And clear is it wrought to the eyen that may read therein of Fate,
Though little indeed be its sea, and its earth not wondrous great.

There Sigurd stands in the hall, on the sheathed Wrath doth he lean.
All his golden light is mirrored in the gleaming floor and green;
But the smile in his face upriseth as he looks on the ancient King,
And their glad eyes meet and their laughter, and sweet is the
welcoming:
And Gripir saith: "Hail Sigurd! for my bidding hast thou done,
And here in the mountain-dwelling are two Kings of men alone."

But Sigurd spake: "Hail father! I am girt with the fateful sword
And my face is set to the highway, and I come for thy latest word."

Said Gripir: "What wouldst thou hearken ere we sit and drink the wine?"

"Thy word and the Norns'," said Sigurd, "but never a word of mine."

"What sights wouldst thou see," said Gripir, "ere mine hand shall take
thine hand?"

"As the Gods would I see," said Sigurd, "though Death light up the
land."

"What hope wouldst thou hope, O Sigurd, ere we kiss, we twain, and
depart?"

"Thy hope and the Gods'," said Sigurd, "though the grief lie hard on
my heart."

Nought answered the ancient wise-one, and not a whit had he stirred
Since the clash of Sigurd's raiment in his mountain-hall he heard;
But the ball that imaged the earth was set in his hand grown old;
And belike it was to his vision, as the wide-world's ocean rolled,
And the forests waved with the wind, and the corn was gay with the
lark,
And the gold in its nether places grew up in the dusk and the dark,
And its children built and departed, and its King-folk conquered and
went,
As over the crystal image his all-wise face was bent:
For all his desire was dead, and he lived as a God shall live,
Whom the prayers of the world hath forgotten, and to whom no hand may
give.

But there stood the mighty Volsung, and leaned on the hidden Wrath;
As the earliest sun's uprising o'er the sea-plain draws a path
Whereby men sail to the Eastward and the dawn of another day,
So the image of King Sigurd on the gleaming pavement lay.

Then great in the hall fair-pillared the voice of Gripir arose,
And it ran through the glimmering house-ways, and forth to the sunny
close;
There mid the birds' rejoicing went the voice of an o'er-wi