h his hands were wet:
Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;
Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell,
Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell,
And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew,
And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;
And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite,
And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight,
And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes,
And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.

GUNNAR

Now fell the sword of Gunnar, and rose up red in the air,
And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and clear,
And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the rings
Of a Giant of King Atli and a murder-wolf of kings;
But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his
breast,
And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest,
But fell upon Atli's brother, and stayed not in his brain;
Then he fell, and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain,
And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe, and thrust a lord in the throat,
And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote;
Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their war-shields
drave
While the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he clave
Whom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold;
And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar, and over his war-shield rolled,
And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on,
And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won,
And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst,
As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed,
And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung song
Through the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong:
Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood,
And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet with
blood.

Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home,
As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam:
They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the
wall,
And a few last spears from