All heed gave the maids and the warriors, and hushed was the spear-thronged place, As she stretched out her hand to Sigurd, and swept the linen away From the lips that had holpen the people, and the eyes that had gladdened the day; She set her hand unto Sigurd, and turned the face of the dead To the moveless knees of Gudrun, and again she spake and said:
"O Gudrun, look on thy loved-one; yea, as if he were living yet Let his face by thy face be cherished, and thy lips on his lips be set!"
Then Gudrun's eyes fell on it, and she saw the bright-one's hair All wet with the deadly dew-fall, and she saw the great eyes stare At that cloudy roof of the Niblungs without a smile or frown; And she saw the breast of the mighty and the heart's wall rent adown: She gazed and the woe gathered on her, so exceeding far away Seemed all she once had cherished from that which near her lay; She gazed, and it craved no pity, and therein was nothing sad, Therein was clean forgotten the hope that Sigurd had: Then she looked around and about her, as though her friend to find, And met those woeful faces but as grey reeds in the wind, And she turned to the King beneath her and raised her hands on high, And fell on the body of Sigurd with a great and bitter cry; All else in the house kept silence, and she as one alone Spared not in that kingly dwelling to wail aloud and moan; And the sound of her lamentation the peace of the Niblungs rent, While the restless birds in the wall-nook their song to the green leaves sent; And the geese in the home-mead wandering clanged out beneath the sun; For now was the day's best hour, and its loveliest tide begun.
Long Gudrun lay on Sigurd, and her tears fell fast on the floor As the rain in midmost April when the winter-tide is o'er, Till she heard a wail anigh her and how Gullrond wept beside, Then she knew the voice of her pity, and rose upright and cried:
"O ye, e'en such was my Sigurd among these Giuki's sons, As the hart with the horns day-brightened mid the forest-creeping ones; As the spear-leek fraught with wisdom mid the lowly garden grass; As the gem on the gold band's midmost when the council cometh to pass, And the King is lit with its glory, and the people wonder and praise. --O people, Ah thy craving for the least of my Sigurd's days! O wisdom of my Sigurd! how oft I sat with thee Thou striver, thou deliverer, thou hope of things to be! O might of my love, my Sigurd! how oft I sat by thy side, And was praised for the loftiest woman and the best of Odin's pride! But now am I as little as the leaf on the lone tree left, When the winter wood is shaken and the sky by the North is cleft."