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The Collected Works of William Morris

With Introductions by his Daughter May Morris

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Upriseth the white-armed Gudrun, and taketh the cup in her hand;
Dead-pale in the night of her tresses by Sigurd doth she stand,
And strives with the thought within her, and finds no word to speak:
For such is the strength of her anguish, as well might slay the weak;
But her heart is a heart of the Queen-folk and of them that bear earth's kings,
And her love of her lord seems lovely, though sore the torment wrings.
—How fares it with words unspoken, when men are great enow,
And forth from the good to the good the strong desires shall flow?
Are they wasted e'en as the winds, the barren maids of the sky,
Of whose birth there is no man wotteth, nor whitherward they fly?