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The Collected Works of William Morris

With Introductions by his Daughter May Morris

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“Hearken, Gudrun my wife; the season is nigh at hand,
Yea, the day is now on the threshold, when thou alone in the land
Shalt answer for Sigurd departed, and shalt say that I loved thee well;
And yet if thou hear'st men say it, then true is the tale to tell,
That Brynhild was my belovèd in the tide and the season of youth;
And as great as is thy true-love, e'en so was her love and her truth.
But for this cause thus have I spoken, that the tale of the night hast thou told,
And cast the word unto Brynhild, and shown her the token of gold.
—A deed for the slaying of many, and the ending of my life,
Since I betrayed her unwitting.—Yet grieve not, Gudrun my wife!
For cloudy of late were the heavens with many a woven lie,
And now is the clear of the twilight, when the slumber draweth anigh.
But call up the soul of the Niblungs, and harden thine heart to bear,
For wert thou not sprung from the mighty, today were thy portion of fear:
Yea, thou wottest it even as I; but I see thine heart arise,
And the soul of the mighty Niblungs, and fair is the love in thine eyes.”