is waxen a-cold,
And seaward drift the long-ships with their raiment and vessels of
gold,
And their Gods with mastery carven: and who knoweth the story to tell,
If their wrack came ever to shoreward in some place where fishers
dwell,
Or sank in midmost ocean, and lay on the sea-floor wan
Where the pale sea-goddess singeth o'er the bane of many a man?

_Atli speaketh with the Niblungs._

Three days the Niblung warriors the ways of the mirk-wood ride
Till they come to a land of cities and the peopled country-side,
And the land's-folk run from their labour, and the merchants throng
the street
And the lords of many a city the stranger kings would meet.
But nought will the Niblungs tarry; swift through Atli's weal they
wend,
For their hearts are exceeding eager for their journey's latter end.
Three days they ride that country, and many a city leave,
But the fourth dawn mighty mountains by the inner sea upheave.
Then they ride a little further, and Atli's burg they see
With the feet of the mountains mingled above the flowery lea,
And yet a little further, and lo, its long white wall,
And its high-built guarded gateways, and its towers o'erhung and tall;
And ever all along them the glittering spear-heads run,
As the sparks of the white wood-ashes when the cooking-fire is done.

Then they look to the right and the left hand, and see no folk astir,
And no reek from the homestead chimneys; and no toil of men they hear:
But the hook hangs lone in the vineyard, and the scythe is lone in the
hay,
The bucket thirsts by the well-side, the void cart cumbers the way.
Then doubt on the war-host falleth, and they think: Well were we then,
When once we rode in the Westland and saw the brown-faced men
Peer through the hawthorn hedges as the Niblung host went by.
Yet they laugh and make no semblance of any fear drawn nigh.
Yea, Knefrud looked upon them, and with chilly voice he spake:

"Now his guests doth Atli honour, and yet more will he do for your
sake,
Who hath hidden all his people, and holdeth his vassals at home
On the day that the mighty Niblungs adown his highway come,
Lest men fear as the finders of Gods, and tremble and cumber the ways,
And the voice of the singers fail them to sing of the Niblungs'
praise."

Men laughed as his voice they