fond desires your hearts shall ye fulfil;
Bear me back to the Burg of the Niblungs, and the house of my fathers
of old,
That the men of King Atli may take me with the tokens and treasure of
gold."

Then the cry goeth up from the Niblungs, and no while in that house
they abide;
Forth fare the Cloudy People and the stony slopes they ride,
And the sun is bright behind them o'er queen Thora's lowly dale,
Where the sound of their speech abideth as an ancient woeful tale.
But the Niblungs ride the forest and the dwellings of the deer,
And the wife of the Golden Sigurd to the ancient Burg they bear;
She speaks not of good nor of evil, and no change in her face men see,
Nay, not when the Niblung towers rise up above the lea;
Nay, not when they come to the gateway, and that builded gloom again
Swallows up the steed and its rider, and sword, and gilded wain;
Nay, not when to earth she steppeth, and her feet again pass o'er
The threshold of the Niblungs and the holy house of yore;
Nay, not when alone she lieth in the chamber, on the bed
Where she lay, a little maiden, ere her hope was born and dead:
Yea, how fair is her face on the morrow, how it winneth all people's
praise,
As the moon that forebodeth nothing on the night of the last of days.

Nought tarry the lords of King Atli, and the Niblungs stay them nought;
The doors of the treasure are opened and the gold and the tokens are
brought;
And all men in the hall are assembled, where Gunnar speaketh and saith:

"Go hence, O men of King Atli, and tell of our love and our faith
To thy master, the mighty of men: go take him this treasure of gold,
And show him how we have hearkened, and nought from his heart may
withhold,
Nay, not our best and our dearest, nay, not the crown of our worth,
Our sister, the white-armed Gudrun, the wise and the Queen of the
earth."

Then arose the cry of the people, and that Duke of Atli spake:
"We bless thee, O mighty Gunnar, for the Eastland Atli's sake,
And his kingdom as thy kingdom, and his men as thy men shall be,
And the gold in Atli's treasure is stored and gathered for thee."

So spake he amid their shouting, and the Queen from the high-seat
stept,
And Gudrun stood with the strangers, and there were women who wept,
But she wept no more than she smiled, nor s