The Collected Works of William Morris With Introductions by his Daughter May Morris |
 | I. |
| II. |
| III, IV, V, VI. |
| VII. |
| IX. |
| X. |
| XII. |
| XIV. |
| XV. |
| XVI. |
| XVII. |
| XXI. |
| XXIV. |
 | The Collected Works of William Morris |  |
Then once again spake Sigurd, once only and no more:
A pillar of light all golden he stood on the sunlit floor;
And his eyes were the eyes of Odin, and his face was the hope of the world,
And his voice was the thunder of even when the bolt o'er the mountains is hurled:
The fairest of all things fashioned he stood 'twixt life and death,
And the Wrath of Regin rattled, and the rings of the Glittering Heath,
As he cried:
A pillar of light all golden he stood on the sunlit floor;
And his eyes were the eyes of Odin, and his face was the hope of the world,
And his voice was the thunder of even when the bolt o'er the mountains is hurled:
The fairest of all things fashioned he stood 'twixt life and death,
And the Wrath of Regin rattled, and the rings of the Glittering Heath,
As he cried:
“I am Sigurd the Volsung, and belike the tale shall be true
That no hand on the earth may hinder what my hand would fashion and do:
And what God or what man shall gainsay it if our love be greater than these,
The pride and the glory of Sigurd, and the latter days' increase?
O live, live, Brynhild belovèd! and thee on the earth will I wed,
And put away Gudrun the Niblung—and all those shall be as the dead.”
That no hand on the earth may hinder what my hand would fashion and do:
And what God or what man shall gainsay it if our love be greater than these,
The pride and the glory of Sigurd, and the latter days' increase?
O live, live, Brynhild belovèd! and thee on the earth will I wed,
And put away Gudrun the Niblung—and all those shall be as the dead.”
224
But so swelled the heart within him as he cast the speech abroad,
That the golden wall of the battle, the fence unrent by the sword,
The red rings of the uttermost ocean on the breast of Sigurd brake:
And he saw the eyes of Brynhild, and turned from the word she spake:
That the golden wall of the battle, the fence unrent by the sword,
The red rings of the uttermost ocean on the breast of Sigurd brake:
And he saw the eyes of Brynhild, and turned from the word she spake:
| The Collected Works of William Morris | |