,
How the clouds are woven together o'er that afternoon of feast;
There are heavier clouds above them, and the sun is a hidden wonder,
It rains in the nether heaven, and the world is afraid with the
thunder:
E'en so in the hall of the Niblungs, and the holy joyous place,
Sat the earls on the marvel gazing, and the sorrow of Sigurd's face.

Men say that a little after the evil of that night
All waste is the burg of Brynhild, and there springeth a marvellous
light
On the desert hard by Lymdale, and few men know for why;
But there are, who say that a wildfire thence roareth up to the sky
Round a glorious golden dwelling, wherein there sitteth a Queen
In remembrance of the wakening, and the slumber that hath been;
Wherein a Maid there sitteth, who knows not hope nor rest
For remembrance of the Mighty, and the Best come forth from the Best.

But the hushed Kings sat in the feast-hall, till Grimhild cried on
the harp,
And the minstrels' fingers hastened, and the sound rang clear and sharp
Beneath the cloudy roof-tree, but no joyance with it went,
And no voice but the eagles' crying with the stringed song was blent;
And as it began, it ended, and no soul had been moved by its voice,
To lament o'er the days passed over, or in coming days to rejoice.
Late groweth the night o'er the people, but no word hath Sigurd said,
Since he laughed o'er the glittering Dwarf-gold and raised the cup to
his head:
No wrath in his eyes is arisen, no hope, nor wonder, nor fear;
Yet is Sigurd's face as boding to folk that behold him anear,
As the mountain that broodeth the fire o'er the town of man's delights,
As the sky that is cursed nor thunders, as the God that is smitten
nor smites.

So silent sitteth the Volsung o'er the blindness of the wrong,
But night on the Niblungs waxeth, and their Kings for the morrow long,
And the morrow of tomorrow that the light may be fair to their eyes,
And their days as the days of the joyous: so now from the throne they
arise,
And their men depart from the feast-hall, their care in sleep to lay,
But none durst speak with Sigurd, nor ask him, whither away,
As he strideth dumb from amidst them; and all who see him deem
That he heedeth the folk of the Niblungs but as people of a dream.
So they fall away from about him, till he stands in the