onged for the dawning of
day:
Then I rose from the bed of the Eastlands; to the Holy Hearth I went;
And lo, how the brands were abiding the hand of mine intent!
Then I caught them up with wisdom, with care I bore them forth,
And I laid them amidst of the treasures and dear things of uttermost
worth;
'Neath the fair-dight benches I laid them and the carven work of the
hall;
I was wise, as the handmaid arising ere the sun hath litten the wall,
When the brands on the hearth she lighteth that her work betimes she
may win,
That her hand may toil unchidden, and her day with praise begin.
--Begin, O day of Atli! O ancient sun, arise,
With the light that I loved aforetime, with the light that blessed
mine eyes,
When I woke and looked on Sigurd, and he rose on the world and shone!
And we twain in the world together! and I dwelt with Sigurd alone."

She spake; and the sun clomb over the Eastland mountains' rim
And shone through the door of Atli and the smoky hall and dim,
But the fire roared up against him, and the smoke-cloud rolled aloof,
And back and down from the timbers, and the carven work of the roof;
There the ancient trees were crackling as the red flames shot aloft
From the heart of the gathering smoke-cloud; there the far-fetched
hangings soft,
The gold and the sea-born purple, shrank up in a moment of space,
And the walls of Atli trembled, and the ancient golden place.

But the wine-drenched earls were awaking, and the sleep-dazed warriors
stirred,
And the light of their dawning was dreadful; wild voice of the day
they heard,
And they knew not where they were gotten, and their hearts were
smitten with dread,
And they deemed that their house was fallen to the innermost place of
the dead,
The hall for the traitors builded, the house of the changeless plain;
They cried, and their tongues were confounded, and none gave answer
again:
They rushed, and came nowhither; each man beheld his foe,
And smote as the hopeless and dying, nor brother brother might know,
The sons of one mother's sorrow in the fire-blast strove and smote,
And the sword of the first-begotten was thrust in the father's throat,
And the father hewed at his stripling; the thrall at the war-king
cried,
And mocked the face of the mighty in that house of A