The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs Part 39

Then the sword-folk rise round Gunnar, round the fettered and bound they throng, As men in the bitter battle round the G.o.d-kin over-strong; They bore him away to the doorway, and the winds were awake in the night, And the wood of the thorns of battle in the moon shone sharp and bright; But Gunnar looked to the heavens, and blessed the promise of rain, And the windy drift of the clouds, and the dew on the builded wain: And the sword-folk tarried a little, and the sons of the wise were there, And beheld his face o'er the war-helms, and the wavy night of his hair.

Then they feared for the weal of Atli, and the Niblung's harp they brought, And they dealt with the thralls of the sword, and commanded and besought, Till men loosened the gyves of Gunnar, and laid the harp by his side, Then the yoke-beasts lowed in the forecourt and the wheels of the waggon cried, And the war-thorns clashed in the night, and the men went dark on their way, And the city was silent before them, on the roofs the white moon lay.

Now they left the gate and the highway, and came to a lonely place, Where the sun all day had been shining on the desert's empty face; Then the moon ran forth from a cloud, the grey light shone and showed The pit of King Atli's adders in the land without a road, Digged deep adown in the desert with shining walls and smooth For the Serpents' habitation, and the folk that know not ruth.

Therein they thrust King Gunnar, and he bare of his kingly weed, But they gave his harp to the Niblung, and his hands of the gyves they freed; They stood around in their war-gear to note what next should befall For the comfort of King Atli, and the glee of the Eastland hall.

Still hot was that close with the sun, and thronged with the coiling folk, And about the feet of Gunnar their hissing mouths awoke: But he heeded them not nor beheld them, and his hands in the harp-strings ran, As he sat him down in the midmost on a sun-scorched rock and wan: And he sighed as one who resteth on a flowery bank by the way When the wind is in the blossoms at the even-tide of day: But his harp was murmuring low, and he mused: Am I come to the death, And I, who was Gunnar the Niblung? nay, nay, how I draw my breath, And love my life as the living! and so I ever shall do, Though wrack be loosed in the heavens and the world be fashioned anew.

But the worms were beholding their prey, and they drew around and nigher, Smooth coil, and flickering tongue, and eyes as the gold in the fire; And he looked and beheld them and spake, nor stilled his harp meanwhile: "What will ye? O thralls of Atli, O images of guile?"

Then, he rose at once to his feet, and smote the harp with his hand, And it rang as if with a cry in the dream of a lonely land; Then he fondled its wail as it faded, and orderly over the strings Went the marvellous sound of its sweetness, like the march of Odin's kings New-risen for play in the morning when o'er meadows of G.o.d-home they wend, And hero playeth with hero, that their hands may be deft in the end.

But the crests of the worms were uplifted, though coil on coil was stayed, And they moved but as dark-green rushes by the summer river swayed.

Then uprose the Song of Gunnar, and sang o'er his crafty hands, And told of the World of Aforetime, unshapen, void of lands; Yet it wrought, for its memory bideth, and it died and abode its doom; It shaped, and the Upper-Heavens, and the hope came forth from its womb.

Great then grew the voice of Gunnar, and his speech was sweet on the wild, And the moon on his harp was shining, and the hands of the Niblung child:

"So perished the Gap of the Gaping, and the cold sea swayed and sang, And the wind came down on the waters, and the beaten rock-walls rang; Then the Sun from the south came shining, and the Starry Host stood round, And the wandering Moon of the heavens his habitation found; And they knew not why they were gathered, nor the deeds of their shaping they knew: But lo, Mid-Earth the n.o.ble 'neath their might and their glory grew, And the gra.s.s spread over its face, and the Night and the Day were born, And it cried on the Death in the even, and it cried on the Life in the morn: Yet it waxed and waxed, and knew not, and it lived and had not learned; And where were the Framers that framed, and the Soul and the Might that had yearned?

"On the Thrones are the Powers that fashioned, and they name the Night and the Day, And the tide of the Moon's increasing, and the tide of his waning away: And they name the years for the story; and the Lands they change and change, The great and the mean and the little, that this unto that may be strange: They met, and they fashioned dwellings, and the House of Glory they built; They met, and they fashioned the Dwarf-kind, and the Gold and the Gifts and the Guilt.

"There were twain, and they went upon earth, and were speechless unmighty and wan; They were hopeless, deathless, lifeless, and the Mighty named them Man: Then they gave them speech and power, and they gave them colour and breath; And deeds and the hope they gave them, and they gave them Life and Death; Yea, hope, as the hope of the Framers; yea, might, as the Fashioners had, Till they wrought, and rejoiced in their bodies, and saw their sons and were glad: And they changed their lives and departed, and came back as the leaves of the trees Come back and increase in the summer:--and I, I, I am of these; And I know of Them that have fashioned, and the deeds that have blossomed and grow; But nought of the G.o.ds' repentance, or the G.o.ds' undoing I know."

Then falleth the speech of Gunnar, and his lips the word forget, But his crafty hands are busy, and the harp is murmuring yet.

And the crests of the worms have fallen, and their flickering tongues are still, The Roller and the Coiler, and Greyback, lord of ill, Grave-groper and Death-swaddler, the Slumberer of the Heath, Gold-wallower, Venom-smiter, lie still, forgetting death, And loose are coils of Long-back; yea, all as soft are laid As the kine in midmost summer about the elmy glade; --All save the Grey and Ancient, that holds his crest aloft, Light-wavering as the flame-tongue when the evening wind is soft: For he comes of the kin of the Serpent once wrought all wrong to nurse, The bond of earthly evil, the Midworld's ancient curse.

But Gunnar looked and considered, and wise and wary he grew, And the dark of night was waning and chill in the dawning it grew; But his hands were strong and mighty and the fainting harp he woke, And cried in the deadly desert, and the song from his soul out-broke:

"O Hearken, Kindreds and Nations, and all Kings of the plenteous earth.

Heed, ye that shall come hereafter, and are far and far from the birth!

I have dwelt in the world aforetime, and I called it the garden of G.o.d; I have stayed my heart with its sweetness, and fair on its freshness I trod; I have seen its tempest and wondered, I have cowered adown from its rain, And desired the brightening sunshine, and seen it and been fain; I have waked, time was, in its dawning; its noon and its even I wore; I have slept unafraid of its darkness, and the days have been many and more: I have dwelt with the deeds of the mighty; I have woven the web of the sword; I have borne up the guilt nor repented; I have sorrowed nor spoken the word; And I fought and was glad in the morning, and I sing in the night and the end: So let him stand forth, the Accuser, and do on the death-shoon to wend; For not here on the earth shall I hearken, nor on earth for the dooming shall stay, Nor stretch out mine hand for the pleading; for I see the spring of the day Round the doors of the golden Valhall, and I see the mighty arise, And I hearken the voice of Odin, and his mouth on Gunnar cries, And he nameth the Son of Giuki, and cries on deeds long done, And the fathers of my fathers, and the sons of yore agone.

"O Odin, I see, and I hearken; but, lo thou, the bonds on my feet, And the walls of the wilderness round me, ere the light of thy land I meet!

I crave and I weary, Allfather, and long and dark is the road; And the feet of the mighty are weakened, and the back is bent with the load."

Then fainted the song of Gunnar, and the harp from his hand fell down, And he cried: "Ah, what hath betided? for cold the world hath grown, And cold is the heart within me, and my hand is heavy and strange; What voice is the voice I hearken in the chill and the dusk and the change?

Where art thou, G.o.d of the war-fain? for this is the death indeed; And I unsworded, unshielded, in the Day of the Niblungs' Need!"

He fell to the earth as he spake, and life left Gunnar the King, For his heart was chilled for ever by the sleepless serpent's sting, The grey Worm, Great and Ancient--and day in the East began, And the moon was low in the heavens, and the light clouds over him ran.

_The Ending of Gudrun._

Men sleep in the dwelling of Atli through the latter hours of night, Though the comfortless women be wailing as they that love not light Men sleep in the dawning-hour, and bowed down is Atli's head Amidst the gold and the purple, and the pillows of his bed: But hark, ere the sun's uprising, when folk see colours again, Is the trample of steeds in the fore-court, and the noise of steel and of men And Atli wakeneth and riseth, and is clad in purple and pall, And he goeth forth from the chamber and meeteth his earls in the hall A king full great and mighty, if a great king ever hath been; And over his head on the high-seat still sitteth Gudrun the Queen.

Then he said: "Whence come ye, children? whence come ye, Lords of the East?

Shall today be for evil and mourning or a day of joyance and feast?"

They said: "Today shall be wailing for the foes of the Eastland kin; But for them that love King Atli shall the day of feasts begin: For we come from the land deserted, and the heath without a way, And now are the earth's folk telling of the Niblungs pa.s.sed away."

Then King Atli turned unto Gudrun, and the new sun shone through the door, The long beams fell from the mountains and lighted Atli's floor: Then he cried: "Lo, the day-light, Gudrun! and the Cloudy Folk is gone; There is glory now in the Eastland, and thy lord is king alone."

But Gudrun rose from the high-seat, and her eyes on the King she turned; And he stood rejoicing before her, and his crown in the sunlight burned, With the golden gear was he swaddled, and he held the red-gold rod That the Kings of the East had carried since first they came from G.o.d: Down she came, and men kept silence, and the earls beheld her face, As her raiment rustled about her in the morning-joyous place: So she stood amidst of the sun-beams, by King Atli's board she stood, And men looked and wondered at her, would she speak them ill or good: She wept not, and she sighed not, nor smiled in the stranger land, But she stood before King Atli, and the cup was in her hand.

Then she spake: "Take, King, and drink it! for earth's mightiest men prevail, And to thee is the praise and the glory, and the ending of the tale: There are men to the dead land faring, but the dark o'er their heads is deep, They cry not, they return not, and no more renown they reap; But we do our will without them, nor fear their speech or frown; And glad shall be our uprising, and light our lying-down."

She said: "A maid of maidens my mother reared me erst; By the side of the glorious Gunnar my early days were nursed; By the side of the heart-wise Hogni I went from field to flower, Joy rose with the sun's uprising, nor sank in the twilight hour; Kings looked and laughed upon us as we played with the golden toy: And oft our hands were meeting as we mingled joy with joy."

More she spake: "O King command me! for women's knees are weak, And their feet are little steadfast, and their hands for comfort seek: On the earth the blossom falleth when the branch is dried with day, And the vine to the elm-bough clingeth when men smite the roots away."

Then drank the Eastland Atli as he looked in Gudrun's face, And beheld no wrath against him, and no hate of the coming days; Then he spake: "O mighty woman, this day the feast shall be For the heritance of Atli, and the gain of mine and me: For this day the Eastland people such great dominion win, That a world to their will new-fashioned 'neath their glory shall begin.

Yet, since the mighty are fallen, and kings are gone from earth, Let these at the feast be remembered, and their ancient deeds of worth.

So I bid thee, O King's Daughter, sit by Atli at the feast, To praise thy kin departed and Atli's weal increased; And the heirship-feast and the death-feast today shall be as one; And then shalt thou wake tomorrow with all thy mourning done, And all thy will accomplished, and thy glory great and sure.

That for ever and for ever shall the tale thereof endure."

He spake in the sunny morning, and Gudrun answered and said: "Thou hast bidden me feast, O Atli, and thy will shall be obeyed: And well I thank thee, great-one, for the gifts thine hand would give; For who shall gainsay the mighty, and the happy Kings that live?

Thou hast swallowed the might of the Niblungs, and their glory lieth in thee: Live long, and cherish thy wealth, that the world may wonder and see!"

Therewith to the bower of queens the Niblung wendeth her way, And in all the glory of women the folk her body array: Forth she comes with the crown on her head and the ivory rod in her hand, With queens for her waiting-women, and the hope of many a land: There she goes in that wonder of houses when the high-tide of Atli is dight, And her face is as fair as the sea, and her eyen are glittering bright.

By Atli's side she sitteth, o'er the earls they twain are set, And shields of the ancient wise-ones on the wall are hanging yet, And the golden sun of the roof-sky, the sun of Atli's pride, Through the beams where day but glimmers casts red light far and wide: The beakers clash thereunder, the red wine murmureth speech, And the eager long-beard warriors cast praises each to each Of the blossoming tree of the Eastland:--and tomorrow shall be as today, Yea, even more abundant, and all foes have pa.s.sed away.

It was then in the noon-tide moment; o'er the earth high hung the sun, When the song o'er the mighty Niblungs in a stranger-house was begun, And their deeds were told by the foemen, and the names of hope they had Rang sweet in the hall of the murder to make King Atli glad: It is little after the noon-tide when thereof they sing no more, Nor tell of the strife that has been, and the leaping flames of war, And the vengeance lulled for ever and the wrath that shall never awake: For where is the kin of Hogni, and who liveth for Gunnar's sake?

So men in the hall make merry, nor note the afternoon, And the time when men grow weary with the task that ends not soon; The sun falls down unnoted, and night and her daughter are nigh, And a dull grey mist and awful hangeth over the east of the sky, And spreadeth, though winds are sleeping, and riseth higher and higher; But the clouds hang high in the west as a sea of rippling fire, That the face of the gazer is lighted, if unto the west ye gaze, And white walls in the lonely meadows grow ruddy under the blaze; Yet brighter e'en than the cloud-sea, far-off and clear serene, Mid purple clouds unlitten the light lift lieth between; And who looks, save the lonely shepherd on the brow of the houseless hill, Who hath many a day seen no man to tell him of good or of ill?

Day dies, and the storm-threats perish, and the stars to the heaven are come, And the white moon climbeth upward and hangs o'er the Eastland home; But no man in the hall of King Atli shall heed the heavens without, For Atli's roof is their heaven, and thereto they cast the shout, And this, the glory they builded, is become their G.o.d to praise, The hope of their generations, the giver of goodly days: No more they hearken the harp-strings, no more they hearken the song; All the might of the deedful Niblungs is a tale forgotten long, And yester-morning's murder is as though it ne'er had been; They heed not the white-armed Gudrun, the glorious Stranger-Queen, They heed not Atli triumphant, for they also, they are Kings, They are brethren of the G.o.d-folk and the fashioners of things; Nay, the G.o.ds,--and the G.o.ds have sorrow, and these shall rue no more, These world-kings, these prevailers, these beaters-down of war: What golden house shall hold them, what nightless shadowless heaven?

--So they feast in the hall of Atli, and that eve is the first of the seven.

So they feast, and weary, and know not how weary they are grown, As they stretch out hands to gather where their hands have never sown; They are drunken with wine and with folly, and the hope they would bring to pa.s.s Of the mirth no man may compa.s.s, and the joy that never was, Till their heads hang heavy with slumber, and their hands from the wine-cup fail, And blind stray their hands in the harp-strings and their mouths may tell no tale.

Now the throne of Atli is empty, low lieth the world-king's head Mid the woven gold and the purple, and the dreams of Atli's bed, And Gudrun lieth beside him as the true by the faithful and kind, And every foe is departed, and no fear is left behind: Lo, lo, the rest of the night-tide for which all kings would long, And all warriors of the people that have fought with fear and wrong.

Yet a while;--it was but an hour and the moon was hung so high, As it seemed that the silent night-tide would never change and die; But lo, how the dawn comes stealing o'er the mountains of the east, And dim grows Atli's roof-sun o'er yestereven's feast; Dim yet in the treasure-houses lie the ancient heaps of gold, But slowly come the colours to the Dwarf-wrought rings of old: Yet a while; and the day-light lingers: yea, yea, is it darker than erst?

Hath the day into night-tide drifted, the day by the twilight nursed?

Are the clouds in the house of King Atli? Or what shines brighter that morn, In helms and shields of the ancient, and swords by dead kings borne?

Have the heavens come down to Atli? Hath his house been lifted on high, Lest the pride of the triumphing World-King should fade in the world and die?

Lo, lo, in the hall of the Murder where the white-armed Gudrun stands, Aloft by the kingly high-seat, and nought empty are her hands; For the litten brand she beareth, and the grinded war-sword bare: Still she stands for a little season till day groweth white and fair Without the garth of King Atli; but within, a wavering cloud Rolls, hiding the roof and the roof-sun; then she stirreth and crieth aloud:

"Alone was I yestereven: and alone in the night I lay, And I thought on the ancient fathers, and longed for the dawning of day: Then I rose from the bed of the Eastlands; to the Holy Hearth I went; And lo, how the brands were abiding the hand of mine intent!

Then I caught them up with wisdom, with care I bore them forth, And I laid them amidst of the treasures and dear things of uttermost worth; 'Neath the fair-dight benches I laid them and the carven work of the hall; I was wise, as the handmaid arising ere the sun hath litten the wall, When the brands on the hearth she lighteth that her work betimes she may win, That her hand may toil unchidden, and her day with praise begin.

--Begin, O day of Atli! O ancient sun, arise, With the light that I loved aforetime, with the light that blessed mine eyes, When I woke and looked on Sigurd, and he rose on the world and shone!

And we twain in the world together! and I dwelt with Sigurd alone."

She spake; and the sun clomb over the Eastland mountains' rim And shone through the door of Atli and the smoky hall and dim, But the fire roared up against him, and the smoke-cloud rolled aloof, And back and down from the timbers, and the carven work of the roof; There the ancient trees were crackling as the red flames shot aloft From the heart of the gathering smoke-cloud; there the far-fetched hangings soft, The gold and the sea-born purple, shrank up in a moment of s.p.a.ce, And the walls of Atli trembled, and the ancient golden place.

But the wine-drenched earls were awaking, and the sleep-dazed warriors stirred, And the light of their dawning was dreadful; wild voice of the day they heard, And they knew not where they were gotten, and their hearts were smitten with dread, And they deemed that their house was fallen to the innermost place of the dead, The hall for the traitors builded, the house of the changeless plain; They cried, and their tongues were confounded, and none gave answer again: They rushed, and came nowhither; each man beheld his foe, And smote as the hopeless and dying, nor brother brother might know, The sons of one mother's sorrow in the fire-blast strove and smote, And the sword of the first-begotten was thrust in the father's throat, And the father hewed at his stripling; the thrall at the war-king cried, And mocked the face of the mighty in that house of Atli's pride.