ave herself, in
whom it aroused an aching longing, sorrow and comfort in equal
measure. The sword in his hand he swung, and drove into the ash-tree
up to the hilt, leaving it there, a prize to whomsoever should
be able to draw it out. The men present had all made the essay
in vain; guests coming and going since then had tried, equally
without success. "There in silence waits the sword." There in the
ash-tree. "Then I knew," Sieglinde concludes, "who it was had come
to me in my sorrow. I know, too, who it is alone can conquer the
sword. Oh, might I find him here and now, that friend; might he,
from the unknown, come to me, most wretched of women! All I have
ever suffered of cruel woe, all the shame and indignity under which
I have bowed,--sweetest amends would be made for it all! All I ever
lost, all I ever mourned, I should have recovered it all,--if I
might find that supreme friend, if my arm might clasp that hero!"
Siegmund, to whom it could not occur for the fraction of a second
to doubt his strength to draw any sword from any tree, at these
words catches her impetuously to his breast: "The friend now clasps
you, fairest of women, for whom weapon and woman were meant! Hot
in my breast burns the oath which, noble one, weds me to you!"
and, in her very strain: "All I ever yearned for, I met in you!
In you I found all I ever lacked. If you suffered ignominy and I
endured pain, if I was outlawed and you were dishonoured, a joyful
revenge now calls to us happy ones! I laugh aloud in a holy elation,
as I hold you, radiant one, embraced, as I feel the throbbing of
your heart!"

The great door of the hall, silently, without apparent reason,
swings wide open, like a great curious eye unclosing to watch this
beautiful marvel of their love, expanded so suddenly, like a huge
aloe-flower. It lets in a flood of moonlight, and the glimmering
vision of the vapourous green-lit nocturnal Spring-world. "Who
went out?... Who came in?" cries Sieglinde, starting in alarm.
"No one went," Siegmund reassures her, "but some one came: See,
the Spring laughing in the room!" And he pours forth poetry of
adorable inspiration, in explanation of the singular action of
the door: Spring was outside, and Love, his sister, inside; Spring
burst open the severing door, and now, brother and sister, Love
and the Spring, are met!

It is touching, the capacity for happiness the two have accumulated
in the long, thwarted years. An ecstatic joy marks this