ods were heedless, and build on where they
began,
And frame hope for the unborn children and the coming days of man.

Then she spake aloud to the Volsung: "Hear this faithful word of mine!
For the draught thou hast drunken, O Sigurd, and my love was blent
with the wine:
O Sigurd, son of the mighty, thy kin are passed away,
But uplift thine heart and be merry, for new kin hast thou gotten
today;
Thy father is Giuki the King, and Grimhild thy mother is made,
And thy brethren are Gunnar and Hogni and Guttorm the unafraid.
Rejoice for a kingly kindred, and a hope undreamed before!
For the folk shall be wax in the fire that withstandeth the Niblung
war;
The waste shall bloom as a garden in the Niblung glory and trust,
And the wrack of the Niblung people shall burn the world to dust:
Our peace shall still the world, our joy shall replenish the earth;
And of thee it cometh, O Sigurd, the gold and the garland of worth!"

But the heart was changed in Sigurd; as though it ne'er had been
His love of Brynhild perished as he gazed on the Niblung Queen:
Brynhild's beloved body was e'en as a wasted hearth,
No more for bale or blessing, for plenty or for dearth.
--O ye that shall look hereafter, when the day of Sigurd is done,
And the last of his deeds is accomplished, and his eyes are shut in
the sun,
When ye look and long for Sigurd, and the image of Sigurd behold,
And his white sword still as the moon, and his strong hand heavy and
cold,
Then perchance shall ye think of this even, then perchance shall ye
wonder and cry,
"Twice over, King, are we smitten, and twice have we seen thee die."

As folk of the summer feasters, who have fallen to feast in the morn,
And have wreathed their brows with roses ere the first of the clouds
was born;
Beneath the boughs were they sitting, and the long leaves twinkled
about,
And the wind with their laughter was mingled, nor held aback from
their shout,
Amidst of their harp it lingered, from the mouth of their horn went up,
Round the reek of their roast was it breathing, o'er the flickering
face of their cup--
--Lo now, why sit they so heavy, and why is their joy-speech dead,
Why are the long leaves drooping, and the fair wind hushed overhead?--
Look out from the sunless boughs to the yellow-mirky east