hand.
For again, they tell him of Sigurd, and the man he remembereth,
And praiseth his mighty name and his deeds that laughed on death.

Now dusk and dark draw over, and through the glimmering house
They go to the place of the Niblungs, the high hall and glorious;
For hard by is the chamber of Sigurd: there dight in their harness of
war
In their thrones sit Gunnar and Hogni, but Guttorm stands on the floor
With his blue blade naked before them: the torches flare from the wall
And the woven God-folk waver, but the hush is deep in the hall,
And those Niblung faces change not, though the slow moon slips from her
height
And earth is acold ere dawning, and new winds shake the night.

Now it was in the earliest dawn-dusk that Guttorm stirred in his place,
And the mail-rings tinkled upon him, as he turned his helm-hid face,
And went forth from the hall and the high-seat; but the Kings sat still
in their pride
And hearkened the clash of his going and heeded how it died.

Slow, all alone goeth Guttorm to Sigurd's chamber door,
And all is open before him, and the white moon lies on the floor
And the bed where Sigurd lieth with Gudrun on his breast,
And light comes her breath from her bosom in the joy of infinite rest.
Then Guttorm stands on the threshold, and his heart of the murder is
fain,
And he thinks of the deeds of Sigurd, and praiseth his greatness and
gain;
Bright blue is his blade in the moonlight--but lo, how Sigurd lies,
As the carven dead that die not, with fair wide-open eyes;
And their glory gleameth on Guttorm, and the hate in his heart is
chilled,
And he shrinketh aback from the threshold and knoweth not what he
willed.

But his brethren heed and hearken, and they hear the clash draw nigh,
But they stir no whit in their pride, though the lord of all creatures
should die.
Then they see where cometh Guttorm, but they cast him never a word,
For white 'neath the flickering torches they see his unstained sword;
But he gazed on those Kings of the kindred, and the beast of war awoke;
And his heart was exceeding wrathful with the tarrying of the stroke:
And he strode to the chamber of Sigurd, and again they heeded well
How the clash, in the cloister awakened, by the threshold died and
fell.

But Guttorm gazed from the threshold,