To gather the well-loved tidings: I looked and I knew

for sooth

How hate had grown in my bosom and the death of my days of ruth:

Though unslain they departed from me, lest Siggeir come to doubt.

But hereafter, yea hereafter, they that turned the world about,

And raised Hell's abode o'er God-home, and mocked all men-folk's worth

Shall my hand turn back or falter, while these abide on earth,

Becauce I once was a child, and sat on my father's knees?

But long methinks shall Siggeir bide merrily at ease In the high-built house of the Goths, with his shielded earls around,

His warders of day and of night-tide, and his world of peopled ground,

While his foe is a swordless outcast, a hunted beast of the wood,

A wolf of the holy places, where men-folk gather for

good.

And didst thou think, my sister, when we sat in our summer bliss

Beneath the boughs of the Branstock, that the world was like to this?"

As the moon and the twilight mingled, she stood with kindling eyes,

And answered and said: "My brother, thou art strong, and thou shalt be wise:

I am nothing so wroth as thou art with the ways of death and hell,

For thereof had I a deeming when all things were seeming well.

In sooth overlong it may linger; the children of murder shall thrive,

While thy work is a weight for thine heart, and a toil for thy hand to drive;

But I wot that the King of the Goth-folk for his deeds shall surely pay,

And that I shall live to see it: but thy wrath shall pass

away,

And long shalt thou live on the earth an exceeding glorious king,

And thy words shall be told in the market, and all men of thy deeds shall sing:

Fresh shall thy memory be, and thine eyes like mine shall gaze

On the day unborn in the darkness, the last of all earthly days,

The last of the days of battle, when the host of the Gods is arrayed

And there is an end for ever of all who were once afraid. There as thou drawest thy sword, thou shalt think of the days that were,

And the foul shall still seem foul, and the fair shall still seem fair;

But thy wit shall then be awakened, and thou shalt know

indeed

Why the brave man's spear is broken, and his war-shield fails at need;

Why the loving is unbeloved; why the just man falls from his state;

Why the liar gains in a day what the soothfast strives for late.

Yea, and thy deeds shalt thou know, and great shall thy gladness be;

As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see, And know that thou too wert a God to abide through the hurry and haste;

A God in the golden hall, a God on the rain-swept

waste,

A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain:

And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened again:

And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill;

Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen to fill;

By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told

In the hall of the happy Baldur: nor there shall the tale grow old

Of the days before the changing, e'en those that over

us pass.

So harden thine heart, O brother, and set thy brow as the brass!

Thou shalt do, and thy deeds shall be goodly, and the day's work shall be done

Though nought but the wild deer see it. Nor yet shalt thou be alone

For ever-more in thy waiting; for belike a fearful friend The long days for thee may fashion, to help thee ere the end.

But now shalt thou bide in the wild-wood, and make thee a lair therein:

Thou art here in the midst of thy foemen, and from them thou well mayst win

Whatso thine heart desireth; yet be thou not too bold, Lest the tale of the wood-abider too oft to the king be told.

Ere many days are departed again shall I see thy face,
That I may wot full surely of thine abiding-place
To send thee help and comfort; but when that hour
is o'er

It were good, O last of the Volsungs, that I see thy face

no more,

If so indeed it may be: but the Norns must fashion all, And what the dawn hath fated on the hour of noon shall fall."

Then she kissed him and departed, for the day was nigh at hand,

And by then she had left the woodways green lay the horse-fed land

Beneath the new-born daylight, and as she brushed the dew

Betwixt the yellowing acres, all heaven o'erhead was blue. And at last on that dwelling of Kings the golden sunlight lay,

And the morn and the noon and the even built up another day.

OF THE WOOING OF HALLBIORN THE STRONG.

A STORY FROM THE LAND-SETTLING BOOK OF ICELAND,

CHAPTER XXX.

[Poems by the Way 1891.]

AT Deildar-Tongue in the autumn-tide,
So many times over comes summer again,
Stood Odd of Tongue his door beside.
What healing in summer if winter be vain?
Dim and dusk the day was grown,
As he heard his folded wethers moan.
Then through the garth a man drew near,
With painted shield and gold-wrought spear.
Good was his horse and grand his gear,
And his girths were wet with Whitewater.
"Hail, Master Odd, live blithe and long!
How fare the folk at Deildar-Tongue?"

"All hail, thou Hallbiorn the Strong!

How fare the folk by the Brothers'-Tongue?"

"Meat have we there, and drink and fire,
Nor lack all things that we desire.
But by the other Whitewater

Of Hallgerd many a tale we hear."
"Tales enow may my daughter make
If too many words be said for her sake."
"What saith thine heart to a word of mine,
That I deem thy daughter fair and fine?
Fair and fine for a bride is she,

And I fain would have her home with me."
"Full many a word that at noon goes forth
Comes home at even little worth.

Now winter treadeth on autumn-tide,
So here till the spring shalt thou abide.
Then if thy mind be changed no whit,
And ye still will wed, see ye to it!
And on the first of summer days,
A wedded man, ye may go your ways.
Yet look, howso the thing will fall,
My hand shall meddle nought at all.
Lo, now the night and rain draweth up,
And within doors glimmer stoop and cup.
And hark, a little sound I know,

The laugh of Snæbiorn's fiddle-bow,

My sister's son, and a craftsman good,

When the red rain drives through the iron wood."
Hallbiorn laughed, and followed in,

And a merry feast there did begin.
Hallgerd's hands undid his weed,
Hallgerd's hands poured out the mead.
Her fingers at his breast he felt,
As her hair fell down about his belt.
Her fingers with the cup he took,
And o'er its rim at her did look.
Jiriczek, Englische Dichter.

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