se King
Like a wind of midmost winter come back to talk with spring.

But the voice cried: "Sigurd, Sigurd! O great, O early born!
O hope of the Kings first fashioned! O blossom of the morn!
Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North!
One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth!

"Arise, O Sigurd, Sigurd! In the night arise and go,
Thou shalt smite when the day-dawn glimmers through the folds of
God-home's foe:

"There the child in the noon-tide smiteth; the young King rendeth
apart,
The old guile by the guile encompassed, the heart made wise by the
heart.

"Bind the red rings, O Sigurd; bind up to cast abroad!
That the earth may laugh before thee rejoiced by the Waters' Hoard.

"Ride on, O Sigurd, Sigurd! for God's word goes forth on the wind,
And he speaketh not twice over; nor shall they loose that bind:
But the Day and the Day shall loosen, and the Day shall awake and
arise,
And the Day shall rejoice with the Dawning, and the wise heart learn
of the wise.

"O fair, O fearless, O mighty, how green are the garths of Kings,
How soft are the ways before thee to the heart of their war-farings!

"How green are the garths of King-folk, how fair is the lily and rose
In the house of the Cloudy People, 'neath the towers of kings and foes!

"Smite now, smite now in the noontide! ride on through the hosts of
men!
Lest the dear remembrance perish, and today come not again.

"Is it day?--But the house is darkling--But the hand would gather and
hold,
And the lips have kissed the cloud-wreath, and a cloud the arms enfold.

"In the dusk hath the Sower arisen; in the dark hath he cast the seed,
And the ear is the sorrow of Odin and the wrong, and the nameless need!

"Ah the hand hath gathered and garnered, and empty is the hand,
Though the day be full and fruitful mid the drift of the Cloudy Land!

"Look, look on the drift of the clouds, how the day and the even doth
grow
As the long-forgotten dawning that was a while ago!

"Dawn, dawn, O mighty of men! and why wilt thou never awake,
When the holy field of the Goth-folk cries out for thy love and thy
sake?

"Dawn, now; but the house is silent, and dark is the purple blood
On the breast of the Queen fair-fashioned; and it riseth up as a flood
R