he blood of
the land;
And the guile of the summer serpent and the herb of the sunless dale
Were blent for the deadening slumber that forgetteth joy and bale;
And cold words of ancient wisdom that the very Gods would dim
Were the foreshores of that wine-sea and the cliffs that girt its rim:
Therewith in the hall stood Grimhild, and cried aloud and spake:

"It was I that bore thee, daughter; I laboured once for thy sake,
I groaned to bear thee a queen, I sickened sore for thy fame:
By me and my womb I command thee that thou worship the Niblung name,
And take the gift we would give thee, and be wed to a king of the
earth,
And rejoice in kings hereafter when thy sons are come to the birth:
Lo, then as thou lookest upon them, and thinkest of glory to come,
It shall be as if Sigmund were living, and Sigurd sat in thine home."

Nought answered the white-armed Gudrun, no master of masters might see
The hate in her soul swift-growing or the rage of her misery.
But great waxed the wrath of Grimhild; there huge in the hall she
stood,
And her fathers' might stirred in her, and the well-spring of her
blood;
And she cried out blind with anger: "Though all we die on one day,
Though we live for ever in sorrow, yet shalt thou be given away
To Atli the King of the mighty, high lord of the Eastland gold:
Drink now, that my love and my wisdom may thaw thine heart grown cold;
And take those great gifts of our giving, the cities long builded for
thee,
The wine-burgs digged for thy pleasure, the fateful wealthy lea,
The darkling woods of the deer, the courts of mighty lords,
The hosts of men war-shielded, the groves of fallow swords!"

Nought changed the eyes of Gudrun, but she reached her hand to the cup
And drank before her kindred, and the blood from her heart went up,
And was blent with the guile of the serpent, and many a thing she
forgat,
But never the day of her sorrow, and of how o'er Sigurd she sat:
But the land's-folk looked on the Niblungs as the daughter of Giuki
drank,
And before their wrath they trembled, and before their joy they shrank.

Then yet again spake Gudrun, and they that stood thereby,
--O how their hearts were heavy as though the sun should die!
She said: "O Kings of my kindred, I shall nought gainsay your will;
With the fruit of your