labour to nought--
Ye Gods, ye had fashioned the greatest, and to make them greater I
wrought,
And to strengthen your hands for the battle, and uplift your hearts
for the end:
But ye, ye have fashioned confusion, and the great with the little ye
blend,
Till no more on the earth shall be living the mighty that mock at your
death,
Till like the leaves men tremble, like the dry leaves quake at a
breath.
I have wrought for your lives and your glory, and for this have I
strengthened my guile,
That the earth your hands uplifted might endure, nor pass in a while
Like the clouds of latter morning that melt in the first of the night."

She rose up great and dreadful, and stood on the floor upright,
And cast up her hands to the roof-tree, and cried aloud and said:

"Woe to you that have made me for nothing! for the house of the
Niblungs is dead,
Empty and dead as the desert, where the sun is idle and vain
And no hope hath the dew to cherish, and no deed abideth the rain!"

She falleth aback in the high seat, and the eagles cry from aloof,
While Grimhild's eyes wide-open stare up at the Niblung roof:
But they see not, nought are they doing to feed her fear or desire;
And her heart, the forge of sorrow, dead, cold, is its baneful fire;
And her cunning hand is helpless, for her hopeless soul is gone;
Far off belike it drifteth from the waste her labour won.

Fair now through midmost ocean King Gunnar's dragons run,
And the green hills round about them gleam glorious with the sun;
The keels roll down the sea-dale, and welter up the steep,
And o'er the brow hang quivering ere again they take the leap;
For the west wind pipes behind them, and no land is on their lea,
As the mightiest of earth's peoples sails down the summer sea:
And as eager as the west-wind, no duller than the foam
They spread all sails to the breezes, and seek their glory home:
Six days they sail the sea-flood, and the seventh dawn of day
Up-heaveth a new country, a land far-off and grey;
Then Knefrud biddeth heed it, and he saith: "Lo, the Eastland shore,
And the land few ships have sailed to, by the mirk-wood covered o'er."

Then riseth the cry and the shouting as the golden beaks they turn,
For all hearts for the land of cities, and the hall of Atli yearn:
But a little after the