Now the noon was long passed over when again the rumour arose, And through the doors cast open flowed in the river of foes: They flooded the hall of the murder, and surged round that rampart of dead; No war-duke ran before them, no lord to the onset led, But the thralls shot spears at adventure, and shot out shafts from afar, Till the misty hall was blinded with the bitter drift of war: Few and faint were the Niblung children, and their wounds were waxen acold, And they saw the Hell-gates open as they stood in their grimly hold: Yet thrice stormed out King Hogni, thrice stormed out Gunnar the King, Thrice fell they aback yet living to the heart of the fated ring; And they looked and their band was little, and no man but was wounded sore, And the hall seemed growing greater, such hosts of foes it bore, So tossed the iron harvest from wall to gilded wall; And they looked and the white-clad Gudrun sat silent over all. Then the churls and thralls of the Eastland howled out as wolves accurst, But oft gaped the Niblungs voiceless, for they choked with anger and thirst; And the hall grew hot as a furnace, and men drank their flowing blood, Men laughed and gnawed on their shield-rims, men knew not where they stood, And saw not what was before them; as in the dark men smote, Men died heart-broken, unsmitten; men wept with the cry in the throat, Men lived on full of war-shafts, men cast their shields aside And caught the spears to their bosoms; men rushed with none beside, And fell unarmed on the foemen, and tore and slew in death: And still down rained the arrows as the rain across the heath; Still proud o'er all the turmoil stood the Kings of Giuki born, Nor knit were the brows of Gunnar, nor his song-speech overworn; But Hogni's mouth kept silence, and oft his heart went forth To the long, long day of the darkness, and the end of worldly worth. Loud rose the roar of the East-folk, and the end was coming at last: Now the foremost locked their shield-rims and the hindmost over them cast, And nigher they drew and nigher, and their fear was fading away, For every man of the Niblungs on the shaft-strewn pavement lay, Save Gunnar the King and Hogni: still the glorious King up-bore The cloudy shield of the Niblungs set full of shafts of war; But Hogni's hands had fainted, and his shield had sunk adown, So thick with the Eastland spearwood was that rampart of renown; And hacked and dull were the edges that had rent the wall of foes: Yet he stood upright by Gunnar before that shielded close, Nor looked on the foeman's faces as their wild eyes drew anear, And their faltering shield-rims clattered with the remnant of their fear; But he gazed on the Niblung woman, and the daughter of his folk, Who sat o'er all unchanging ere the war-cloud over them broke.