ay I see thy joy increase,
And thy shielded sons beside thee, and thy days grown old in peace!"

And he took the cup from her hand, and drank, while his heart rejoiced
At the Niblung Maiden's beauty, and her blessing lovely-voiced;
And he thanked her well for the greeting, and no guile in his heart
was grown,
But he thought of his love enfolded in the arms of his renown.

So the Niblungs feast glad-hearted through the undark night and kind,
And the burden of all sorrow seems fallen far behind
On the road their lives have wended ere that happiest night of nights,
And the careless days and quiet seem but thieves of their delights;
For their hearts go forth before them toward the better days to come,
When all the world of glory shall be called the Niblungs' home:
Yea, as oft in the merry season and the morning of the May
The birds break out a-singing for the world's face waxen gay,
And they flutter there in the blossoms, and run through the dewy grass,
As they sing the joy of the spring-tide, that bringeth the summer to
pass;
And they deem that for them alone was the earth wrought long ago.
And no hate and no repentance, and no fear to come they know;
So fared the feast of the Niblungs on the eve that Sigurd came
In the day of their deeds triumphant, and the blossom of their fame.

_Of Sigurd's warfaring in the company of the Niblungs, and of his
great fame and glory._

Now gone is the summer season and the harvest of the year,
And amid the winter weather the deeds of the Niblungs wear;
But nought is their joyance worsened, or their mirth-tide waxen less,
Though the swooping mountain tempest howl round their ridgy ness,
Though a house of the windy battle their streeted burg be grown,
Though the heaped-up, huddled cloud-drift be their very hall-roofs
crown,
Though the rivers bear the burden, and the Rime-Gods grip and strive,
And the snow in the mirky midnoon across the lealand drive.

But lo, in the stark midwinter how the war is smitten awake,
And the blue-clad Niblung warriors the spears from the wall-nook take,
And gird the dusky hauberk, and the ruddy fur-coat don,
And draw the yellowing ermine o'er the steel from Welshland won.
Then they show their tokened war-shields to the moon-dog and the stars,
For the hurrying wind of the mountains has borne them tal