e heart melted, and all thought passed away,
Save the thought of joy's fulfilment and the hours before the day;
She murmured words of loving as his kind lips cherished her breast,
And the world waxed nought but lovely and a place of infinite rest.

But it was long thereafter ere the sun rose o'er their love,
And lit the world of autumn and the pale sky hung above;
And it stirred the Gods in the heavens, and the Kings of the Goths it
stirred,
Till the sound of the world awakening in their latter dreams they
heard;
And over the Burg of the Niblungs the day spread fair and fresh
O'er the hopes of the ancient people and those twain become one flesh.

_Sigurd rideth with the Niblungs, and wooeth Brynhild for King
Gunnar._

Now it fell on a day of the spring-tide that followed on these things,
That Sigurd fares to the meadows with Gunnar and Hogni the Kings;
For afar is Guttorm the youngest, and he sails the Eastern Seas,
And fares with war-shield hoisted to win him fame's increase.
So come the Kings to the Doom-ring, and the people's Hallowed Field,
And no dwelling of man is anigh it, and no acre forced to yield;
There stay those Kings of the people alone in weed of war,
And they cut a strip of the greensward on the meadow's daisied floor,
And loosen it clean in the midst, while its ends in the earth abide;
Then they heave its midmost aloft, and set on either side
An ancient spear of battle writ round with words of worth;
And these are the posts of the door, whose threshold is of the earth
And the skin of the earth is its lintel: but with war-glaives gleaming
bare
The Niblung Kings and Sigurd beneath the earth-yoke fare;
Then each an arm-vein openeth, and their blended blood falls down
On Earth the fruitful Mother where they rent her turfy gown:
And then, when the blood of the Volsungs hath run with the Niblung
blood,
They kneel with their hands upon it and swear the brotherhood:
Each man at his brother's bidding to come with the blade in his hand,
Though the fire and the flood should sunder, and the very Gods
withstand:
Each man to love and cherish his brother's hope and will;
Each man to avenge his brother when the Norns his fate fulfill:
And now are they foster-brethren, and in such wise have they sworn
As the God-born Goths of aforetime, when the