The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

She said: “E'en yet I behold thee: I remember of thy road
To the height of the Glittering Heath from the peaceful Kings' abode,
And the end of the Worm I remember—O might I forget and be dead
And forget how thou ridedst the fire on the topmost Hindfell's head—
Ah had I been dead I had hearkened to the deeds thou broughtest to pass.
O sorrow, sorrow, and sorrow for the life that in me was!”

He said: “On the head of Hindfell we stood and below us lay
The kingdoms of earth's promise and the hope of the deedful day.
Far fore-seeing we were and wise of many things,
Of the deeds we twain should accomplish and the death of Odin's Kings;
But we saw not the sundering hour and the edge of the Niblung sword;
So we lived and the life hath rent us and the deeds cast back our word.”

And again a new wave of feeling follows the recurrent phrase:

She said: “E'en yet I behold thee: I remember the Lymdale land
I remember the waiting and labour and the joyous toil of my hand
As I bode thy certain coming and the fruitful day of thy fame.
O might I be dead and forget the day that Sigurd came!
—O yet were I dead should I hearken the lovely Sigurd's voice.
O sorrow, sorrow, and sorrow that I woke and lived to rejoice!...”

Again we hear the surging of grief, as she tells of the Semblance of Gunnar riding the fire, in the persisting

“O might I be dead and forget it, the night when the fire sank down,
And betwixt the moon and the morning I lay with a king of renown,
With the dwarf-wrought sword between us...”

The first tumult somewhat calmed, they search out the heart of the tangle, but at times Brynhild's cry wells up again unconsciously:

“...and my life was the longing for death,
Yet thy tale was all about me and thy name was on every breath,

xxviij

And thy deeds that I might not share in I beheld and I might not die.
O sorrow, sorrow, and sorrow that the world lives after the lie!”

He said: “For a little it liveth and the season of Spring is fair,
Loved summer and heavy autumn and the restful winter bare;
But the Gods' love wasteth it all and Baldur's strong desire,
And we two shall remember the world mid the last of the quickening fire.”

He looked in her eyes as he spoke and so glorious was he grown
That her soul in his soul was quickened till the world was Sigurd alone,
And the heart arose in Brynhild and her voice was the song of the swan
In the cliffs of the lonely mountains o'er the shipless waters wan.

As their sorrowful speech goes on, the underlying idea of the scene, the slaying of Sigurd by Brynhild, gradually takes possession of them. He says:

“I have done and I may not undo, I have given and take not again,
And all deeds in today are swallowed and this the deed for us twain.”

She said: “It was life that we looked for and we fashioned our love for the life,
And still we beheld it before us through the gate of the ending of strife;
But indeed for the death were we fashioned, we meet in the death alone,
We the Son and the Daughter of Odin and the flower of his longing grown.

He said: “The measureless life, nearby and afar it lay,
And the death was a hap unthought of mid the glory of the way.”

At last the word is spoken between them:

“O great is the deed,” said the Volsung, “and for this cause hither I came,
To uplift thine heart for the slaying, for fulfilment of our fame.”

She says:

“But what tongue shall name the sorrow when I rend the world at wain?”

xxix

“Great tidings,” said the Volsung, “when they tell of Sigurd slain...”

“O Sigurd,” she said, “O mighty, O fair in speech and thought
As thou wert in the days past over: may the high Gods hide it yet
The day and the deed of thy slaying lest I falter and forget
And we twain grow vile together...”

She said: “I lay upon Hindfell ere the doom of the Gods was fulfilled...
And this was the wakening of life that all should desire and praise;
It is fair if thou tellest it over and countest the hours and the days:
O where are the days and the hours and the deeds they brought to the birth!
Are they dead, are they dreams forgotten, are they solacing dreams of the earth,
Are they stones in the House of Heaven, are they carven work of the shrine
Where the days and the deeds earth failed of in heaven's fulfilment shine?
Ah once was I far-foreseeing, but the vision fades and fails;
They have set down a sword beside me, they have cumbered the even with tales
And I grow weary of waking, for gone is the splendour of day;
In my hand are the gifts of Sigurd, but Sigurd is vanished away.
But the windy East shall brighten and the empty house of night
And the Gods shall arise in the dawning and the world shall long for the light.”

And this is the last word between them.

[THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG AND THE FALL OF THE NIBLUNGS.]

[Lines from an earlier version.]

Back then through the forest he rideth, and about the noontide comes
To the land by the swirling waters and the lea by the Lymdale homes;
And he comes by the burg of Brynhild, and the merry wind is astir,

xxx

And the doves on the roof-ridge flutter and the rooks wheelwide in the air,
And the reek pours forth from the chimneys, and glisters the glass in the sun,
And maids by the well are standing, and children prattle and run,
And all is alive and joyous as in the days before;
Yea the gold of the very hangings gleams through the great hall door;
But nought of it all knows Sigurd, nor of whom therein abides,
Nor why in the autumn noonday by Brynhild's Burg he rides.