in there sitteth save a crowned queen alone,
Swan-white on the dark-blue bench-cloths and the carven ivory throne;
Abashed are sons of the earl-folk of their laughter and their glee,
When the glory of Queen Brynhild on the summer ways they see.

But they hear the voice of the woman, and her speech is soft and kind:
"Are ye the sons of the Niblungs, and the folk I came to find,
O young men fair and lovely? So may your days be long,
And grow in gain and glory, and fail of grief and wrong!"
Then they hailed her sweet and goodly, and back again they rode
By the bridge o'er the rushing river to the gate of their abode;
And high aloft, half-hearkened, rang the joyance of the horn,
And the cry of the Ancient People from their walls of war was borne
O'er the tilth of the plain, and the meadows, and the sheep-fed slopes
that lead
From the God-built wall of the mountains to the blossoms of the mead.

Then up in the wain stood Brynhild, and her voice was sweet as she
said:
"Is this the house of Gunnar, and the man I swore to wed?"

But she hearkened the cry from the gateway and the hollow of the door:
"Yea this is the dwelling of Gunnar, and the house of the God of War:
There is none of the world so mighty, be he outland King or Goth,
Save Sigurd the mighty Volsung and the brother of his troth."

Then spake Brynhild and said: "Lo, a house of ancient Kings,
Wrought for great deeds' fulfilment, and the birth of noble things!
Be the bloom of the earth upon it, and the hope of the heavens above!
May peace and joy abide there, and the full content of love!
And when our days are done with, and we lie alow in rest,
May its lords returning homeward still deem they see the best!"

She spake with voice unfaltering, and the golden wain moved on,
And all men deemed who heard her that great gifts their home had won.

So she passed through the dusk of the doorway, and the cave of the
war-fair folk,
Wherein the echoing horse-hoofs as the sound of swords awoke,
And the whispering wind of the may-tide from the cloudy wall smote
back,
And cried in the crown of the roof-arch of battle and the wrack;
And the voice of maidens sounded as kings' cries in the day of the
wrath,
When the flame is on the threshold and the war-shields strew the path.

So fair in the sun of the forecourt