Then down by the door leaps Gunnar, but awhile in the porch he stands To hearken the women's voices and the sound of their labouring hands; And amidst of their many murmurings a mightier voice he hears, The speech of his sister Gudrun: his inmost heart it stirs, And he entereth glad and smiling; bright, huge in the lowly hall He stands in the beam of sunlight where the dust-motes dance and fall.
On the high-seat sitteth Gudrun when she sees the man of war Come gleaming into the chamber; then she standeth up on the floor, And is great and goodly to look on mid the women of that place: But she knoweth the guise of the Niblungs, and she knoweth Gunnar's face, And at first she turneth to flee, as erewhile she fled away When she rose from the wound of Sigurd and loathed the light of day: But her father's heart rose in her, and the sleeping wrong awoke, And she made one step from the high-seat before Queen Thora's folk; And Gunnar moved from the threshold, and smiled as he drew anear, And Hogni went behind him and the Mother of Kings was there; And her maids and the Earls of the Niblungs stood gleaming there behind: Lo, the kin and the friends of Gudrun, a smiling folk and kind!
In the midst stood Gudrun before them, and cried aloud and said: "What! bear ye tidings of Sigurd? is he new come back from the dead? O then will I hasten to greet him, and cherish my love and my lord, Though the murderous sons of Giuki have borne the tale abroad."
Dead-pale she stood before them, and no mouth answered again, And the summer morn grew heavy, and chill were the hearts of men And Thora's people trembled: there the simple people first Saw the horror of the King-folk, and mighty lives accurst.
All hushed stood the glorious Gunnar, but Hogni came before, And he said: "It is sooth, my sister, that thy sorrow hath been sore, That hath rent thee away from thy kindred and the folk that love thee most: But to double sorrow with hatred is to cast all after the lost, And to die and to rest not in death, and to loathe and linger the end: Now today do we come to this dwelling thy grief and thy woe to amend, And to give thee the gift that we may; for without thy love and thy peace Doth our life and our glory sicken, though its outward show increase. Lo, we bear thee rule and dominion, and hope and the glory of life, For King Atli wooeth thee, Gudrun, for his queen and his wedded wife."