ent, and the thought within him
stirred
Of wise speech of his mother Grimhild, and many a warning word:
But he spake:
"Art thou smitten of God, unto whom shall we cast the prayer?
Art thou wronged by one of the King-folk, for whom shall the blades be
bare?"

Belike she never heard him; she lay in her misery,
And the slow tears gushed from her eyen and nought of the world would
she see.
But ill thoughts arose in Gunnar, and remembrance of the speech
Erst spoken low by Grimhild; yet he turned his heart to beseech,
And he spake again:
"O Brynhild, if I ever made thee glad,
If the glory of the great-ones of my gift thine heart hath had.
As mine heart hath been faithful to thee, as I longed for thy
life-days' gain,
Tell now of thy toil and thy trouble that we each of each may be fain!"

Nought spake she, nothing she moved, and the tears were dried on her
cheek;
But the very words of Grimhild did Gunnar's memory seek;
He sought and he found and considered; and mighty he was and young,
And he thought of the deeds of his fathers and the tales of the
Niblungs sung;
How they bore no God's constraining, and rode through the wrong and
the right
That the storm of their wrath might quicken, and their tempest carry
the light.
The words of his mother he gathered and the wrath-flood over him
rolled,
And with it came many a longing, that his heart had never told,
Nay, scarce to himself in the night-tide, for the gain of the ruddy
rings,
And the fame of the earth unquestioned and the mastery over kings,
And he sole King in the world-throne, unequalled, unconstrained;
And with wordless wrath he fretted at the bonds that his glory had
chained,
And the bitter anger stirred him, and at last he spake and cried:

"How long, O all-wise Brynhild, like the dead wilt thou abide,
Nor speak to thy lord and thy husband and the man that rode thy Fire,
And mocked at the bane of King-folk to accomplish thy desire?
I deem thou sickenest, Brynhild, with the love of a mighty-one,
The foe, the King's supplanter, he that so long hath shone
Mid the honour of our fathers, and the lovely Niblung house,
Like a serpent amidst of the treasure that the day makes glorious."

Yet never a word she answered, nor unto the great King