Not once turned Sigurd aback, nor looked o'er the ashy ring, To the midnight wilderness drear and the spell-drenched Niblung King: But he stayed and looked before him, and lo, a house high-built With its roof of the red gold beaten, and its wall-stones over-gilt: So he leapt adown from Greyfell, and came to that fair abode, And dark in the gear of the Niblungs through the gleaming door he strode: All light within was that dwelling, and a marvellous hall it was, But of gold were its hangings woven, and its pillars gleaming as glass, And Sigurd said in his heart, it was wrought erewhile for a God: But he looked athwart and endlong as alone its floor he trod, And lo, on the height of the dais is upreared a graven throne, And thereon a woman sitting in the golden place alone; Her face is fair and awful, and a gold crown girdeth her head; And a sword of the kings she beareth, and her sun-bright hair is shed O'er the laps of the snow-white linen that ripples adown to her feet: As a swan on the billow unbroken ere the firth and the ocean meet, On the dark-blue cloths she sitteth, in the height of the golden place, Nor breaketh the hush of the hall, though her eyes be set on his face. Now he sees this is even the woman of whom the tale hath been told, E'en she that was wrought for the Niblungs, the bride ordained from of old, And hushed in the hall he standeth, and a long while looks in her eyes, And the word he hath shapen for Gunnar to his lips may never arise. The man in Gunnar's semblance looked long and knew no deed; And she looked, and her eyes were dreadful, and none would help her need. Then the image of Gunnar trembled, and the flesh of the War-King shrank; For he heard her voice on the silence, and his heart of her anguish drank: "King, King, who art thou that comest, thou lord of the cloudy gear? What deed for the weary-hearted shall thy strange hands fashion here?" The speech of her lips pierced through him like the point of the bitter sword, And he deemed that death were better than another spoken word; But he clencheth his hand on the war-blade, and setteth his face as the brass, And the voice of his brother Gunnar from out his lips doth pass: "When thou lookest on me, O Goddess, thou seest Gunnar the King, The King and the lord of the Niblungs, and the chief of their warfaring. But art thou indeed that Brynhild of whom is the rumour and fame, That she bideth the coming of kings to ride her Wavering Flame, Lest she wed the little-hearted, and the world grow evil and vile? For if thou be none other I will speak again in a while." She said: "Art thou Gunnar the Stranger! O art thou the man that I see? Yea, verily I am Brynhild; what other is like unto me? O men of the Earth behold me! hast thou seen, O labouring Earth, Such sorrow as my sorrow, or such evil as my birth?"