Then Sigurd leaned on his sword, and a dreadful voice went by Like the wail of a God departing and the War-God's misery; And strong words of ancient wisdom went by on the desert wind, The words that mar and fashion, the words that loose and bind; And sounds of a strange lamenting, and such strange things bewailed, That words to tell their meaning the tongue of man hath failed. Then all sank into silence, and the Son of Sigmund stood On the torn and furrowed desert by the pool of Fafnir's blood, And the Serpent lay before him, dead, chilly, dull, and grey; And over the Glittering Heath fair shone the sun and the day, And a light wind followed the sun and breathed o'er the fateful place, As fresh as it furrows the sea-plain or bows the acres' face. _Sigurd slayeth Regin the Master of Masters on the Glittering Heath_. There standeth Sigurd the Volsung, and leaneth on his sword, And beside him now is Greyfell and looks on his golden lord, And the world is awake and living; and whither now shall they wend, Who have come to the Glittering Heath, and wrought that deed to its end? For hither comes Regin the Master from the skirts of the field of death, And he shadeth his eyes from the sunlight as afoot he goeth and saith: "Ah, let me live for a while! for a while and all shall be well, When passed is the house of murder and I creep from the prison of hell." Afoot he went o'er the desert, and he came unto Sigurd and stared At the golden gear of the man, and the Wrath yet bloody and bared, And the light locks raised by the wind, and the eyes beginning to smile, And the lovely lips of the Volsung, and the brow that knew no guile; And he murmured under his breath while his eyes grew white with wrath: "O who art thou, and wherefore, and why art thou in the path?" Then he turned to the ash-grey Serpent, and grovelled low on the ground, And he drank of that pool of the blood where the stones of the wild were drowned, And long he lapped as a dog; but when he arose again, Lo, a flock of the mountain-eagles that drew to the feastful plain; And he turned and looked on Sigurd, as bright in the sun he stood, A stripling fair and slender, and wiped the Wrath of the blood. But Regin cried: "O Dwarf-kind, O many-shifting folk, O shapes of might and wonder, am I too freed from the yoke, That binds my soul to my body a withered thing forlorn, While the short-lived fools of man-folk so fair and oft are born? Now swift in the air shall I be, and young in the concourse of kings, If my heart shall come to desire the gain of earthly things." And he looked and saw how Sigurd was sheathing the Flame of War, And the eagles screamed in the wind, but their voice came faint from afar: Then he scowled, and crouched and darkened, and came to Sigurd and spake: "O child, thou hast slain my brother, and the Wrath is alive and awake."