"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 grow As 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 blood On the breast of the Queen fair-fashioned; and it riseth up as a flood Round 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 sloth Through the last of the winter twilight? is the word of the wise-ones said Till 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 to-morn 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 wise Till 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."