Chapter XVII: Book IV: Gudrun (2)

She said: "I beheld King Atli midst the place of sacrifice
And the holy grove of the Eastland in a king's most hallowed guise:
Then I looked, as with laughter triumphant he laid his gift in the
fire,
And lo, 'twas the heart of Hogni, and the heart of my desire;
But he turned and looked upon me as I sickened with fear and with love,
And I saw the guile of the greedy, and with speechless sleep I strove,
And had cried out curses against him, but my gaping throat was hushed,
Till the light of a deedless dawning o'er dream and terror rushed;
And there wert thou lying beside me, though but little joy it seemed,
For thou wert but an image unstable of the days before I dreamed."

Quoth Hogni, "Shall I arede it? Seems it not meet to thee
That the heart and the love of the Niblungs in Atli's hand should be,
When he stands by the high Gods' altars, and uplifts his heart for the
tide
When the kings of the world-great people to the Eastland house shall
ride?
Nay, Bera, wilt thou be weeping? but parting-fear is this;
Doubt not we shall come back happy from the house of Atli's bliss:
At least, when a king's hand offers all honour and great weal,
Wouldst thou have me strive to unclasp it to show the hidden steel?
With evil will I meet evil when it draweth exceeding near;
But oft have I heard of evil, whose father was but fear,
And his mother lust of living, and nought will I deal with it,
Lest the past, and those deeds of my doing be as straw when the fire
is lit.
Lo now, O Daughter of Kings, let us rise in the face of the day,
And be glad in the summer morning when the kindred ride on their way;
For tears beseem not king-folk, nor a heart made dull with dreams,
But to hope, if thou mayst, for ever, and to fear nought, well
beseems."

There the talk falls down between them, and they rise in the morn,
they twain,
And bright-faced wend through the dwelling of the Niblungs' glory and
gain.

Meanwhile awakeneth Gunnar, and looks on the wife by his side,
And saith: "Why weepest thou, Glaumvor, what evil now shall betide?"

She said: "I was waking and dreamed, or I slept and saw the truth;
The Norns are hooded and angry, and the Gods have forgotten their
ruth."

"Speak, sweet-mouthed woman," said Gunnar, "if the Norns are hard, I
am kind;
Though even the King of the Niblungs may loose not where they bind."

She said: "Wilt thou go unto Atli and enter the Burg of the East?
Wilt thou leave the house of the faithful, and turn to the murderer's
feast?"

"It is e'en as certain," said Gunnar, "as though I knocked at his gate,
If the winds and waters stay not, or death, or the dealings of Fate."

"Woe worth the while!" said Glaumvor, "then I talk with the dead
indeed:
And why must I tarry behind thee afar from the Niblungs' Need?"

He said: "Thou wert heavy-hearted last night for the parting-tide;
And alone in the dreamy country thy soul would needs abide,
And see not the King that loves thee, nor remember the might of his
hand;
So thou falledst a prey unholpen to the lies of the dreamy land."

"Ah, would they were lies," said Glaumvor, "for not the worst was this:
There thou wert in the holy high-seat mid the heart of the Niblung
bliss,
And a sword was borne into our midmost, and its point and its edge
were red,
And at either end the wood-wolves howled out in the day of dread;
With that sword wert thou smitten, O Gunnar, and the sharp point
pierced thee through.
And the kin were all departed, and no face of man I knew:
Then I strove to flee and might not; for day grew dark and strange,
And no moonrise and no morning the eyeless mirk would change."

"Such are dreams of the night," said Gunnar, "that lovers oft perplex,
When the sundering hour is coming with the cares that entangle and vex.
Yet if there be more, fair woman, when a king speaks loving words,
May I cast back words of anger, and the threat of grinded swords?"

"O yet wouldst thou tarry," said Glaumvor, "in the fair sun-lighted
day!
Nor give thy wife to another, nor cast thy kingdom away."

"Of what king of the people," said Gunnar, "hast thou known it written
or told,
That the word was born in the even which the morrow should withhold?"

"Alas, alas!" said Glaumvor, "then all is over and done!
For I dreamed of the hall of the Niblungs at the setting of the sun,
How dead women came in thither no worse than queens arrayed,
Who passed by the earls of the Niblungs, and their hands on thy
gown-skirt laid,
And hailed thee fair for their fellow, and bade thee come to their
hall.
O bethink thee, King of the Niblungs, what tidings shall befall!"

"Yea, shall they befall?" said Gunnar, "then who am I to strive
Against the change of my life-days, while the Gods on high are alive?
I shall ride as my heart would have me; let the Gods bestir them then,
And raise up another people in the stead of the Niblung men:
But at home shalt thou sit, King's Daughter, in the keeping of the
Fates,
And be blithe with the men of thy people and the guest within thy
gates,
Till thou know of our glad returning to the holy house and dear
Or the fall of Giuki's children, and a tale that all shall hear.
Arise and do on gladness, lest the clouds roll on and lower
O'er the heavy hearts of the people in the Niblungs' parting hour."

So he spake, and his love rejoiced her, and they rose in the face of
the day,
And no seeming shadow of evil on those bright-eyed King-folk lay.

Thus stirreth the house of the Niblungs, and awakeneth unto life;
And were there any envy, or doubt that breedeth strife,
'Twixt friends or kin or brethren, 'twas healed that self-same morn,
And peace and loving-kindness o'er all the house was borne,

Now arrayed are the earls and the warriors, and into the hall they come
When the morning sun is shining through the heart of their ancient
home;
And lo, how the allwise Grimhild is set in the golden seat,
The first of the way-fain warriors, and the first of the wives to
greet;
In the raiment of old she sitteth, aloft in the kingly place,
And all men marvel to see her and the glory of her face.

So all is dight for departing and the helms of the Niblung lords
Shine close as a river of fire o'er the hilts of hidden swords:
About and around are the women; and who e'er hath been heavy of heart,
If their hearts are light this morning when their fairest shall depart?
They hear the steeds in the forecourt; from the rampart of the wall
Comes the cry and noise of the warders as man to man doth call;
For the young give place to the old, and the strong carles labour to
show
The last-learned craft of battle to their fathers ere they go.
There is mocking and mirth and laughter as men tell to the ancient
sires
Of the four-sheared shaft of the gathering, and the horn, and the
beaconing fires.
Woe's me! but the women laugh not: do they hope that the sun may be
stayed,
And the journey of the Niblungs a little while delayed?
Or is not their hope the rather, that they do but dream in the night,
And that they shall awake in a little with the land's life faring
aright?
Ah, fair and fresh is the morning as ever a season hath been,
And the nourishing sun shines glorious on the toil of carle and quean,
And the wealth of the land desired, and all things are alive and awake;
Let them wait till the even bringeth sweet rest for hearts that ache.

Lo now, a stir by the doorway, and men see how great and grand
Come the Kings of Giuki begotten, all-armed, and hand in hand:
Where then shall the world behold them, such champions clad in steel,
Such hearts so free and bounteous, so wise for the people's weal?
Where then shall the world see such-like, if these must die as the
mean,
And fall as lowly people, and their days be no more seen?
They go forth fair and softly as they wend to the seat of the Kings,
And they smile in their loving-kindness as they talk of bygone things.
Are they not as the children of Giuki, that fared afield erewhile
In hope without contention, mid the youth that knew no guile?
Their wedded wives are beside them with faces proud and fair,
That smile, if the lips smile only, for the Eastland liar is there.
Fain the women are of those Brethren, and they seem so gay and kind,
That again the hope upspringeth of their lords abiding behind.

But Hogni spake to his brother, and they looked on the liar's son,
And clear ran King Gunnar's laughter as the summer waters run;
Then the Queens' hearts fainted within them, and with pain they drew
their breath;
For they knew that the King was merry and laughed in the face of death.

Fair now on the ancient high-seat, and the heart of the Niblung pride,
Stand those lovely lords of Giuki with their wedded wives beside.
And Gunnar cries: "O maidens, let the cup be in every hand,
For this morn for a little season we leave our fathers' land,
And love we leave behind us, and love abroad we bear,
And these twain shall meet in a little, and their meeting-tide be fair:
Rejoice, O Niblung children, be glad o'er the parting cup!
For meseems if the heavens were falling, our spears should hold them
up."

Then he leaped adown from the high-seat and amidst his men he stood,
And the very joy of God-folk ran through the Niblung blood,
And the glee of them that die not: there they drink in their mighty
hall,
And glad on the ancient fathers, and the sons of God they call:
The hope of their hearts goes upward in the last most awful voice,
And once more the quivering timbers of the Niblung home rejoice.

But exceeding proud sits Grimhild, and so wondrous is her state
That men deem they have never seen her so glorious and so great,
And she speaks, when again in the feast-hall is there silence save of
the mail
And the whispered voice of women, as they tell their latest tale:

"Go forth, O Kings, to dominion, and the crown of all your might,
And the tale from of old foreordered ere the day was begotten of night.
For all this is the work of the Norns, though ye leave a woman behind
Who hath toiled and toiled in the darkness, the road of fate to find:
Go glad, O children of Giuki; though scarce ye wot indeed
Of the labour of your mother to win your glory's meed.
Farewell, farewell, O children, till ye get you back again
To her that bore you in darkness, and brought you forth in pain!
Cast wide the doors for the King-folk, ring out O harpstrings now!
For the best e'er born of woman go forth with cloudless brow.
Be glad O ancient lintel, O threshold of the door,
For such another parting shall earth behold no more!"

She ceased, and no voice gave answer save the voice of smitten harps,
As the hands of the music-weavers went o'er their golden warps;
Then high o'er the warriors towering, as the king-leek o'er the grass,
Out into the world of sunlight through the door those Brethren pass,
And all the host of the warriors, the women's silent woe,
The steel and the feet soft-falling o'er the ancient threshold go,
While all alone on the high-seat the god-born Grimhild sits:
There hearkeneth she steeds' neighing, and the champing of the bits,
And the clash of steel-clad champions, as at last they leap aloft,
And cries and women's weeping 'mid the music breathing soft;
Then the clattering of the horse-hoofs, and the echo of the gate
With the wakened sword-song singing o'er departure of the great,
Till the many mingled voices are swallowed up and stilled,
And all the air by seeming with an awful sound is filled,
The cry of the Niblung trumpet, as men reach the unwalled space:
So whiles in a mighty city, and a many-peopled place,
When the rain falls down 'mid the babble, nor ceaseth rattle of wheels,
And with din of wedding joy-bells the minster steeple reels,
Lo, God sends down his thunder, and all else is hushed as then,
And it is as the world's beginning, and before the birth of men.

Long sitteth the god-born Grimhild till all is silent there,
For afar down the meadows with the host all people fare;
Then bitter groweth her visage, in the hush she crieth and saith:

"O ye--whom then shall I cry on, ye that hunt my sons unto death,
And overthrow our glory, and bring our 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 noontide is the Niblung host embayed,
And betwixt the sheltering nesses the ocean-wind is laid:
No whit they brook delaying: but their noblest and their best
Toss up the shaven oar-blades, and toil and mock at rest:
Full swift they skim the swan-mead till the tall masts quake and reel,
And the oaken sea-burgs quiver from bulwark unto keel.
It is Gunnar goes the foremost with the tiller in his hand,
And beside him standeth Knefrud and laughs on Atli's land:
And so fair are the dragons driven, that by ending of the day
On the beach by the ebb left naked the sea-beat keels they lay:
Then they look aloft from the foreshore, and lo, King Atli's steeds
On the brow of the mirk-wood standing, well dight for the warriors'
needs,
The red and the roan together, and the dapple-grey and the black;
Nor bits nor silken bridles, nor golden cloths they lack,
And the horse-lads of King Atli with that horse-array are blent,
And their shout of salutation o'er the oozy sand is sent:
Then no more will the Niblungs tarry when they see that ready band
But they leap adown from the long-ships, and waist-deep they wade the
strand,
And they in their armour of onset, beshielded, and sword by the side,
E'en as men returning homeward to their loves and their friends that
abide.
The first of all goeth Gunnar, and Hogni the wise cometh after,
And wringeth the sea from his kirtle; and all men hearken his laughter,
As his feet on the earth stand firm, and the sun in the west goeth
down,
And the Niblungs stand on the foreshore 'twixt the sea and the
mirk-wood brown.

For no meat there they linger, and they tarry for no sleep,
But aloft to the golden saddles those Giuki's children leap,
And forth from the side of the sea-flood they ride the mirk-wood's
ways,
Loud then is the voice of King Hogni and he sets forth Atli's praise,
As they ride through the night of the tree-boughs till the earthly
night prevails,
And along the desert sea-strand the wind of ocean wails.

There none hath tethered the dragons, or inboard handled the oars,
And the tide of the sea cometh creeping along the stranger-shores,
Till those golden dragons are floated, and their unmanned oars awash
In the sandy waves of the shallows, from stem to tiller clash:
Then setteth a wind from the shore, and the night 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 hearkened, and none bade turn again,
But the swords in the scabbards rattled as they rode with loosened
rein.

Now they ride in the Burg-gate's shadow from out the sunlit fields,
Till the spears aloft are hidden and Atli's painted shields;
And no captain cries from the rampart, nor soundeth any horn,
And the doors of oak and iron are shut this merry morn:
Then the Niblungs leap from the saddle, and the threats of earls arise,
And the wrath of Kings' defenders is waxing in their eyes;
But Knefrud looketh and laugheth, and he saith:
"So is Atli fain
Of the glory of the Niblungs and their honour's utmost gain:
By no feet but yours this morning will he have his threshold trod,
Nay, not by the world's most glorious, nay not by a wandering God."

Then Hogni looked on Knefrud as the bodily death shall gaze
On the last of the Kings of men-folk in the last of the latter days,
And he caught a staff from his saddle, a mighty axe of war,
And stood most huge of all men in face of Atli's door,
And upreared the axe against it with such wondrous strokes and great,
That the iron-knitted marvel hung shattered in the gate:
Through the rent poured the Niblung children, and in Atli's burg they
stood;
With none to bid them welcome, or ask them what they would.

But Hogni turned upon Knefrud, and spake: "I said, time was,
That we twain should ride out hither to bring a deed to pass:
And now one more deed abideth, and then no more for thee,
And another and another, and no more deeds for me."

'Gainst the liar's eyes one moment flashed out the axe-head's sheen,
And then was the face of Knefrud as though it ne'er had been,
And his gay-clad corpse lay glittering on the causeway in the sun.

No man cried out on Hogni or asked of the deed so done,
But their shielded ranks they marshalled and through Atli's burg they
strode:
There they see the merchant's dwelling, the rich man's fair abode,
The halls of doom, and the market, the loom and the smithying-booth,
The stall for the wares of the outlands, the temples high and smooth:
But all is hushed and empty, and no child of man they meet
As they thread the city's tangle, and enter street on street,
And leave the last forgotten, and of the next know nought.

So through the silent city by the Norns their feet are brought,
Till lo, on a hill's uprising a huge house they behold,
And a hall with gates all brazen, and roof of ruddy gold:
Then they know the house of Atli, and they trow that sooth it is
That the Lord of such a dwelling may give his guest-folk bliss:
Then they loosen the swords in their scabbards, and upraise a mighty
shout,
And the trumpet of the Niblungs through the lonely street rings out
And stilleth the wind in the wall-nook: but hark, as its echoes die,
How forth from that hall of the Eastlands comes the sound of
minstrelsy,
And the brazen doors swing open: but the Niblungs are at the door,
And the bidden guests of Atli o'er the fateful threshold pour;
There the music faileth before them, till its sound is over and done,
And fair in the city behind them lies the flood of the morning sun:
No man of the Niblungs murmureth, none biddeth turn aback
And still their hands are empty, and sleep the edges of wrack.

Huge, dim is the hall of Atli, and faint and far aloof,
As stars in the misty even, yet hang the lamps in the roof,
And but little daylight toucheth the walls and the hangings of gold:
No King and no earl-folk's children do the bidden guests behold,
Till they look aloft to the high-seat, and lo, a woman alone,
A white queen crowned, and silent as the ancient shapen stone
That men find in the dale deserted, as beneath the moon they wend,
When they weary even to slumber, and the journey draws to an end.
Chill then are the hearts of the warriors, for they know how they look
on a queen,
That Gudrun well-belovèd of the days that once have been;
Then were men that murmured on Sigurd, and as in some dream of the
night
They looked, but the left hand failed them, and there came no help
from the right.

But forth stood the mighty Gunnar, and men heard his kingly voice
As he spake: "O child of my father, I see thee again and rejoice,
Though I wot not where I have wended, or where thou dwellest on earth,
Or if this be the dead men's dwelling, or the hall of Atli's mirth!"

She stirred not, nothing she answered: but forth stood Hogni the King,
Clear, sharp, in the house of the stranger did the voice of the
fearless ring:
"O sister, O daughter of Giuki, O child of my mother's womb,
By what death shall the Niblungs perish, what day is the day of their
doom?"

Forth then from the lips of Gudrun a dreadful voice was borne:
"Ye shall die to-day, O brethren, at the hands of a King forsworn."

As she spake the outer door-leaves clashed to with a mighty sound,
And the outer air was troubled with a new noise gathering around:
As of leaves in the midmost summer ere the dusk of the even warm.
When the winds in the hillsides gathered go forth before the storm;
Men abode, and a wicket opened on the feast-hall's inner side
And the Niblungs looked for the coming of King Atli in his pride:
But one man entered only, and he thin and old and spare,
A swordless man and a little--yet was King Atli there.
He looked not once on the Niblungs, but forth to the high-seat went,
And stood aloof from Gudrun with his eyes to the hall-floor bent:
Thence came a voice from his lips, and men heard, for the hush was
great.
And the hearts of the bold were astonished 'neath the overhanging fate.

"Ye are come, O Kings of the Niblungs, ye are come, O slayers of men!
But how great, and where is the ransom that shall buy your departure
again?"

Then spake the wise-heart Hogni: "Do the bidden guests so long
To depart to the night and the silence from the fire and the wine and
the song?
Fear not! the feast shall be merry, and here we abide in thine hall,
Till thou and the great feast-master shall bid the best befall."

There were cries of men in the city, there was clang and clatter of
steel.
And high cried the thin-voiced Atli, the lord of the Eastland weal:
"Ye are come in your pride, O Niblungs; but this day of days is mine:
Will ye die? will ye live and be little? Hear now the token and sign!"

Great then grew the voices without, with one name was the city filled,
Yea, all the world it might be, and all sounds of the earth were
stilled
With that cry of the name of Atli: but Gunnar stood for a space
Till the cry was something sunken, then he put back the helm from his
face
And spread out his hands before him, and his hands were empty and bare
As he stood in the front of the Niblungs like a great God smiling and
fair:

"We shall live and never be little, we shall die and be masters of
fame:
I know not thy will, O Atli, nor what thou wouldst with thy name."

"Ye shall know my will," said Atli, "ye shall do it, or do no more
The deeds of the days of the living: ye shall render the garnered
store,
Ye shall give forth the Gold of Sigurd, the wealth of the uttermost
strand."

"To give a gift," cried Hogni, "we came to King Atli's land:
Tomorn for a little season thou shalt be the richest fool
Of all kings ever told of; and the rest let the high Gods rule."

"O King of the East," said Gunnar, "great gifts for thee draw nigh,
But the treasure of the Niblungs in their guarded house shall lie."

"What then will ye do?" quoth Atli; "have ye seen the fish in the net?"

"Eve telleth of deeds," said Gunnar, "and it is but the morning as
yet."

Said Atli: "Yea, will ye die? are there no deeds left you to do?"

"We shall smite with the sword," said the Niblung, "and tomorn will we
journey anew."

"Craftsmaster Hogni," said Atli, "where then are the shifts of the
wise?"

Said Hogni: "To smite with the sword, and go glad from the country of
lies."

"So died the fool," said Atli, "as Hogni dieth today."

"Smote the blind and the aimless," said Hogni, "and Baldur passed
away."

Said Atli: "Yet may ye live in the wholesome light of the sun,
And your latter days be as plenteous as the deeds your hands have
done."

"Dost thou hearken, O sword," said Gunnar, "and yet thou liest in
peace?
When then wilt thou look on the daylight, that the words of the
mocker may cease?"

"Thou, Hogni the wise," said Atli, "art thou weary of wisdom and lore,
Wilt thou die with these fools of the sword, and be mocked mid the
blind of the war?"

"Many things have I learned," said Hogni, "but today's task, easy it
is;
For men die every hour and they wage no master for this.
--Get hence, thou evil King, thou liar and traitor of kings,
Lest the edge of my sword be thy portion and not the ruddy rings!"

Then Atli shrank from before him, and the eyes of his intent,
And no more words he cast them, but forth from the hall he went,
And again were the Niblung children alone in the hall of their foes
With the wan and silent woman: but without great clamour arose,
And the clashing of steel against steel, and the crying of man unto
man,
And the wind of that summer morning through the Eastland banners ran:
Then so loud o'er all was winded a mighty horn of fight,
That unheard were the shouts of the Niblungs as Gunnar's sword leapt
white.
But Hogni turned to the great-one who the Niblung trumpet bore,
And he took the mighty metal, and kissed the brass of war,
And its shattering blast went forward, and beat back from the
gable-wall
And shook the ancient timbers, and the carven work of the hall:
Then it was to the Niblung warriors as their very hearts they heard
Cry out, not glad nor sorry, nor hoping, nor afeard,
But touched by the hand of Odin, smit with foretaste of the day,
When the fire shall burn up fooling, and the veil shall fall away;
When bare-faced, all unmingled, shall the evil stand in the light,
And men's deeds shall be nothing doubtful, nor the foe that they shall
smite.
In the hall was the voice of the trumpet, but therein might it nowise
abide,
But over burg and lealand it spread full far and wide,
And strong men quaked as they heard it in the guarded chamber of stone,
And the lord of weaponed kinsfolk was as one that sitteth alone
In a land by the foeman wasted, and no man to his neighbour spoke,
But they thought on the death of Atli and the slaughter of the folk.

_Of the Battle in Atli's Hall._

Ye shall know that in Atli's feast-hall on the side that joined the
house
Were many carven doorways whose work was glorious
With marble stones and gold-work, and their doors of beaten brass:
Lo now, in the merry morning how the story cometh to pass!
--While the echoes of the trumpet yet fill the people's ears,
And Hogni casts by the war-horn, and his Dwarf-wrought sword uprears,
All those doors aforesaid open, and in pour the streams of steel,
The best of the Eastland champions, the bold men of Atli's weal:
They raise no cry of battle nor cast forth threat of woe,
And their helmed and hidden faces from each other none may know:
Then a light in the hall ariseth, and the fire of battle runs
All adown the front of the Niblungs in the face of the mighty-ones;
All eyes are set upon them, hard drawn is every breath,
Ere the foremost points be mingled and death be blent with death.
--All eyes save the eyes of Hogni; but e'en as the edges meet,
He turneth about for a moment to the gold of the kingly seat,
Then aback to the front of battle; there then, as the lightning-flash
Through the dark night showeth the city when the clouds of heaven
clash,
And the gazer shrinketh backward, yet he seeth from end to end
The street and the merry market, and the windows of his friend,
And the pavement where his footsteps yestre'en returning trod,
Now white and changed and dreadful 'neath the threatening voice of God;
So Hogni seeth Gudrun, and the face he used to know,
Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted brow,
With half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless hands and cold
Laid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's moveless fold.

Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from where he stood,
And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe-man in a wood:
Before his sword was a champion and the edges clave to the chin,
And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that should fall
therein,
Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung host of war
Was swept by the leaping iron, as the rock anigh the shore
By the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment Gunnar stayed,
As high in his hand unbloodied he shook his awful blade;
And he cried:
"O Eastland champions, do ye behold it here,
The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have no fear,
But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's will it be!
Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden guests are we:
So forbear, if ye wander hood-winked, nor for nothing slay and be
slain;
For I know not what to tell you of the dead that live again."

So he saith in the midst of the foemen with his war-flame reared on
high,
But all about and around him goes up a bitter cry
From the iron men of Atli, and the bickering of the steel
Sends a roar up to the roof-ridge, and the Niblung war-ranks reel
Behind the steadfast Gunnar: but lo, have ye seen the corn,
While yet men grind the sickle, by the wind-streak overborne
When the sudden rain sweeps downward, and summer groweth black,
And the smitten wood-side roareth 'neath the driving thunder-wrack?
So before the wise-heart Hogni shrank the champions of the East
As his great voice shook the timbers in the hall of Atli's feast.
There he smote and beheld not the smitten, and by nought were his
edges stopped;
He smote and the dead were thrust from him; a hand with its shield he
lopped;
There met him Atli's marshal, and his arm at the shoulder he shred;
Three swords were upreared against him of the best of the kin of the
dead;
And he struck off a head to the rightward, and his sword through a
throat he thrust,
But the third stroke fell on his helm-crest, and he stooped to the
ruddy dust,
And uprose as the ancient Giant, and both his hands were wet:
Red then was the world to his eyen, as his hand to the labour he set;
Swords shook and fell in his pathway, huge bodies leapt and fell,
Harsh grided shield and war-helm like the tempest-smitten bell,
And the war-cries ran together, and no man his brother knew,
And the dead men loaded the living, as he went the war-wood through;
And man 'gainst man was huddled, till no sword rose to smite.
And clear stood the glorious Hogni in an island of the fight,
And there ran a river of death 'twixt the Niblung and his foes,
And therefrom the terror of men and the wrath of the Gods arose.

Now fell the sword of Gunnar and rose up red in the air,
And hearkened the song of the Niblung, as his voice rang glad and
clear,
And rejoiced and leapt at the Eastmen, and cried as it met the rings
Of a giant of King Atli, and a murder-wolf of kings;
But it quenched its thirst in his entrails, and knew the heart in his
breast,
And hearkened the praise of Gunnar, and lingered not to rest,
But fell upon Atli's brother and stayed not in his brain;
Then he fell and the King leapt over, and clave a neck atwain,
And leapt o'er the sweep of a pole-axe and thrust a lord in the throat,
And King Atli's banner-bearer through shield and hauberk smote;
Then he laughed on the huddled East-folk, and against their
war-shields drave
While the white swords tossed about him, and that archer's skull he
clave
Whom Atli had bought in the Southlands for many a pound of gold;
And the dark-skinned fell upon Gunnar and over his war-shield rolled
And cumbered his sword for a season, and the many blades fell on,
And sheared the cloudy helm-crest and rents in his hauberk won,
And the red blood ran from Gunnar; till that Giuki's sword outburst,
As the fire-tongue from the smoulder that the leafy heap hath nursed,
And unshielded smote King Gunnar, and sent the Niblung song
Through the quaking stems of battle in the hall of Atli's wrong:
Then he rent the knitted war-hedge till by Hogni's side he stood,
And kissed him amidst of the spear-hail, and their cheeks were wet
with blood.

Then on came the Niblung bucklers, and they drave the East-folk home
As the bows of the oar-driven long-ship beat off the waves in foam:
They leave their dead behind them, and they come to the doors and the
wall,
And a few last spears from the fleeing amidst their shield-hedge fall:
But the doors clash to in their faces, as the fleeing rout they drive,
And fain would follow after; and none is left alive
In the feast-hall of King Atli, save those fishes of the net,
And the white and silent woman above the slaughter set.

Then biddeth the heart-wise Hogni, and men to the windows climb,
And uplift the war-grey corpses, dead drift of the stormy time,
And cast them adown to their people: thence they come aback and say
That scarce shall ye see the houses, and no whit the wheel-worn way
For the spears and shields of the Eastlands that the merchant city
throng:
And back to the Niblung burg-gate the way seemed weary-long.

Yet passeth hour on hour, and the doors they watch and ward,
But a long while hear no mail-clash, nor the ringing of the sword;
Then droop the Niblung children, and their wounds are waxen chill,
And they think of the Burg by the river, and the builded holy hill,
And their eyes are set on Gudrun as of men who would beseech;
But unlearned are they in craving and know not dastard's speech.
Then doth Giuki's first-begotten a deed most fair to be told,
For his fair harp Gunnar taketh, and the warp of silver and gold;
With the hand of a cunning harper he dealeth with the strings,
And his voice in their midst goeth upward, as of ancient days he sings,
Of the days before the Niblungs, and the days that shall be yet;
Till the hour of toil and smiting the warrior hearts forget,
Nor hear the gathering foemen, nor the sound of swords aloof:
Then clear the song of Gunnar goes up to the dusky roof;
And the coming spear-host tarries, and the bearers of the woe
Through the cloisters of King Atli with lingering footsteps go.

But Hogni looketh on Gudrun, and no change in her face he sees,
And no stir in her folded linen and the deedless hands on her knees:
Then from Gunnar's side he hasteneth; and lo, the open door,
And a foeman treadeth the pavement, and his lips are on Atli's floor,
For Hogni is death in the doorway: then the Niblungs turn on the foe,
And the hosts are mingled together, and blow cries out on blow.

Still the song goeth up from Gunnar, though his harp to earth be laid;
But he fighteth exceeding wisely, and is many a warrior's aid,
And he shieldeth and delivereth, and his eyes search through the hall,
And woe is he for his fellows, as his battle-brethren fall;
For the turmoil hideth little from that glorious folk-king's eyes,
And o'er all he beholdeth Gudrun, and his soul is waxen wise,
And he saith: We shall look on Sigurd, and Sigmund of old days,
And see the boughs of the Branstock o'er the ancient Volsung's praise.

Woe's me for the wrath of Hogni! From the door he giveth aback
That the Eastland slayers may enter to the murder and the wrack:
Then he rageth and driveth the battle to the golden kingly seat,
And the last of the foes he slayeth by Gudrun's very feet,
That the red blood splasheth her raiment; and his own blood therewithal
He casteth aloft before her, and the drops on her white hands fall:
But nought she seeth or heedeth, and again he turns to the fight,
Nor heedeth stroke nor wounding so he a foe may smite:
Then the battle opens before him, and the Niblungs draw to his side;
As Death in the world first fashioned, through the feast-hall doth he
stride.
And so once more do the Niblungs sweep that murder-flood of men
From the hall of toils and treason, and the doors swing to again.

Then again is there peace for a little within the fateful fold;
But the Niblungs look about them, and but few folk they behold
Upright on their feet for the battle: now they climb aloft no more.
Nor cast the dead from the windows; but they raise a rampart of war,
And its stones are the fallen East-folk, and no lowly wall is that.

Therein was Gunnar the mighty: on the shields of men he sat,
And the sons of his people hearkened, for his hand through the
harp-strings ran,
And he sang in the hall of his foeman of the Gods and the making of
man,
And how season was sundered from season in the days of the fashioning,
And became the Summer and Autumn, and became the Winter and Spring;
He sang of men's hunger and labour, and their love and their breeding
of broil,
And their hope that is fostered of famine, and their rest that is
fashioned of toil:
Fame then and the sword he sang of, and the hour of the hardy and wise,
When the last of the living shall perish, and the first of the dead
shall arise,
And the torch shall be lit in the daylight, and God unto man shall
pray,
And the heart shall cry out for the hand in the fight of the uttermost
day.

So he sang, and beheld not Gudrun, save as long ago he saw
His sister, the little maiden of the face without a flaw:
But wearily Hogni beheld her, and no change in her face there was,
And long thereon gazed Hogni, and set his brows as the brass,
Though the hands of the King were weary, and weak his knees were grown.
And he felt as a man unholpen in a waste land wending alone.

Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose,
And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes:
They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of
dead;
No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led,
But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from
afar,
Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war:
Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen
acold,
And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold:

Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King,
Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring;
And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded
sore,
And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore,
So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall;
And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all.

Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves
accurst,
But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and
thirst;
And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood,
Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they
stood
And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote,
Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat,
Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields aside
And caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside,
And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death:
And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath;
Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born,
Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn;
But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forth
To the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth.

Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last;
Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them
cast,
And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away,
For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay,
Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore
The cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war;
But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown,
So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown;
And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes;
Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close,
Nor looked on the foemen's faces as their wild eyes drew anear,
And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their
fear;
But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk,
Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.

Now nothing might men hearken in the house of Atli's weal,
Save the feet slow tramping onward, and the rattling of the steel,
And the song of the glorious Gunnar, that rang as clearly now
As the speckled storm-cock singeth from the scant-leaved hawthorn-bough
When the sun is dusking over and the March snow pelts the land.
There stood the mighty Gunnar with sword and shield in hand,
There stood the shieldless Hogni with set unangry eyes,
And watched the wall of war-shields o'er the dead men's rampart rise,
And the white blades flickering nigher, and the quavering points of
war.
Then the heavy air of the feast-hall was rent with a fearful roar,
And the turmoil came and the tangle, as the wall together ran:
But aloft yet towered the Niblungs, and man toppled over man,
And leapt and struggled to tear them; as whiles amidst the sea
The doomed ship strives its utmost with mid-ocean's mastery,
And the tall masts whip the cordage, while the welter whirls and leaps,
And they rise and reel and waver, and sink amid the deeps:
So before the little-hearted in King Atli's murder-hall
Did the glorious sons of Giuki 'neath the shielded onrush fall:
Sore wounded, bound and helpless, but living yet, they lie
Till the afternoon and the even in the first of night shall die.

_Of the Slaying of the Niblung Kings._

Lo now, 'tis an hour or twain, and a labour lightly won
By the serving-men of Atli, and the Niblung blood is gone
From the golden house of his greatness, and the Eastland dead no more
Lie in great heaps together on Atli's mazy floor:
Then they cast fair summer blossoms o'er the footprints of the dead,
They wreathe round Atli's high-seat and the benches fair bespread,
And they light the odorous torches, and the sun of the golden roof,
Till the candles of King Atli hold dusky night aloof.

So they toil and are heavy-hearted, nor know what next shall betide,
As they look on the stranger-woman in the heart of Atli's pride.

Now stand they aback for the trumpet and the merry minstrelsy,
For they tremble before King Atli, and golden-clad is he,
And his golden crown is heavy and he strides exceeding slow,
With the wise and the mighty about him, through the house of the
Niblungs' woe.
There then by the Niblung woman on the throne he sat him down,
And folk heard the gold gear tinkle and the rings of the Eastland
crown:
Folk looked on his rich adornment, on King Atli's pride they gazed,
And the bright beams wearied their eyen, by the glory were they dazed;
There the councillors kept silence and the warriors clad in steel,
All men lowly, all men mighty, that had care of Atli's weal;
Yea there in the hall were they waiting for the word to come from his
lips,
As they of the merchant-city behold the shield-hung ships
Sweep slow through the windless haven with their gaping heads of gold,
And they know not their nation and names, nor hath aught of their
errand been told.

But King Atli looketh before him, and is grown too great to rejoice,
And he speaks and the world is troubled, though thin and scant be his
voice:

"Bring forth the fallen and conquered, bring forth the bounden thrall,
That they who were once the Niblungs did once King Hogni call."

So they brought him fettered and bound; and scarce on his feet he
stood,
But men stayed him up by the King; for the sword had drunk of his
blood,
And the might of his body had failed him, and yet so great was he
That the East-folk cowered before him and the might of his majesty.

Then spake the all-great Atli: "Thou yielded thrall of war,
I would hear thee tell of the Treasure, the Hoard of the kings of
yore!"

But words were grown heavy to Hogni, and scarce he spake with a smile:
"Let the living seek their desire; for indeed thou shalt live for a
while."

"Wilt thou speak and live," said Atli, "nor pay for the blood thou
hast spilt?"

Said he: "Thou art waxen so mighty, thou mayst have the Gold when thou
wilt."

Said the King: "I will give thee thy life, and forgive thee measureless
woe."

"It was gathered for thee," said Hogni, "and fashioned long ago."

"Speak, man o'ercome," quoth Atli: "Is life so little a thing?"

"Art thou mighty? put forth thine hand and gather the Gold!" said the
King.

"Wilt thou tell of the Gold," said the East-King, "the desire of many
eyes?"

"Yea, once on a day," said Hogni, "when the dead from the sea shall
arise."

Said he: "So great is my longing, that, O foe, I would have thee live,
Yea, live and be great as aforetime, if this word thou yet wouldst
give."

Said the Niblung: "Thee shall I heed, or the longing of thy pride?
I, who heeded Sigurd nothing, who thrust mine oath aside,
When the years were young and goodly and the summer bore increase!
Shall I crave my life of the greedy and pray for days of peace?
I, who whetted the sword for Sigurd, and bared the blade in the morn,
And smote ere the sun's uprising, and left my sister forlorn:
'Yea I lied,' quoth the God-loved Singer, 'when the will of the Gods I
told!'
--Stretch forth thine hand, O Mighty, and take thy Treasure of Gold!"