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

Now spring o'er the winter prevaileth, and the blossoms brighten the field;
But lo, in the flowery lealands the gleam of spear and shield,
For swift to the tidings of warfare speeds on the Niblung folk,
And the Kings to the sea are riding, and the battle-laden oak.
Now the isle-abiders tremble, and the dwellers by the sea
And the nesses flare with the beacons, and the shepherds leave the lea,
As the tale of the golden warrior speeds on from isle to isle.
Now spread is the snare of treason, and cast is the net of guile,
And the mirk-wood gleams with the ambush, and venom lurks at the board;
And whiles and again for a little the fair fields gleam with the sword,
And the host of the isle-folk gather, nigh numberless of tale:
But how shall its bulk and its writhing the willow-log avail
When the red flame lives amidst it? Lo now, the golden man
In the towns from of old time famous, by the temples tall and wan;
How he wends with the swart-haired Niblungs through the mazes of the streets,
And the hosts of the conquered outlands and their uncouth praying meets.
There he wonders at their life-days and their fond imaginings,
As he bears the love of Brynhild through the houses of the kings,
Where his word shall do and undo, and with crowns of kings shall he deal;
And he laughs to scorn the treasure where thieves break through and steal,
And the moth and the rust are corrupting: and he thinks the time is long
Till the dawning of love's summer from the cloudy days of wrong.

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So they raise and abase and alter, then turn about and ride,
Mid the peace of the sword triumphant, to the shell-strown ocean's side;
And they bear their glory away to the mouth of the fishy stream,
And again in the Niblung lealand doth the Welsh-wrought war-gear gleam,
And they come to the Burg of the Niblungs and the mighty gate of war,
And betwixt the gathered maidens through its dusky depths they pour,
And with war-helms done with blossoms round the Niblung hall they sing
In the windless cloudless even and the ending of the spring;
Yea, they sing the song of Sigurd and the face without a foe,
And they sing of the prison's rending and the tyrant laid alow,
And the golden thieves' abasement, and the stilling of the churl,
And the mocking of the dastard where the chasing edges whirl;
And they sing of the outland maidens that thronged round Sigurd's hand,
And sung in the streets of the foemen of the war-delivered land;
And they tell how the ships of the merchants come free and go at their will,
And how wives in peace and safety may crop the vine-clad hill;
How the maiden sits in her bower, and the weaver sings at his loom,
And forget the kings of grasping and the greedy days of gloom;
For by sea and hill and township hath the Son of Sigmund been,
And looked on the folk unheeded, and the lowly people seen.