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 hoard Were as bright in the hilts and glorious, as when in the Volsungs' hall It 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 me The message of my fathers, and the word of things 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 gold; They 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 folk: They 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 place She stood when he was departed: as some for-travailed one Comes 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. * * * * *