Now again came Sigurd to Regin, and said: "Thou hast taught me a taskWhereof none knoweth the ending: and a gift at thine hands I ask."Then answered Regin the Master: "The world must be wide indeedIf my hand may not reach across it for aught thine heart may need.""Yea wide is the world," said Sigurd, "and soon spoken is thy word;But this gift thou shalt nought gainsay me: for I bid thee forge me a sword."Then spake the Master of Masters, and his voice was sweet and soft:"Look forth abroad, O Sigurd, and note in the heavens aloftHow the dim white moon of the daylight hangs round as the Goth-God's shield,Now for thee first rang mine anvil when she walked the heavenly fieldA slim and lovely lady, and the old moon lay on her arm:Lo, here is a sword I have wrought thee with many a spell and charmAnd all the craft of the Dwarf-kind; be glad thereof and sure;Mid many a storm of battle full well shall it endure."Then Sigurd looked on the slayer, and never a word would speak:Gemmed were the hilts and golden, and the blade was blue and bleak,And runes of the Dwarf-kind's cunning each side the trench were scored:But soft and sweet spake Regin: "How likest thou the sword?"Then Sigurd laughed and answered: "The work is proved by the deed;See now if this be a traitor to fail me in my need."Then Regin trembled and shrank, so bright his eyes outshoneAs he turned about to the anvil, and smote the sword thereon;But the shards fell shivering earthward, and Sigurd's heart grew wrothAs the steel-flakes tinkled about him: "Lo, there the right-hand's troth!Lo, there the golden glitter, and the word that soon is spilt."And down amongst the ashes he cast the glittering hilt,And turned his back on Regin and strode out through the door,And for many a day of spring-tide came back again no more.But at last he came to the stithy and again took up the word:"What hast thou done, O Master, in the forging of the sword?"Then sweetly Regin answered: "Hard task-master art thou,But lo, a blade of battle that shall surely please thee now!Two moons are clean departed since thou lookedst toward the skyAnd sawest the dim white circle amid the cloud-flecks lie;And night and day have I laboured; and the cunning of old daysHath surely left my right-hand if this sword thou shalt not praise."And indeed the hilts gleamed glorious with many a dear-bought stone,And down the fallow edges the light of battle shone;Yet Sigurd's eyes shone brighter, nor yet might Regin faceThose eyes of the heart of the Volsungs; but trembled in his placeAs Sigurd cried: "O Regin, thy kin of the days of oldWere an evil and treacherous folk, and they lied and murdered for gold;And now if thou wouldst betray me, of the ancient curse beware,And set thy face as the flint the bale and the shame to bear:For he that would win to the heavens, and be as the Gods on high,Must tremble nought at the road, and the place where men-folk die."White leaps the blade in his hand and gleams in the gear of the wall,And he smites, and the oft-smitten edges on the beaten anvil fall:But the life of the sword departed, and dull and broken it layOn the ashes and flaked-off iron, and no word did Sigurd say,But strode off through the door of the stithy and went to the Hall of Kings,And was merry and blithe that even mid all imaginings.But when the morrow was come he went to his mother and spake:"The shards, the shards of the sword, that thou gleanedst for my sakeIn the night on the field of slaughter, in the tide when my father fell,Hast thou kept them through sorrow and joyance? hast thou warded them trusty and well?Where hast thou laid them, my mother?"Then she looked upon him and said:"Art thou wroth, O Sigurd my son, that such eyes are in thine head?And wilt thou be wroth with thy mother? do I withstand thee at all?""Nay," said he, "nought am I wrathful, but the days rise up like a wallBetwixt my soul and the deeds, and I strive to rend them through.And why wilt thou fear mine eyen? as the sword lies baleful and blueE'en 'twixt the lips of lovers, when they swear their troth thereon,So keen are the eyes ye have fashioned, ye folk of the days agone;For therein is the light of battle, though whiles it lieth asleep.Now give me the sword, my mother, that Sigmund gave thee to keep."She said: "I shall give it thee gladly, for fain shall I be of thy praiseWhen thou knowest my careful keeping of that hope of the earlier days."So she took his hand in her hand, and they went their ways, they twain;Till they came to the treasure of queen-folk, the guarded chamber of gain:They were all alone with its riches, and she turned the key in the gold,And lifted the sea-born purple, and the silken web unrolled,And lo, 'twixt her hands and her bosom the shards of Sigmund's sword;No rust-fleck stained its edges, and the gems of the ocean's hoardWere as bright in the hilts and glorious, as when in the Volsungs' hallIt shone in the eyes of the earl-folk and flashed from the shielded wall.But Sigurd smiled upon it, and he said: "O Mother of Kings,Well hast thou warded the war-glaive for a mirror of many things,And a hope of much fulfilment: well hast thou given to meThe message of my fathers, and the word of thing to be:Trusty hath been thy warding, but its hour is over now:These shards shall be knit together, and shall hear the war-wind blow.They shall shine through the rain of Odin, as the sun come back to the world,When the heaviest bolt of the thunder amidst the storm is hurled:They shall shake the thrones of Kings, and shear the walls of war,And undo the knot of treason when the world is darkening o'er.They have shone in the dusk and the night-tide, they shall shine in the dawn and the day;They have gathered the storm together, they shall chase the clouds away;They have sheared red gold asunder, they shall gleam o'er the garnered goldThey have ended many a story, they shall fashion a tale to be told:They have lived in the wrack of the people; they shall live in the glory of folkThey have stricken the Gods in battle, for the Gods shall they strike the stroke."Then she felt his hands about her as he took the fateful sword,And he kissed her soft and sweetly; but she answered never a word:So great and fair was he waxen, so glorious was his face,So young, as the deathless Gods are, that long in the golden placeShe stood when he was departed: as some for-travailed oneComes over the dark fell-ridges on the birth-tide of the sun,And his gathering sleep falls from him mid the glory and the blaze;And he sees the world grow merry and looks on the lightened ways,While the ruddy streaks are melting in the day-flood broad and white;Then the morn-dusk he forgetteth, and the moon-lit waste of night,And the hall whence he departed with its yellow candles' flare:So stood the Isle-king's daughter in that treasure-chamber fair.But swift on his ways went Sigurd, and to Regin's house he came,Where the Master stood in the doorway and behind him leapt the flame,And dark he looked and little: no more his speech was sweet,No words on his lip were gathered the Volsung child to greet,Till he took the sword from Sigurd and the shards of the days of old;Then he spake:"Will nothing serve thee save this blue steel and cold,The bane of thy father's father, the fate of all his kin,The baleful blade I fashioned, the Wrath that the Gods would win?"Then answered the eye-bright Sigurd: "If thou thy craft wilt doNought save these battle-gleanings shall be my helper true:And what if thou begrudgest, and my battle-blade be dull,Yet the hand of the Norns is lifted and the cup is over-full.Repentst thou ne'er so sorely that thy kin must lie alow,How much soe'er thou longest the world to overthrow,And, doubting the gold and the wisdom, wouldst even now appeaseBlind hate and eyeless murder, and win the world with these;O'er-late is the time for repenting the word thy lips have said:Thou shalt have the Gold and the wisdom and take its curse on thine head.I say that thy lips have spoken, and no more with thee it liesTo do the deed or leave it: since thou hast shown mine eyesThe world that was aforetime, I see the world to be;And woe to the tangling thicket, or the wall that hindereth me!And short is the space I will tarry; for how if the Worm should dieEre the first of my strokes be stricken? Wilt thou get to thy masteryAnd knit these shards together that once in the Branstock stood?But if not and a smith's hands fail me, a king's hand yet shall be good;And the Norns have doomed thy brother. And yet I deem this swordIs the slayer of the Serpent, and the scatterer of the Hoard."Great waxed the gloom of Regin, and he said: "Thou sayest sooth,For none may turn him backward: the sword of a very youthShall one day end my cunning, as the Gods my joyance slew,When nought thereof they were deeming, and another thing would do.But this sword shall slay the Serpent; and do another deed,And many an one thereafter till it fail thee in thy need.But as fair and great as thou standeth, yet get thee from mine house,For in me too might ariseth, and the place is perilousWith the craft that was aforetime, and shall never be again,When the hands that have taught thee cunning have failed from the world of men.Thou art wroth; but thy wrath must slumber till fate its blossom bear;Not thus were the eyes of Odin when I held him in the snare.Depart! lest the end overtake us ere thy work and mine be done,But come again in the night-tide and the slumber of the sun,When the sharded moon of April hangs round in the undark May."Hither and thither a while did the heart of Sigurd sway;For he feared no craft of the Dwarf-kind, nor heeded the ways of Fate,But his hand wrought e'en as his heart would: and now was he weary with hateOf the hatred and scorn of the Gods, and the greed of gold and of gain,And the weaponless hands of the stripling of the wrath and the rending were fain.But there stood Regin the Master, and his eyes were on Sigurd's eyes,Though nought belike they beheld him, and his brow was sad and wise;And the greed died out of his visage and he stood like an image of old.So the Norns drew Sigurd away, and the tide was an even of gold,And sweet in the April even were the fowl-kind singing their best;And the light of life smote Sigurd, and the joy that knows no rest,And the fond unnamed desire, and the hope of hidden things;And he wended fair and lovely to the house of the feasting Kings.But now when the moon was at full and the undark May begun,Went Sigurd unto Regin mid the slumber of the sun,And amidst the fire-hall's pavement the King of the Dwarf-kind stoodLike an image of deeds departed and days that once were good;And he seemed but faint and weary, and his eyes were dim and dazedAs they met the glory of Sigurd where the fitful candles blazed.Then he spake:"Hail, Son of the Volsungs, the corner-stone is laid,I have toiled and thou hast desired, and, lo, the fateful blade!"Then Sigurd saw it lying on the ashes slaked and pale,Like the sun and the lightning mingled mid the even's cloudy bale,For ruddy and great were the hilts, and the edges fine and wan,And all adown to the blood-point a very flame there ranThat swallowed the runes of wisdom wherewith its sides were scored.No sound did Sigurd utter as he stooped adown for his sword,But it seemed as his lips were moving with speech of strong desire.White leapt the blade o'er his head, and he stood in the ring of its fireAs hither and thither it played, till it fell on the anvil's strength,And he cried aloud in his glory, and held out the sword full length,As one who would show it the world; for the edges were dulled no whit,And the anvil was cleft to the pavement with the dreadful dint of it.But Regin cried to his harp-strings: "Before the days of menI smithied the Wrath of Sigurd, and now is it smithied again:And my hand alone hath done it, and my heart alone hath daredTo bid that man to the mountain, and behold his glory bared.Ah, if the son of Sigmund might wot of the thing I would,Then how were the ages bettered, and the world all waxen good!Then how were the past forgotten and the weary days of yore,And the hope of man that dieth and the waste that never bore!How should this one live through the winter and know of all increase!How should that one spring to the sunlight and bear the blossom of peace!No more should the long-lived wisdom o'er the waste of the wilderness stray;Nor the clear-eyed hero hasten to the deedless ending of day.And what if the hearts of the Volsungs for this deed of deeds were born,How then were their life-days evil and the end of their lives forlorn?"There stood Sigurd the Volsung, and heard how the harp-strings rang,But of other things they told him than the hope that the Master sang;And his world lay far away from the Dwarf-king's eyeless realmAnd the road that leadeth nowhere, and the ship without a helm:But he spake: "How oft shall I say it, that I shall work thy will?If my father hath made me mighty, thine heart shall I fulfillWith the wisdom and gold thou wouldest, before I wend on my ways;For now hast thou failed me nought, and the sword is the wonder of days."No word for a while spake Regin; but he hung his head adownAs a man that pondereth sorely, and his voice once more was grownAs the voice of the smithying-master as he spake: "This Wrath of thineHath cleft the hard and the heavy; it shall shear the soft and the fine:Come forth to the night and prove it."So they twain went forth abroad,And the moon lay white on the river and lit the sleepless ford,And down to its pools they wended, and the stream was swift and full;Then Regin cast against it a lock of fine-spun wool,And it whirled about on the eddy till it met the edges bared,And as clean as the careless water the laboured fleece was sheared.Then Regin spake: "It is good, what the smithying-carle hath wrought:Now the work of the King beginneth, and the end that my soul hath sought.Thou shalt toil and I shall desire, and the deed shall be surely done:For thy Wrath is alive and awake and the story of bale is begun."Therewith was the Wrath of Sigurd laid soft in a golden sheathAnd the peace-strings knit around it; for that blade was fain of death;And 'tis ill to show such edges to the broad blue light of day,Or to let the hall-glare light them, if ye list not play the play.
Now again came Sigurd to Regin, and said: "Thou hast taught me a taskWhereof none knoweth the ending: and a gift at thine hands I ask."
Then answered Regin the Master: "The world must be wide indeedIf my hand may not reach across it for aught thine heart may need."
"Yea wide is the world," said Sigurd, "and soon spoken is thy word;But this gift thou shalt nought gainsay me: for I bid thee forge me a sword."
Then spake the Master of Masters, and his voice was sweet and soft:"Look forth abroad, O Sigurd, and note in the heavens aloftHow the dim white moon of the daylight hangs round as the Goth-God's shield,Now for thee first rang mine anvil when she walked the heavenly fieldA slim and lovely lady, and the old moon lay on her arm:Lo, here is a sword I have wrought thee with many a spell and charmAnd all the craft of the Dwarf-kind; be glad thereof and sure;Mid many a storm of battle full well shall it endure."
Then Sigurd looked on the slayer, and never a word would speak:Gemmed were the hilts and golden, and the blade was blue and bleak,And runes of the Dwarf-kind's cunning each side the trench were scored:But soft and sweet spake Regin: "How likest thou the sword?"
Then Sigurd laughed and answered: "The work is proved by the deed;See now if this be a traitor to fail me in my need."
Then Regin trembled and shrank, so bright his eyes outshoneAs he turned about to the anvil, and smote the sword thereon;But the shards fell shivering earthward, and Sigurd's heart grew wrothAs the steel-flakes tinkled about him: "Lo, there the right-hand's troth!Lo, there the golden glitter, and the word that soon is spilt."And down amongst the ashes he cast the glittering hilt,And turned his back on Regin and strode out through the door,And for many a day of spring-tide came back again no more.But at last he came to the stithy and again took up the word:"What hast thou done, O Master, in the forging of the sword?"
Then sweetly Regin answered: "Hard task-master art thou,But lo, a blade of battle that shall surely please thee now!Two moons are clean departed since thou lookedst toward the skyAnd sawest the dim white circle amid the cloud-flecks lie;And night and day have I laboured; and the cunning of old daysHath surely left my right-hand if this sword thou shalt not praise."
And indeed the hilts gleamed glorious with many a dear-bought stone,And down the fallow edges the light of battle shone;Yet Sigurd's eyes shone brighter, nor yet might Regin faceThose eyes of the heart of the Volsungs; but trembled in his placeAs Sigurd cried: "O Regin, thy kin of the days of oldWere an evil and treacherous folk, and they lied and murdered for gold;And now if thou wouldst betray me, of the ancient curse beware,And set thy face as the flint the bale and the shame to bear:For he that would win to the heavens, and be as the Gods on high,Must tremble nought at the road, and the place where men-folk die."
White leaps the blade in his hand and gleams in the gear of the wall,And he smites, and the oft-smitten edges on the beaten anvil fall:But the life of the sword departed, and dull and broken it layOn the ashes and flaked-off iron, and no word did Sigurd say,But strode off through the door of the stithy and went to the Hall of Kings,And was merry and blithe that even mid all imaginings.
But when the morrow was come he went to his mother and spake:"The shards, the shards of the sword, that thou gleanedst for my sakeIn the night on the field of slaughter, in the tide when my father fell,Hast thou kept them through sorrow and joyance? hast thou warded them trusty and well?Where hast thou laid them, my mother?"Then she looked upon him and said:"Art thou wroth, O Sigurd my son, that such eyes are in thine head?And wilt thou be wroth with thy mother? do I withstand thee at all?"
"Nay," said he, "nought am I wrathful, but the days rise up like a wallBetwixt my soul and the deeds, and I strive to rend them through.And why wilt thou fear mine eyen? as the sword lies baleful and blueE'en 'twixt the lips of lovers, when they swear their troth thereon,So keen are the eyes ye have fashioned, ye folk of the days agone;For therein is the light of battle, though whiles it lieth asleep.Now give me the sword, my mother, that Sigmund gave thee to keep."
She said: "I shall give it thee gladly, for fain shall I be of thy praiseWhen thou knowest my careful keeping of that hope of the earlier days."
So she took his hand in her hand, and they went their ways, they twain;Till they came to the treasure of queen-folk, the guarded chamber of gain:They were all alone with its riches, and she turned the key in the gold,And lifted the sea-born purple, and the silken web unrolled,And lo, 'twixt her hands and her bosom the shards of Sigmund's sword;No rust-fleck stained its edges, and the gems of the ocean's hoardWere as bright in the hilts and glorious, as when in the Volsungs' hallIt shone in the eyes of the earl-folk and flashed from the shielded wall.
But Sigurd smiled upon it, and he said: "O Mother of Kings,Well hast thou warded the war-glaive for a mirror of many things,And a hope of much fulfilment: well hast thou given to meThe message of my fathers, and the word of thing to be:Trusty hath been thy warding, but its hour is over now:These shards shall be knit together, and shall hear the war-wind blow.They shall shine through the rain of Odin, as the sun come back to the world,When the heaviest bolt of the thunder amidst the storm is hurled:They shall shake the thrones of Kings, and shear the walls of war,And undo the knot of treason when the world is darkening o'er.They have shone in the dusk and the night-tide, they shall shine in the dawn and the day;They have gathered the storm together, they shall chase the clouds away;They have sheared red gold asunder, they shall gleam o'er the garnered goldThey have ended many a story, they shall fashion a tale to be told:They have lived in the wrack of the people; they shall live in the glory of folkThey have stricken the Gods in battle, for the Gods shall they strike the stroke."
Then she felt his hands about her as he took the fateful sword,And he kissed her soft and sweetly; but she answered never a word:So great and fair was he waxen, so glorious was his face,So young, as the deathless Gods are, that long in the golden placeShe stood when he was departed: as some for-travailed oneComes over the dark fell-ridges on the birth-tide of the sun,And his gathering sleep falls from him mid the glory and the blaze;And he sees the world grow merry and looks on the lightened ways,While the ruddy streaks are melting in the day-flood broad and white;Then the morn-dusk he forgetteth, and the moon-lit waste of night,And the hall whence he departed with its yellow candles' flare:So stood the Isle-king's daughter in that treasure-chamber fair.
But swift on his ways went Sigurd, and to Regin's house he came,Where the Master stood in the doorway and behind him leapt the flame,And dark he looked and little: no more his speech was sweet,No words on his lip were gathered the Volsung child to greet,Till he took the sword from Sigurd and the shards of the days of old;Then he spake:"Will nothing serve thee save this blue steel and cold,The bane of thy father's father, the fate of all his kin,The baleful blade I fashioned, the Wrath that the Gods would win?"
Then answered the eye-bright Sigurd: "If thou thy craft wilt doNought save these battle-gleanings shall be my helper true:And what if thou begrudgest, and my battle-blade be dull,Yet the hand of the Norns is lifted and the cup is over-full.Repentst thou ne'er so sorely that thy kin must lie alow,How much soe'er thou longest the world to overthrow,And, doubting the gold and the wisdom, wouldst even now appeaseBlind hate and eyeless murder, and win the world with these;O'er-late is the time for repenting the word thy lips have said:Thou shalt have the Gold and the wisdom and take its curse on thine head.I say that thy lips have spoken, and no more with thee it liesTo do the deed or leave it: since thou hast shown mine eyesThe world that was aforetime, I see the world to be;And woe to the tangling thicket, or the wall that hindereth me!And short is the space I will tarry; for how if the Worm should dieEre the first of my strokes be stricken? Wilt thou get to thy masteryAnd knit these shards together that once in the Branstock stood?But if not and a smith's hands fail me, a king's hand yet shall be good;And the Norns have doomed thy brother. And yet I deem this swordIs the slayer of the Serpent, and the scatterer of the Hoard."
Great waxed the gloom of Regin, and he said: "Thou sayest sooth,For none may turn him backward: the sword of a very youthShall one day end my cunning, as the Gods my joyance slew,When nought thereof they were deeming, and another thing would do.But this sword shall slay the Serpent; and do another deed,And many an one thereafter till it fail thee in thy need.But as fair and great as thou standeth, yet get thee from mine house,For in me too might ariseth, and the place is perilousWith the craft that was aforetime, and shall never be again,When the hands that have taught thee cunning have failed from the world of men.Thou art wroth; but thy wrath must slumber till fate its blossom bear;Not thus were the eyes of Odin when I held him in the snare.Depart! lest the end overtake us ere thy work and mine be done,But come again in the night-tide and the slumber of the sun,When the sharded moon of April hangs round in the undark May."
Hither and thither a while did the heart of Sigurd sway;For he feared no craft of the Dwarf-kind, nor heeded the ways of Fate,But his hand wrought e'en as his heart would: and now was he weary with hateOf the hatred and scorn of the Gods, and the greed of gold and of gain,And the weaponless hands of the stripling of the wrath and the rending were fain.But there stood Regin the Master, and his eyes were on Sigurd's eyes,Though nought belike they beheld him, and his brow was sad and wise;And the greed died out of his visage and he stood like an image of old.
So the Norns drew Sigurd away, and the tide was an even of gold,And sweet in the April even were the fowl-kind singing their best;And the light of life smote Sigurd, and the joy that knows no rest,And the fond unnamed desire, and the hope of hidden things;And he wended fair and lovely to the house of the feasting Kings.
But now when the moon was at full and the undark May begun,Went Sigurd unto Regin mid the slumber of the sun,And amidst the fire-hall's pavement the King of the Dwarf-kind stoodLike an image of deeds departed and days that once were good;And he seemed but faint and weary, and his eyes were dim and dazedAs they met the glory of Sigurd where the fitful candles blazed.Then he spake:"Hail, Son of the Volsungs, the corner-stone is laid,I have toiled and thou hast desired, and, lo, the fateful blade!"
Then Sigurd saw it lying on the ashes slaked and pale,Like the sun and the lightning mingled mid the even's cloudy bale,For ruddy and great were the hilts, and the edges fine and wan,And all adown to the blood-point a very flame there ranThat swallowed the runes of wisdom wherewith its sides were scored.No sound did Sigurd utter as he stooped adown for his sword,But it seemed as his lips were moving with speech of strong desire.White leapt the blade o'er his head, and he stood in the ring of its fireAs hither and thither it played, till it fell on the anvil's strength,And he cried aloud in his glory, and held out the sword full length,As one who would show it the world; for the edges were dulled no whit,And the anvil was cleft to the pavement with the dreadful dint of it.
But Regin cried to his harp-strings: "Before the days of menI smithied the Wrath of Sigurd, and now is it smithied again:And my hand alone hath done it, and my heart alone hath daredTo bid that man to the mountain, and behold his glory bared.Ah, if the son of Sigmund might wot of the thing I would,Then how were the ages bettered, and the world all waxen good!Then how were the past forgotten and the weary days of yore,And the hope of man that dieth and the waste that never bore!How should this one live through the winter and know of all increase!How should that one spring to the sunlight and bear the blossom of peace!No more should the long-lived wisdom o'er the waste of the wilderness stray;Nor the clear-eyed hero hasten to the deedless ending of day.And what if the hearts of the Volsungs for this deed of deeds were born,How then were their life-days evil and the end of their lives forlorn?"
There stood Sigurd the Volsung, and heard how the harp-strings rang,But of other things they told him than the hope that the Master sang;And his world lay far away from the Dwarf-king's eyeless realmAnd the road that leadeth nowhere, and the ship without a helm:But he spake: "How oft shall I say it, that I shall work thy will?If my father hath made me mighty, thine heart shall I fulfillWith the wisdom and gold thou wouldest, before I wend on my ways;For now hast thou failed me nought, and the sword is the wonder of days."
No word for a while spake Regin; but he hung his head adownAs a man that pondereth sorely, and his voice once more was grownAs the voice of the smithying-master as he spake: "This Wrath of thineHath cleft the hard and the heavy; it shall shear the soft and the fine:Come forth to the night and prove it."So they twain went forth abroad,And the moon lay white on the river and lit the sleepless ford,And down to its pools they wended, and the stream was swift and full;Then Regin cast against it a lock of fine-spun wool,And it whirled about on the eddy till it met the edges bared,And as clean as the careless water the laboured fleece was sheared.
Then Regin spake: "It is good, what the smithying-carle hath wrought:Now the work of the King beginneth, and the end that my soul hath sought.Thou shalt toil and I shall desire, and the deed shall be surely done:For thy Wrath is alive and awake and the story of bale is begun."
Therewith was the Wrath of Sigurd laid soft in a golden sheathAnd the peace-strings knit around it; for that blade was fain of death;And 'tis ill to show such edges to the broad blue light of day,Or to let the hall-glare light them, if ye list not play the play.
Now Sigurd backeth Greyfell on the first of the morrow morn,And he rideth fair and softly through the acres of the corn;The Wrath to his side is girded, but hid are the edges blue,As he wendeth his ways to the mountains, and rideth the horse-mead through.His wide grey eyes are happy, and his voice is sweet and soft,As amid the mead-lark's singing he casteth song aloft:Lo, lo, the horse and the rider! So once maybe it was,When over the Earth unpeopled the youngest God would pass;But never again meseemeth shall such a sight betide,Till over a world unwrongful new-born shall Baldur ride.So he comes to that ness of the mountains, and Gripir's garden steep,That bravely Greyfell breasteth, and adown by the door doth he leapAnd his war-gear rattleth upon him; there is none to ask or forbidAs he wendeth the house clear-lighted, where no mote of the dust is hid,Though the sunlight hath not entered: the walls are clear and bright,For they cast back each to other the golden Sigurd's light;Through the echoing ways of the house bright-eyed he wendeth along,And the mountain-wind is with him, and the hovering eagles' song;But no sound of the children of men may the ears of the Volsung hear,And no sign of their ways in the world, or their will, or their hope or their fear.So he comes to the hall of Gripir, and gleaming-green is it builtAs the house of under-ocean where the wealth of the greedy is spilt;Gleaming and green as the sea, and rich as its rock-strewn floor,And fresh as the autumn morning when the burning of summer is o'er.There he looks and beholdeth the high-seat, and he sees it strangely wrought,Of the tooth of the sea-beast fashioned ere the Dwarf-kind came to nought;And he looks, and thereon is Gripir, the King exceeding old,With the sword of his fathers girded, and his raiment wrought of gold;With the ivory rod in his right-hand, with his left on the crystal laid,That is round as the world of men-folk, and after its image made,And clear is it wrought to the eyen that may read therein of Fate,Though little indeed be its sea, and its earth not wondrous great.There Sigurd stands in the hall, on the sheathèd Wrath doth he lean.All his golden light is mirrored in the gleaming floor and green;But the smile in his face upriseth as he looks on the ancient King,And their glad eyes meet and their laughter, and sweet is the welcoming:And Gripir saith: "Hail Sigurd! for my bidding hast thou done,And here in the mountain-dwelling are two Kings of men alone."But Sigurd spake: "Hail father! I am girt with the fateful swordAnd my face is set to the highway, and I come for thy latest word."Said Gripir: "What wouldst thou hearken ere we sit and drink the wine?""Thy word and the Norns'," said Sigurd, "but never a word of mine.""What sights wouldst thou see," said Gripir, "ere mine hand shall take thine hand?""As the Gods would I see," said Sigurd, "though Death light up the land.""What hope wouldst thou hope, O Sigurd, ere we kiss, we twain, and depart?""Thy hope and the Gods'," said Sigurd, "though the grief lie hard on my heart."Nought answered the ancient wise-one, and not a whit had he stirredSince the clash of Sigurd's raiment in his mountain-hall he heard;But the ball that imaged the earth was set in his hand grown old;And belike it was to his vision, as the wide-world's ocean rolled,And the forests waved with the wind, and the corn was gay with the lark,And the gold in its nether places grew up in the dusk and the dark,And its children built and departed, and its King-folk conquered and went,As over the crystal image his all-wise face was bent:For all his desire was dead, and he lived as a God shall live,Whom the prayers of the world hath forgotten, and to whom no hand may give.But there stood the mighty Volsung, and leaned on the hidden Wrath;As the earliest sun's uprising o'er the sea-plain draws a pathWhereby men sail to the Eastward and the dawn of another day,So the image of King Sigurd on the gleaming pavement lay.Then great in the hall fair-pillared the voice of Gripir arose,And it ran through the glimmering house-ways, and forth to the sunny close;There mid the birds' rejoicing went the voice of an o'er-wise KingLike a wind of midmost winter come back to talk with spring.But the voice cried: "Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!O hope of the Kings first fashioned! O blossom of the morn!Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North!One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth!"Arise, O Sigurd, Sigurd! In the night arise and go,Thou shalt smite when the day-dawn glimmers through the folds of God-home's foe:"There the child in the noon-tide smiteth; the young King rendeth apart,The old guile by the guile encompassed, the heart made wise by the heart."Bind the red rings, O Sigurd; bind up to cast abroad!That the earth may laugh before thee rejoiced by the Waters' Hoard."Ride on, O Sigurd, Sigurd! for God's word goes forth on the wind,And he speaketh not twice over; nor shall they loose that bind:But the Day and the Day shall loosen, and the Day shall awake and arise,And the Day shall rejoice with the Dawning, and the wise heart learn of the wise."O fair, O fearless, O mighty, how green are the garths of Kings,How soft are the ways before thee to the heart of their war-farings!"How green are the garths of King-folk, how fair is the lily and roseIn the house of the Cloudy People, 'neath the towers of kings and foes!"Smite now, smite now in the noontide! ride on through the hosts of men!Lest the dear remembrance perish, and today come not again."Is it day?—But the house is darkling—But the hand would gather and hold,And the lips have kissed the cloud-wreath, and a cloud the arms enfold."In the dusk hath the Sower arisen; in the dark hath he cast the seed,And the ear is the sorrow of Odin and the wrong, and the nameless need!"Ah the hand hath gathered and garnered, and empty is the hand,Though the day be full and fruitful mid the drift of the Cloudy Land!"Look, look on the drift of the clouds, how the day and the even doth growAs the long-forgotten dawning that was a while ago!"Dawn, dawn, O mighty of men! and why wilt thou never awake,When the holy field of the Goth-folk cries out for thy love and thy sake?"Dawn, now; but the house is silent, and dark is the purple bloodOn the breast of the Queen fair-fashioned; and it riseth up as a floodRound the posts of the door belovèd; and a deed there lieth therein:The last of the deeds of Sigurd; the worst of the Cloudy Kin—The slayer slain by the slain within the door and without.—O dawn as the eve of the birth-day! O dark world cumbered with doubt!"Shall it never be day any more, nor the sun's uprising and growth?Shall the kings of earth lie sleeping and the war-dukes wander in slothThrough the last of the winter twilight? is the word of the wise-ones saidTill the five-fold winter be ended and the trumpet waken the dead?"Short day and long remembrance! great glory for the earth!O deeds of the Day triumphant! O word of Sigurd's worth!It is done, and who shall undo it of all who were ever alive?May the Gods or the high Gods' masters 'gainst the tale of the righteous strive,And the deeds to follow after, and all their deeds increase,Till the uttermost field is foughten, and Baldur riseth in peace!"Cry out, O waste, before him! O rocks of the wilderness, cry!For tomorn shalt thou see the glory, and the man not made to die!Cry out, O upper heavens! O clouds beneath the lift!For the golden King shall be riding high-headed midst the drift:The mountain waits and the fire; there waiteth the heart of the wiseTill the earthly toil is accomplished, and again shall the fire arise;And none shall be nigh in the ending and none by his heart shall be laid,Save the world that he cherished and quickened, and the Day that he wakened and made."So died the voice of Gripir from amidst the sunny close,And the sound of hastening eagles from the mountain's feet arose,But the hall was silent a little, for still stood Sigmund's son,And he heard the words and remembered, and knew them one by one.Then he turned on the ancient Gripir with eyes that knew no guileAnd smiled on the wise of King-folk as the first of men might smileOn the God that hath fashioned him happy; and he spake:"Hast thou spoken and knownHow there standeth a child before thee and a stripling scarcely grown?Or hast thou told of the Volsungs, and the gathered heart of these,And their still unquenched desire for garnering fame's increase?E'en so do I hearken thy words: for I wot how they deem it longTill a man from their seed be arisen to deal with the cumber and wrong.Bid me therefore to sit by thy side, for behold I wend on my way,And the gates swing-to behind me, and each day of mine is a dayWith deeds in the eve and the morning, nor deeds shall the noontide lack;To the right and the left none calleth, and no voice crieth aback.""Come, kin of the Gods," said Gripir, "come up and sit by my side,That we twain may be glad as the fearless, and they that have nothing to hide:I have wrought out my will and abide it, and I sit ungrieved and alone,I look upon men and I help not; to me are the deeds long doneAs those of today and tomorrow: for these and for those am I glad;But the Gods and men are the framers, and the days of my life I have had."Then Sigurd came unto Gripir, and he kissed the wise-one's face,And they sat in the high-seat together, the child and the elder of days;And they drank of the wine of King-folk, and were joyful each of each,And spake for a while of matters that are meet for King-folk's speech;The deeds of men that have been and Kin of the Kings of the earth;And Gripir told of the outlands, and the mid-world's billowy girth,And tales of the upper heaven were mingled with his talk,And the halls where the Sea-Queen's kindred o'er the gem-strewn pavement walk,And the innermost parts of the earth, where they lie, the green and the blue,And the red and the glittering gem-stones that of old the Dwarf-kind knew.Long Sigurd sat and marvelled at the mouth that might not lie,And the eyes no God had blinded, and the lone heart raised on high,Then he rose from the gleaming high-seat, and the rings of battle rangAnd the sheathèd Wrath was hearkening and a song of war it sang,But Sigurd spake unto Gripir:"Long and lovely are thy days,And thy years fulfilled of wisdom, and thy feet on the unhid ways,And the guileless heart of the great that knoweth not anger nor pain:So once hath a man been fashioned and shall not be again.But for me hath been foaled the war-horse, the grey steed swift as the cloud,And for me were the edges smithied, and the Wrath cries out aloud;And a voice hath called from the darkness, and I ride to the Glittering Heath;To smite on the door of Destruction, and waken the warder of Death."So they kissed, the wise and the wise, and the child from the elder turned;And again in the glimmering house-ways the golden Sigurd burned;He stood outside in the sunlight, and tarried never a deal,But leapt on the cloudy Greyfell with the clank of gold and steel,And he rode through the sinking day to the walls of the kingly stead,And came to Regin's dwelling when the wind was fallen dead,And the great sun just departing: then blood-red grew the west,And the fowl flew home from the sea-mead, and all things sank to rest.
Now Sigurd backeth Greyfell on the first of the morrow morn,And he rideth fair and softly through the acres of the corn;The Wrath to his side is girded, but hid are the edges blue,As he wendeth his ways to the mountains, and rideth the horse-mead through.His wide grey eyes are happy, and his voice is sweet and soft,As amid the mead-lark's singing he casteth song aloft:Lo, lo, the horse and the rider! So once maybe it was,When over the Earth unpeopled the youngest God would pass;But never again meseemeth shall such a sight betide,Till over a world unwrongful new-born shall Baldur ride.
So he comes to that ness of the mountains, and Gripir's garden steep,That bravely Greyfell breasteth, and adown by the door doth he leapAnd his war-gear rattleth upon him; there is none to ask or forbidAs he wendeth the house clear-lighted, where no mote of the dust is hid,Though the sunlight hath not entered: the walls are clear and bright,For they cast back each to other the golden Sigurd's light;Through the echoing ways of the house bright-eyed he wendeth along,And the mountain-wind is with him, and the hovering eagles' song;But no sound of the children of men may the ears of the Volsung hear,And no sign of their ways in the world, or their will, or their hope or their fear.
So he comes to the hall of Gripir, and gleaming-green is it builtAs the house of under-ocean where the wealth of the greedy is spilt;Gleaming and green as the sea, and rich as its rock-strewn floor,And fresh as the autumn morning when the burning of summer is o'er.There he looks and beholdeth the high-seat, and he sees it strangely wrought,Of the tooth of the sea-beast fashioned ere the Dwarf-kind came to nought;And he looks, and thereon is Gripir, the King exceeding old,With the sword of his fathers girded, and his raiment wrought of gold;With the ivory rod in his right-hand, with his left on the crystal laid,That is round as the world of men-folk, and after its image made,And clear is it wrought to the eyen that may read therein of Fate,Though little indeed be its sea, and its earth not wondrous great.
There Sigurd stands in the hall, on the sheathèd Wrath doth he lean.All his golden light is mirrored in the gleaming floor and green;But the smile in his face upriseth as he looks on the ancient King,And their glad eyes meet and their laughter, and sweet is the welcoming:And Gripir saith: "Hail Sigurd! for my bidding hast thou done,And here in the mountain-dwelling are two Kings of men alone."
But Sigurd spake: "Hail father! I am girt with the fateful swordAnd my face is set to the highway, and I come for thy latest word."
Said Gripir: "What wouldst thou hearken ere we sit and drink the wine?"
"Thy word and the Norns'," said Sigurd, "but never a word of mine."
"What sights wouldst thou see," said Gripir, "ere mine hand shall take thine hand?"
"As the Gods would I see," said Sigurd, "though Death light up the land."
"What hope wouldst thou hope, O Sigurd, ere we kiss, we twain, and depart?"
"Thy hope and the Gods'," said Sigurd, "though the grief lie hard on my heart."
Nought answered the ancient wise-one, and not a whit had he stirredSince the clash of Sigurd's raiment in his mountain-hall he heard;But the ball that imaged the earth was set in his hand grown old;And belike it was to his vision, as the wide-world's ocean rolled,And the forests waved with the wind, and the corn was gay with the lark,And the gold in its nether places grew up in the dusk and the dark,And its children built and departed, and its King-folk conquered and went,As over the crystal image his all-wise face was bent:For all his desire was dead, and he lived as a God shall live,Whom the prayers of the world hath forgotten, and to whom no hand may give.
But there stood the mighty Volsung, and leaned on the hidden Wrath;As the earliest sun's uprising o'er the sea-plain draws a pathWhereby men sail to the Eastward and the dawn of another day,So the image of King Sigurd on the gleaming pavement lay.
Then great in the hall fair-pillared the voice of Gripir arose,And it ran through the glimmering house-ways, and forth to the sunny close;There mid the birds' rejoicing went the voice of an o'er-wise KingLike a wind of midmost winter come back to talk with spring.
But the voice cried: "Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!O hope of the Kings first fashioned! O blossom of the morn!Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North!One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth!
"Arise, O Sigurd, Sigurd! In the night arise and go,Thou shalt smite when the day-dawn glimmers through the folds of God-home's foe:
"There the child in the noon-tide smiteth; the young King rendeth apart,The old guile by the guile encompassed, the heart made wise by the heart.
"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd; bind up to cast abroad!That the earth may laugh before thee rejoiced by the Waters' Hoard.
"Ride on, O Sigurd, Sigurd! for God's word goes forth on the wind,And he speaketh not twice over; nor shall they loose that bind:But the Day and the Day shall loosen, and the Day shall awake and arise,And the Day shall rejoice with the Dawning, and the wise heart learn of the wise.
"O fair, O fearless, O mighty, how green are the garths of Kings,How soft are the ways before thee to the heart of their war-farings!
"How green are the garths of King-folk, how fair is the lily and roseIn the house of the Cloudy People, 'neath the towers of kings and foes!
"Smite now, smite now in the noontide! ride on through the hosts of men!Lest the dear remembrance perish, and today come not again.
"Is it day?—But the house is darkling—But the hand would gather and hold,And the lips have kissed the cloud-wreath, and a cloud the arms enfold.
"In the dusk hath the Sower arisen; in the dark hath he cast the seed,And the ear is the sorrow of Odin and the wrong, and the nameless need!
"Ah the hand hath gathered and garnered, and empty is the hand,Though the day be full and fruitful mid the drift of the Cloudy Land!
"Look, look on the drift of the clouds, how the day and the even doth growAs the long-forgotten dawning that was a while ago!
"Dawn, dawn, O mighty of men! and why wilt thou never awake,When the holy field of the Goth-folk cries out for thy love and thy sake?
"Dawn, now; but the house is silent, and dark is the purple bloodOn the breast of the Queen fair-fashioned; and it riseth up as a floodRound the posts of the door belovèd; and a deed there lieth therein:The last of the deeds of Sigurd; the worst of the Cloudy Kin—The slayer slain by the slain within the door and without.—O dawn as the eve of the birth-day! O dark world cumbered with doubt!
"Shall it never be day any more, nor the sun's uprising and growth?Shall the kings of earth lie sleeping and the war-dukes wander in slothThrough the last of the winter twilight? is the word of the wise-ones saidTill the five-fold winter be ended and the trumpet waken the dead?
"Short day and long remembrance! great glory for the earth!O deeds of the Day triumphant! O word of Sigurd's worth!It is done, and who shall undo it of all who were ever alive?May the Gods or the high Gods' masters 'gainst the tale of the righteous strive,And the deeds to follow after, and all their deeds increase,Till the uttermost field is foughten, and Baldur riseth in peace!
"Cry out, O waste, before him! O rocks of the wilderness, cry!For tomorn shalt thou see the glory, and the man not made to die!Cry out, O upper heavens! O clouds beneath the lift!For the golden King shall be riding high-headed midst the drift:The mountain waits and the fire; there waiteth the heart of the wiseTill the earthly toil is accomplished, and again shall the fire arise;And none shall be nigh in the ending and none by his heart shall be laid,Save the world that he cherished and quickened, and the Day that he wakened and made."
So died the voice of Gripir from amidst the sunny close,And the sound of hastening eagles from the mountain's feet arose,But the hall was silent a little, for still stood Sigmund's son,And he heard the words and remembered, and knew them one by one.Then he turned on the ancient Gripir with eyes that knew no guileAnd smiled on the wise of King-folk as the first of men might smileOn the God that hath fashioned him happy; and he spake:"Hast thou spoken and knownHow there standeth a child before thee and a stripling scarcely grown?Or hast thou told of the Volsungs, and the gathered heart of these,And their still unquenched desire for garnering fame's increase?E'en so do I hearken thy words: for I wot how they deem it longTill a man from their seed be arisen to deal with the cumber and wrong.Bid me therefore to sit by thy side, for behold I wend on my way,And the gates swing-to behind me, and each day of mine is a dayWith deeds in the eve and the morning, nor deeds shall the noontide lack;To the right and the left none calleth, and no voice crieth aback."
"Come, kin of the Gods," said Gripir, "come up and sit by my side,That we twain may be glad as the fearless, and they that have nothing to hide:I have wrought out my will and abide it, and I sit ungrieved and alone,I look upon men and I help not; to me are the deeds long doneAs those of today and tomorrow: for these and for those am I glad;But the Gods and men are the framers, and the days of my life I have had."
Then Sigurd came unto Gripir, and he kissed the wise-one's face,And they sat in the high-seat together, the child and the elder of days;And they drank of the wine of King-folk, and were joyful each of each,And spake for a while of matters that are meet for King-folk's speech;The deeds of men that have been and Kin of the Kings of the earth;And Gripir told of the outlands, and the mid-world's billowy girth,And tales of the upper heaven were mingled with his talk,And the halls where the Sea-Queen's kindred o'er the gem-strewn pavement walk,And the innermost parts of the earth, where they lie, the green and the blue,And the red and the glittering gem-stones that of old the Dwarf-kind knew.
Long Sigurd sat and marvelled at the mouth that might not lie,And the eyes no God had blinded, and the lone heart raised on high,Then he rose from the gleaming high-seat, and the rings of battle rangAnd the sheathèd Wrath was hearkening and a song of war it sang,But Sigurd spake unto Gripir:"Long and lovely are thy days,And thy years fulfilled of wisdom, and thy feet on the unhid ways,And the guileless heart of the great that knoweth not anger nor pain:So once hath a man been fashioned and shall not be again.But for me hath been foaled the war-horse, the grey steed swift as the cloud,And for me were the edges smithied, and the Wrath cries out aloud;And a voice hath called from the darkness, and I ride to the Glittering Heath;To smite on the door of Destruction, and waken the warder of Death."
So they kissed, the wise and the wise, and the child from the elder turned;And again in the glimmering house-ways the golden Sigurd burned;He stood outside in the sunlight, and tarried never a deal,But leapt on the cloudy Greyfell with the clank of gold and steel,And he rode through the sinking day to the walls of the kingly stead,And came to Regin's dwelling when the wind was fallen dead,And the great sun just departing: then blood-red grew the west,And the fowl flew home from the sea-mead, and all things sank to rest.
Again on the morrow morning doth Sigurd the Volsung ride,And Regin, the Master of Masters, is faring by his side,And they leave the dwelling of kings and ride the summer land,Until at the eve of the day the hills are on either hand:Then they wend up higher and higher, and over the heaths they fareTill the moon shines broad on the midnight, and they sleep 'neath the heavens bare;And they waken and look behind them, and lo, the dawning of dayAnd the little land of the Helper and its valleys far away;But the mountains rise before them, a wall exceeding great.Then spake the Master of Masters: "We have come to the garth and the gate:There is youth and rest behind thee and many a thing to do,There is many a fond desire, and each day born anew;And the land of the Volsungs to conquer, and many a people's praise:And for me there is rest it maybe, and the peaceful end of days.We have come to the garth and the gate; to the hall-door now shall we win,Shall we go to look on the high-seat and see what sitteth therein?""Yea, and what else?" said Sigurd, "was thy tale but mockeries,And have I been drifted hither on a wind of empty lies?""It was sooth, it was sooth," said Regin, "and more might I have toldHad I heart and space to remember the deeds of the days of old."And he hung down his head as he spake it, and was silent a little space;And when it was lifted again there was fear in the Dwarf-king's face.And he said: "Thou knowest my thought, and wise-hearted art thou grown:It were well if thine eyes were blinder, and we each were faring alone,And I with my eld and my wisdom, and thou with thy youth and thy might;Yet whiles I dream I have wrought thee, a beam of the morning bright,A fatherless motherless glory, to work out my desire;Then high my hope ariseth, and my heart is all afireFor the world I behold from afar, and the day that yet shall be;Then I wake and all things I remember and a youth of the Kings I see——The child of the Wood-abider, the seed of a conquered King,The sword that the Gods have fashioned, the fate that men shall sing:—Ah might the world run backward to the days of the Dwarfs of old,When I hewed out the pillars of crystal, and smoothed the walls of gold!"Nought answered the Son of Sigmund; nay he heard him nought at all,Save as though the wind were speaking in the bights of the mountain-hall:But he leapt aback of Greyfell, and the glorious sun rose up,And the heavens glowed above him like the bowl of Baldur's cup,And a golden man was he waxen; as the heart of the sun he seemed,While over the feet of the mountains like blood the new light streamed;Then Sigurd cried to Greyfell and swift for the pass he rode,And Regin followed after as a man bowed down by a load.Day-long they fared through the mountains, and that highway's fashionerForsooth was a fearful craftsman, and his hands the waters were,And the heaped-up ice was his mattock, and the fire-blast was his man,And never a whit he heeded though his walls were waste and wan,And the guest-halls of that wayside great heaps of the ashes spentBut, each as a man alone, through the sun-bright day they went,And they rode till the moon rose upward, and the stars were small and fair,Then they slept on the long-slaked ashes beneath the heavens bare;And the cold dawn came and they wakened, and the King of the Dwarf-kind seemedAs a thing of that wan land fashioned; but Sigurd glowed and gleamedAmid the shadowless twilight by Greyfell's cloudy flank,As a little space they abided while the latest star-world shrank;On the backward road looked Regin and heard how Sigurd drewThe girths of Greyfell's saddle, and the voice of his sword he knew,And he feared to look on the Volsung, as thus he fell to speak:"I have seen the Dwarf-folk mighty, I have seen the God-folk weak;And now, though our might be minished, yet have we gifts to give.When men desire and conquer, most sweet is their life to live;When men are young and lovely there is many a thing to do.And sweet is their fond desire and the dawn that springs anew.""This gift," said the Son of Sigmund, "the Norns shall give me yet,And no blossom slain by the sunshine while the leaves with dew are wet."Then Regin turned and beheld him: "Thou shalt deem it hard and strange,When the hand hath encompassed it all, and yet thy life must change.Ah, long were the lives of men-folk, if betwixt the Gods and themWere mighty warders watching mid the earth's and the heaven's hem!Is there any man so mighty he would cast this gift away,—The heart's desire accomplished, and life so long a day,That the dawn should be forgotten ere the even was begun?"Then Sigurd laughed and answered: "Fare forth, O glorious sun;Bright end from bright beginning, and the mid-way good to tell,And death, and deeds accomplished, and all remembered well!Shall the day go past and leave us, and we be left with night,To tread the endless circle, and strive in vain to smite?But thou—wilt thou still look backward? thou sayst I know thy thought:Thou hast whetted the sword for the slaying, it shall turn aside for nought.Fear not! with the Gold and the wisdom thou shalt deem thee God alone,And mayst do and undo at pleasure, nor be bound by right nor wrong:And then, if no God I be waxen, I shall be the weak with the strong."And his war-gear clanged and tinkled as he leapt to the saddle-stead:And the sun rose up at their backs and the grey world changed to red,And away to the west went Sigurd by the glory wreathed about,But little and black was Regin as a fire that dieth out.Day-long they rode the mountains by the crags exceeding old,And the ash that the first of the Dwarf-kind found dull and quenched and cold.Then the moon in the mid-sky swam, and the stars were fair and pale,And beneath the naked heaven they slept in an ash-grey dale;And again at the dawn-dusk's ending they stood upon their feet,And Sigurd donned his war-gear nor his eyes would Regin meet.A clear streak widened in heaven low down above the earth;And above it lay the cloud-flecks, and the sun, anigh its birth,Unseen, their hosts was staining with the very hue of blood,And ruddy by Greyfell's shoulder the Son of Sigmund stood.Then spake the Master of Masters: "What is thine hope this mornThat thou dightest thee, O Sigurd, to ride this world forlorn?""What needeth hope," said Sigurd, "when the heart of the Volsungs turnsTo the light of the Glittering Heath, and the house where the Waster burns?I shall slay the Foe of the Gods, as thou badst me a while agone,And then with the Gold and its wisdom shalt thou be left alone.""O Child," said the King of the Dwarf-kind, "when the day at last comes roundFor the dread and the Dusk of the Gods, and the kin of the Wolf is unbound,When thy sword shall hew the fire, and the wildfire beateth thy shield,Shalt thou praise the wages of hope and the Gods that pitched the field?""O Foe of the Gods," said Sigurd, "wouldst thou hide the evil thing,And the curse that is greater than thou, lest death end thy labouring,Lest the night should come upon thee amidst thy toil for nought?It is me, it is me that thou fearest, if indeed I know thy thought;Yea me, who would utterly light the face of all good and ill,If not with the fruitful beams that the summer shall fulfill,Then at least with the world a-blazing, and the glare of the grinded sword."And he sprang aloft to the saddle as he spake the latest word,And the Wrath sang loud in the sheath as it ne'er had sung before,And the cloudy flecks were scattered like flames on the heaven's floor,And all was kindled at once, and that trench of the mountains greyWas filled with the living light as the low sun lit the way:But Regin turned from the glory with blinded eyes and dazed,And lo, on the cloudy war-steed how another light there blazed,And a great voice came from amidst it:"O Regin, in good sooth,I have hearkened not nor heeded the words of thy fear and thy ruth:Thou hast told thy tale and thy longing, and thereto I hearkened well:—Let it lead thee up to heaven, let it lead thee down to hell,The deed shall be done tomorrow: thou shalt have that measureless Gold,And devour the garnered wisdom that blessed thy realm of old,That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the very heart of hate:With the blood and the might of thy brother thine hunger shalt thou sate;And this deed shall be mine and thine; but take heed for what followeth then!Let each do after his kind! I shall do the deeds of men;I shall harvest the field of their sowing, in the bed of their strewing shall sleep;To them shall I give my life-days, to the Gods my glory to keep.But thou with the wealth and the wisdom that the best of the Gods might praise,If thou shalt indeed excel them and become the hope of the days,Then me in turn hast thou conquered, and I shall be in turnThy fashioned brand of the battle through good and evil to burn,Or the flame that sleeps in thy stithy for the gathered winds to blow,When thou listest to do and undo and thine uttermost cunning to show.But indeed I wot full surely that thou shalt follow thy kind;And for all that cometh after, the Norns shall loose and bind."Then his bridle-reins rang sweetly, and the warding-walls of death,And Regin drew up to him, and the Wrath sang loud in the sheath,And forth from that trench in the mountains by the westward way they ride;And little and black goes Regin by the golden Volsung's side;But no more his head is drooping, for he seeth the Elf-king's Gold;The garnered might and the wisdom e'en now his eyes behold.So up and up they journeyed, and ever as they wentAbout the cold-slaked forges, o'er many a cloud-swept bent,Betwixt the walls of blackness, by shores of the fishless meres,And the fathomless desert waters, did Regin cast his fears,And wrap him in desire; and all alone he seemedAs a God to his heirship wending, and forgotten and undreamedWas all the tale of Sigurd, and the folk he had toiled among,And the Volsungs, Odin's children, and the men-folk fair and young.So on they ride to the westward; and huge were the mountains grownAnd the floor of heaven was mingled with that tossing world of stone:And they rode till the noon was forgotten and the sun was waxen low,And they tarried not, though he perished, and the world grew dark below.Then they rode a mighty desert, a glimmering place and wide,And into a narrow pass high-walled on either sideBy the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in faceBy the empty night of the shadow; a windless silent place:But the white moon shone o'erhead mid the small sharp stars and pale,And each as a man alone they rode on the highway of bale.So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er,And the stars grew pale and paler, and failed from the heaven's floor,And the moon was a long while dead, but where was the promise of day?No change came over the darkness, no streak of the dawning grey;No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran:It was blind as the Gaping Gulf ere the first of the worlds began.Then athwart and athwart rode Sigurd and sought the walls of the pass,But found no wall before him; and the road rang hard as brassBeneath the hoofs of Greyfell, as up and up he trod:—Was it the daylight of Hell, or the night of the doorway of God?But lo, at the last a glimmer, and a light from the west there came,And another and another, like points of far-off flame;And they grew and brightened and gathered; and whiles together they ranLike the moon wake over the waters; and whiles they were scant and wan,Some greater and some lesser, like the boats of fishers laidAbout the sea of midnight; and a dusky dawn they made,A faint and glimmering twilight: So Sigurd strains his eyes,And he sees how a land deserted all round about him liesMore changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor:Then the heart leaps up within him, for he knows that his journey is o'er.And there he draweth bridle on the first of the Glittering Heath:And the Wrath is waxen merry and sings in the golden sheathAs he leaps adown from Greyfell, and stands upon his feet,And wends his ways through the twilight the Foe of the Gods to meet.
Again on the morrow morning doth Sigurd the Volsung ride,And Regin, the Master of Masters, is faring by his side,And they leave the dwelling of kings and ride the summer land,Until at the eve of the day the hills are on either hand:Then they wend up higher and higher, and over the heaths they fareTill the moon shines broad on the midnight, and they sleep 'neath the heavens bare;And they waken and look behind them, and lo, the dawning of dayAnd the little land of the Helper and its valleys far away;But the mountains rise before them, a wall exceeding great.
Then spake the Master of Masters: "We have come to the garth and the gate:There is youth and rest behind thee and many a thing to do,There is many a fond desire, and each day born anew;And the land of the Volsungs to conquer, and many a people's praise:And for me there is rest it maybe, and the peaceful end of days.We have come to the garth and the gate; to the hall-door now shall we win,Shall we go to look on the high-seat and see what sitteth therein?"
"Yea, and what else?" said Sigurd, "was thy tale but mockeries,And have I been drifted hither on a wind of empty lies?"
"It was sooth, it was sooth," said Regin, "and more might I have toldHad I heart and space to remember the deeds of the days of old."
And he hung down his head as he spake it, and was silent a little space;And when it was lifted again there was fear in the Dwarf-king's face.And he said: "Thou knowest my thought, and wise-hearted art thou grown:It were well if thine eyes were blinder, and we each were faring alone,And I with my eld and my wisdom, and thou with thy youth and thy might;Yet whiles I dream I have wrought thee, a beam of the morning bright,A fatherless motherless glory, to work out my desire;Then high my hope ariseth, and my heart is all afireFor the world I behold from afar, and the day that yet shall be;Then I wake and all things I remember and a youth of the Kings I see——The child of the Wood-abider, the seed of a conquered King,The sword that the Gods have fashioned, the fate that men shall sing:—Ah might the world run backward to the days of the Dwarfs of old,When I hewed out the pillars of crystal, and smoothed the walls of gold!"
Nought answered the Son of Sigmund; nay he heard him nought at all,Save as though the wind were speaking in the bights of the mountain-hall:But he leapt aback of Greyfell, and the glorious sun rose up,And the heavens glowed above him like the bowl of Baldur's cup,And a golden man was he waxen; as the heart of the sun he seemed,While over the feet of the mountains like blood the new light streamed;Then Sigurd cried to Greyfell and swift for the pass he rode,And Regin followed after as a man bowed down by a load.
Day-long they fared through the mountains, and that highway's fashionerForsooth was a fearful craftsman, and his hands the waters were,And the heaped-up ice was his mattock, and the fire-blast was his man,And never a whit he heeded though his walls were waste and wan,And the guest-halls of that wayside great heaps of the ashes spentBut, each as a man alone, through the sun-bright day they went,And they rode till the moon rose upward, and the stars were small and fair,Then they slept on the long-slaked ashes beneath the heavens bare;And the cold dawn came and they wakened, and the King of the Dwarf-kind seemedAs a thing of that wan land fashioned; but Sigurd glowed and gleamedAmid the shadowless twilight by Greyfell's cloudy flank,As a little space they abided while the latest star-world shrank;On the backward road looked Regin and heard how Sigurd drewThe girths of Greyfell's saddle, and the voice of his sword he knew,And he feared to look on the Volsung, as thus he fell to speak:
"I have seen the Dwarf-folk mighty, I have seen the God-folk weak;And now, though our might be minished, yet have we gifts to give.When men desire and conquer, most sweet is their life to live;When men are young and lovely there is many a thing to do.And sweet is their fond desire and the dawn that springs anew."
"This gift," said the Son of Sigmund, "the Norns shall give me yet,And no blossom slain by the sunshine while the leaves with dew are wet."
Then Regin turned and beheld him: "Thou shalt deem it hard and strange,When the hand hath encompassed it all, and yet thy life must change.Ah, long were the lives of men-folk, if betwixt the Gods and themWere mighty warders watching mid the earth's and the heaven's hem!Is there any man so mighty he would cast this gift away,—The heart's desire accomplished, and life so long a day,That the dawn should be forgotten ere the even was begun?"
Then Sigurd laughed and answered: "Fare forth, O glorious sun;Bright end from bright beginning, and the mid-way good to tell,And death, and deeds accomplished, and all remembered well!Shall the day go past and leave us, and we be left with night,To tread the endless circle, and strive in vain to smite?But thou—wilt thou still look backward? thou sayst I know thy thought:Thou hast whetted the sword for the slaying, it shall turn aside for nought.Fear not! with the Gold and the wisdom thou shalt deem thee God alone,And mayst do and undo at pleasure, nor be bound by right nor wrong:And then, if no God I be waxen, I shall be the weak with the strong."
And his war-gear clanged and tinkled as he leapt to the saddle-stead:And the sun rose up at their backs and the grey world changed to red,And away to the west went Sigurd by the glory wreathed about,But little and black was Regin as a fire that dieth out.Day-long they rode the mountains by the crags exceeding old,And the ash that the first of the Dwarf-kind found dull and quenched and cold.Then the moon in the mid-sky swam, and the stars were fair and pale,And beneath the naked heaven they slept in an ash-grey dale;And again at the dawn-dusk's ending they stood upon their feet,And Sigurd donned his war-gear nor his eyes would Regin meet.
A clear streak widened in heaven low down above the earth;And above it lay the cloud-flecks, and the sun, anigh its birth,Unseen, their hosts was staining with the very hue of blood,And ruddy by Greyfell's shoulder the Son of Sigmund stood.
Then spake the Master of Masters: "What is thine hope this mornThat thou dightest thee, O Sigurd, to ride this world forlorn?"
"What needeth hope," said Sigurd, "when the heart of the Volsungs turnsTo the light of the Glittering Heath, and the house where the Waster burns?I shall slay the Foe of the Gods, as thou badst me a while agone,And then with the Gold and its wisdom shalt thou be left alone."
"O Child," said the King of the Dwarf-kind, "when the day at last comes roundFor the dread and the Dusk of the Gods, and the kin of the Wolf is unbound,When thy sword shall hew the fire, and the wildfire beateth thy shield,Shalt thou praise the wages of hope and the Gods that pitched the field?"
"O Foe of the Gods," said Sigurd, "wouldst thou hide the evil thing,And the curse that is greater than thou, lest death end thy labouring,Lest the night should come upon thee amidst thy toil for nought?It is me, it is me that thou fearest, if indeed I know thy thought;Yea me, who would utterly light the face of all good and ill,If not with the fruitful beams that the summer shall fulfill,Then at least with the world a-blazing, and the glare of the grinded sword."
And he sprang aloft to the saddle as he spake the latest word,And the Wrath sang loud in the sheath as it ne'er had sung before,And the cloudy flecks were scattered like flames on the heaven's floor,And all was kindled at once, and that trench of the mountains greyWas filled with the living light as the low sun lit the way:But Regin turned from the glory with blinded eyes and dazed,And lo, on the cloudy war-steed how another light there blazed,And a great voice came from amidst it:"O Regin, in good sooth,I have hearkened not nor heeded the words of thy fear and thy ruth:Thou hast told thy tale and thy longing, and thereto I hearkened well:—Let it lead thee up to heaven, let it lead thee down to hell,The deed shall be done tomorrow: thou shalt have that measureless Gold,And devour the garnered wisdom that blessed thy realm of old,That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the very heart of hate:With the blood and the might of thy brother thine hunger shalt thou sate;And this deed shall be mine and thine; but take heed for what followeth then!Let each do after his kind! I shall do the deeds of men;I shall harvest the field of their sowing, in the bed of their strewing shall sleep;To them shall I give my life-days, to the Gods my glory to keep.But thou with the wealth and the wisdom that the best of the Gods might praise,If thou shalt indeed excel them and become the hope of the days,Then me in turn hast thou conquered, and I shall be in turnThy fashioned brand of the battle through good and evil to burn,Or the flame that sleeps in thy stithy for the gathered winds to blow,When thou listest to do and undo and thine uttermost cunning to show.But indeed I wot full surely that thou shalt follow thy kind;And for all that cometh after, the Norns shall loose and bind."
Then his bridle-reins rang sweetly, and the warding-walls of death,And Regin drew up to him, and the Wrath sang loud in the sheath,And forth from that trench in the mountains by the westward way they ride;And little and black goes Regin by the golden Volsung's side;But no more his head is drooping, for he seeth the Elf-king's Gold;The garnered might and the wisdom e'en now his eyes behold.
So up and up they journeyed, and ever as they wentAbout the cold-slaked forges, o'er many a cloud-swept bent,Betwixt the walls of blackness, by shores of the fishless meres,And the fathomless desert waters, did Regin cast his fears,And wrap him in desire; and all alone he seemedAs a God to his heirship wending, and forgotten and undreamedWas all the tale of Sigurd, and the folk he had toiled among,And the Volsungs, Odin's children, and the men-folk fair and young.
So on they ride to the westward; and huge were the mountains grownAnd the floor of heaven was mingled with that tossing world of stone:And they rode till the noon was forgotten and the sun was waxen low,And they tarried not, though he perished, and the world grew dark below.Then they rode a mighty desert, a glimmering place and wide,And into a narrow pass high-walled on either sideBy the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in faceBy the empty night of the shadow; a windless silent place:But the white moon shone o'erhead mid the small sharp stars and pale,And each as a man alone they rode on the highway of bale.
So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er,And the stars grew pale and paler, and failed from the heaven's floor,And the moon was a long while dead, but where was the promise of day?No change came over the darkness, no streak of the dawning grey;No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran:It was blind as the Gaping Gulf ere the first of the worlds began.
Then athwart and athwart rode Sigurd and sought the walls of the pass,But found no wall before him; and the road rang hard as brassBeneath the hoofs of Greyfell, as up and up he trod:—Was it the daylight of Hell, or the night of the doorway of God?
But lo, at the last a glimmer, and a light from the west there came,And another and another, like points of far-off flame;And they grew and brightened and gathered; and whiles together they ranLike the moon wake over the waters; and whiles they were scant and wan,Some greater and some lesser, like the boats of fishers laidAbout the sea of midnight; and a dusky dawn they made,A faint and glimmering twilight: So Sigurd strains his eyes,And he sees how a land deserted all round about him liesMore changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor:Then the heart leaps up within him, for he knows that his journey is o'er.And there he draweth bridle on the first of the Glittering Heath:And the Wrath is waxen merry and sings in the golden sheathAs he leaps adown from Greyfell, and stands upon his feet,And wends his ways through the twilight the Foe of the Gods to meet.