The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs. William Morris

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      Then amid the gathered Goth-folk 'gan Siggeir the king to call:

       "Who lit the fire I burn in, and what shall buy me peace?

       Will ye take my heaped-up treasure, or ten years of my fields' increase,

       Or half of my father's kingdom? O toilers at the oar,

       O wasters of the sea-plain, now labour ye no more!

       But take the gifts I bid you, and lie upon the gold,

       And clothe your limbs in purple and the silken women hold!"

      But a great voice cried o'er the fire: "Nay, no such men are we,

       No tuggers at the hawser, no wasters of the sea:

       We will have the gold and the purple when we list such things to win

       But now we think on our fathers, and avenging of our kin.

       Not all King Siggeir's kingdom, and not all the world's increase

       For ever and for ever, shall buy thee life and peace.

       For now is the tree-bough blossomed that sprang from murder's seed;

       And the death-doomed and the buried are they that do the deed;

       Now when the dead shall ask thee by whom thy days were done,

       Thou shalt say by Sigmund the Volsung, and Sinfiotli, Signy's son."

      Then stark fear fell on the earl-folk, and silent they abide

       Amid the flaming penfold; and again the great voice cried,

       As the Goth-king's golden pillars grew red amidst the blaze:

       "Ye women of the Goth-folk, come forth upon your ways;

       And thou, Signy, O my sister, come forth from death and hell,

       That beneath the boughs of the Branstock once more we twain may dwell."

      Forth came the white-faced women and passed Sinfiotli's sword,

       Free by the glaive of Odin the trembling pale ones poured,

       But amid their hurrying terror came never Signy's feet;

       And the pearls of the throne of Siggeir shrunk in the fervent heat.

      Then the men of war surged outward to the twofold doors of bane,

       But there played the sword of Sigmund amidst the fiery lane

       Before the gable door-way, and by the woman's door

       Sinfiotli sang to the sword-edge amid the bale-fire's roar,

       And back again to the burning the earls of the Goth-folk shrank:

       And the light low licked the tables, and the wine of Siggeir drank.

      Lo now to the woman's doorway, the steel-watched bower of flame,

       Clad in her queenly raiment King Volsung's daughter came

       Before Sinfiotli's sword-point; and she said: "O mightiest son,

       Best now is our departing in the day my grief hath won,

       And the many days of toiling, and the travail of my womb,

       And the hate, and the fire of longing: thou, son, and this day of the doom

       Have long been as one to my heart; and now shall I leave you both,

       And well ye may wot of the slumber my heart is nothing loth;

       And all the more, as, meseemeth, thy day shall not be long

       To weary thee with labour and mingle wrong with wrong.

       Yea, and I wot that the daylight thine eyes had never seen

       Save for a great king's murder and the shame of a mighty queen.

       But let thy soul, I charge thee, o'er all these things prevail

       To make thy short day glorious and leave a goodly tale."

      She kissed him and departed, and unto Sigmund went

       As now against the dawning grey grew the winter bent:

       As the night and the morning mingled he saw her face once more,

       And he deemed it fair and ruddy as in the days of yore;

       Yet fast the tears fell from her, and the sobs upheaved her breast:

       And she said: "My youth was happy; but this hour belike is best

       Of all the days of my life-tide, that soon shall have an end.

       I have come to greet thee, Sigmund, then back again must I wend,

       For his bed the Goth-king dighteth: I have lain therein, time was,

       And loathed the sleep I won there: but lo, how all things pass,

       And hearts are changed and softened, for lovely now it seems.

       Yet fear not my forgetting: I shall see thee in my dreams

       A mighty king of the world 'neath the boughs of the Branstock green,

       With thine earls and thy lords about thee as the Volsung fashion hath been.

       And there shall all ye remember how I loved the Volsung name,

       Nor spared to spend for its blooming my joy, and my life, and my fame.

       For hear thou: that Sinfiotli, who hath wrought out our desire,

       Who hath compassed about King Siggeir with this sea of a deadly fire,

       Who brake thy grave asunder—my child and thine he is,

       Begot in that house of the Dwarf-kind for no other end than this;

       The son of Volsung's daughter, the son of Volsung's son.

       Look, look! might another helper this deed with thee have done?"

      And indeed as the word she uttereth, high up the red flames flare

       To the nether floor of the heavens: and yet men see them there,

       The golden roofs of Siggeir, the hall of the silver door

       That the Goths and the Gods had builded to last for evermore.

      She said: "Farewell, my brother, for the earls my candles light,

       And I must wend me bedward lest I lose the flower of night."

      And soft and sweet she kissed him, ere she turned about again,

       And a little while was Signy beheld of the eyes of men;

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