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The Collected Works of William Morris

With Introductions by his Daughter May Morris

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But Sigurd smiled upon it, and he said: “O Mother of Kings,
Well hast thou warded the war-glaive for a mirror of many things,
And a hope of much fulfilment: well hast thou given to me
The message of my fathers, and the word of things to be:
Trusty hath been thy warding, but its hour is over now:
These shards shall be knit together, and shall hear the war-wind blow.
They shall shine through the rain of Odin, as the sun come back to the world,
When the heaviest bolt of the thunder amidst the storm is hurled:
They shall shake the thrones of Kings, and shear the walls of war,
And undo the knot of treason when the world is darkening o'er.
They have shone in the dusk and the night-tide, they shall shine in the dawn and the day;
They have gathered the storm together, they shall chase the clouds away;
They have sheared red gold asunder, they shall gleam o'er the garnered gold;
They have ended many a story, they shall fashion a tale to be told:

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They have lived in the wrack of the people; they shall live in the glory of folk:
They have stricken the Gods in battle, for the Gods shall they strike the stroke.”