O nameless, measureless woe,
To abide on the earth without him, and alone from earth to go!"
So wailed the wife of Gunnar, as she fled through the summer night,
And unwitting around she wandered, till again in the dawning light
She stood by the Burg of the Niblungs, and the dwelling of her lord.
Awhile bode the white-armed Gudrun on the edge of the daisied sward,
Till she shrank from the lonely flowers and the chill, speech-burdened wind.
Then she turned to the house of her fathers and her golden chamber kind;
And for long by the side of Sigurd hath she lain in light-breathed sleep,
While yet the winds of night-tide round the wandering Brynhild sweep.
Gunnar talketh with Brynhild.
On the morrow awakeneth Gudrun; and she speaketh with Sigurd and saith:
"For what cause is Brynhild heavy, and as one who abideth but death?"
"Yea," Sigurd said, "is it so? as a great queen she goes upon earth,
And thoughtful of weighty matters, and things that are most of worth."