| |
| THEY look’d on each other and spake not; but Gunnar gat him gone, | |
| And came to his brother Hogni, the wise-heart Giuki’s son, | |
| And spake: “Thou art wise, O Hogni; go in to Brynhild the queen, | |
| And stay her swift departing; or the last of her days hath she seen.” | |
| |
| “It is nought, thy word,” said Hogni; “wilt thou bring dead men aback, | 5 |
| Or the souls of kings departed midst the battle and the wrack? | |
| Yet this shall be easier to thee than the turning Brynhild’s heart; | |
| She came to dwell among us, but in us she had no part; | |
| Let her go her ways from the Niblungs with her hand in Sigurd’s hand. | |
| Will the grass grow up henceforward where her feet have trodden the land?” | 10 |
| |
| “O evil day,” said Gunnar, “when my queen must perish and die!” | |
| |
| “Such oft betide,” said Hogni, “as the lives of men flit by; | |
| But the evil day is a day, and on each day groweth a deed, | |
| And a thing that never dieth; and the fateful tale shall speed. | |
| Lo now, let us harden our hearts and set our brows as the brass, | 15 |
| Lest men say it, ‘They loath’d the evil and they brought the evil to pass.’” | |
| So they spake, and their hearts were heavy, and they long’d for the morrow morn, | |
| And the morrow of to-morrow, and the new day yet to be born. | |
| |
| But Brynhild cried to her maidens: “Now open ark and chest, | |
| And draw forth queenly raiment of the loveliest and the best, | 20 |
| Red things that the Dwarf-lords fashion’d, fair cloths that queens have sew’d | |
| To array the bride for the mighty, and the traveller for the road.” | |
| |
| They wept as they wrought her bidding and did on her goodliest gear; | |
| But she laugh’d mid the dainty linen, and the gold-rings fashion’d fair: | |
| She arose from the bed of the Niblungs, and her face no more was wan; | 25 |
| As a star in the dawn-tide heavens, mid the dusky house she shone; | |
| And they that stood about her, their hearts were rais’d aloft | |
| Amid their fear and wonder: then she spake them kind and soft: | |
| |
| “Now give me the sword, O maidens, wherewith I shear’d the wind | |
| When the Kings of Earth were gather’d to know the Chooser’s mind.” | 30 |
| |
| All sheath’d the maidens brought it, and fear’d the hidden blade, | |
| But the naked blue-white edges across her knees she laid, | |
| And spake: “The heap’d-up riches, the gear my fathers left, | |
| All dear-bought woven wonders, all rings from battle reft, | |
| All goods of men desired, now strew them on the floor, | 35 |
| And so share among you, maidens, the gifts of Brynhild’s store.” | |
| |
| They brought them mid their weeping, but none put forth a hand | |
| To take that wealth desired, the spoils of many a land: | |
| |
| There they stand and weep before her, and some are mov’d to speech, | |
| And they cast their arms about her and strive with her, and beseech | 40 |
| That she look on her lov’d-ones’ sorrow and the glory of the day. | |
| It was nought; she scarce might see them, and she put their hands away, | |
| And she said: “Peace, ye that love me! and take the gifts and the gold | |
| In remembrance of my fathers and the faithful deeds of old.” | |
| |
| Then she spake: “Where now is Gunnar, that I may speak with him? | 45 |
| For new things are mine eyes beholding, and the Niblung house grows dim, | |
| And new sounds gather about me, that may hinder me to speak | |
| When the breath is near to flitting, and the voice is waxen weak.” | |
| |
| Then upright by the bed of the Niblungs for a moment doth she stand, | |
| And the blade flasheth bright in the chamber, but no more they hinder her hand | 50 |
| Than if a God were smiting to rend the world in two: | |
| Then dull’d are the glittering edges, and the bitter point cleaves through | |
| The breast of the all-wise Brynhild, and her feet from the pavement fail, | |
| And the sigh of her heart is hearken’d mid the hush of the maidens’ wail. | |
| Chill, deep is the fear upon them, but they bring her aback to the bed, | 55 |
| And her hand is yet on the hilt, and sidelong droopeth her head. | |
| |
| Then there cometh a cry from withoutward, and Gunnar’s hurrying feet | |
| Are swift on the kingly threshold, and Brynhild’s blood they meet. | |
| Low down o’er the bed he hangeth and hearkeneth for her word, | |
| And her heavy lids are open’d to look on the Niblung lord, | 60 |
| And she saith: “I pray thee a prayer, the last word in the world I speak, | |
| That ye bear me forth to Sigurd, and the hand my hand would seek; | |
| The bale for the dead is builded, it is wrought full wide on the plain, | |
| It is rais’d for Earth’s best Helper, and thereon is room for twain: | |
| Ye have hung the shields about it, and the Southland hangings spread, | 65 |
| There lay me adown by Sigurd and my head beside his head: | |
| But ere you leave us sleeping, draw his Wrath from out the sheath, | |
| And lay that Light of the Branstock, and the blade that frighted death | |
| Betwixt my side and Sigurd’s, as it lay that while agone, | |
| When once in one bed together we twain were laid alone: | 70 |
| How then when the flames flare upward may I be left behind? | |
| How then may the road he wendeth be hard for my feet to find? | |
| How then in the gates of Valhall may the door of the gleaming ring | |
| Clash to on the heel of Sigurd, as I follow on my king?” | |
| |
| Then she rais’d herself on her elbow, but again her eyelids sank, | 75 |
| And the wound by the sword-edge whisper’d, as her heart from the iron shrank, | |
| And she moan’d: “O lives of man-folk, for unrest all overlong | |
| By the Father were ye fashion’d; and what hope amendeth wrong? | |
| Now at last, O my beloved, all is gone; none else is near, | |
| Through the ages of all ages, never sunder’d, shall we wear.” | 80 |
| |
| Scarce more than a sigh was the word, as back on the bed she fell, | |
| Nor was there need in the chamber of the passing of Brynhild to tell; | |
| And no more their lamentation might the maidens hold aback, | |
| But the sound of their bitter mourning was as if red-handed wrack | |
| Ran wild in the Burg of the Niblungs, and the fire were master of all. | 85 |
| |
| Then the voice of Gunnar the war-king cried out o’er the weeping hall: | |
| “Wail on, O women forsaken, for the mightiest woman born! | |
| Now the hearth is cold and joyless, and the waste bed lieth forlorn, | |
| Wail on, but amid your weeping lay hand to the glorious dead, | |
| That not alone for an hour may lie Queen Brynhild’s head: | 90 |
| For here have been heavy tidings, and the Mightiest under shield | |
| Is laid on the bale high-builded in the Niblungs’ hallow’d field. | |
| Fare forth! for he abideth, and we do All-father wrong, | |
| If the shining Valhall’s pavement await their feet o’erlong.” | |
| |
| Then they took the body of Brynhild in the raiment that she wore, | 95 |
| And out through the gate of the Niblungs the holy corpse they bore, | |
| And thence forth to the mead of the people, and the high-built shielded bale; | |
| Then afresh in the open meadows breaks forth the women’s wail | |
| When they see the bed of Sigurd, and the glittering of his gear; | |
| And fresh is the wail of the people as Brynhild draweth anear, | 100 |
| And the tidings go before her that for twain the bale is built, | |
| That for twain is the oak-wood shielded and the pleasant odors spilt. | |
| |
| There is peace on the bale of Sigurd, and the Gods look down from on high, | |
| And they see the lids of the Volsung close shut against the sky, | |
| As he lies with his shield beside him in the Hauberk all of gold, | 105 |
| That has not its like in the heavens, nor has earth of its fellow told; | |
| And forth from the Helm of Aweing are the sunbeams flashing wide, | |
| And the sheathed Wrath of Sigurd lies still by his mighty side. | |
| Then cometh an elder of days, a man of the ancient times, | |
| Who is long past sorrow and joy, and the steep of the bale he climbs; | 110 |
| And he kneeleth down by Sigurd, and bareth the Wrath to the sun | |
| That the beams are gather’d about it, and from hilt to blood-point run, | |
| And wide o’er the plain of the Niblungs doth the Light of the Branstock glare, | |
| Till the wondering mountain-shepherds on that star of noontide stare, | |
| And fear for many an evil; but the ancient man stands still | 115 |
| With the war-flame on his shoulder, nor thinks of good or of ill, | |
| Till the feet of Brynhild’s bearers on the topmost bale are laid, | |
| And her bed is dight by Sigurd’s; then he sinks the pale white blade | |
| And lays it ’twixt the sleepers, and leaves them there alone— | |
| He, the last that shall ever behold them,—and his days are well nigh done. | 120 |
| |
| Then is silence over the plain; in the moon shine the torches pale | |
| As the best of the Niblung Earl-folk bear fire to the builded bale: | |
| Then a wind in the west ariseth, and the white flames leap on high, | |
| And with one voice crieth the people a great and mighty cry, | |
| And men cast up hands to the Heavens, and pray without a word, | 125 |
| As they that have seen God’s visage, and the face of the Father have heard. | |
| |
| They are gone—the lovely, the mighty, the hope of the ancient Earth: | |
| It shall labor and bear the burden as before that day of their birth; | |
| It shall groan in its blind abiding for the day that Sigurd hath sped, | |
| And the hour that Brynhild hath hasten’d, and the dawn that waketh the dead: | 130 |
| It shall yearn, and be oft-times holpen, and forget their deeds no more, | |
| Till the new sun beams on Baldur, and the happy sealess shore. | |
| |
