A Selection From The Poems Of William Morris Part 21

So on they ride to the westward, and huge were the mountains grown And the floor of heaven was mingled with that tossing world of stone: And they rode till the noon was forgotten and the sun was waxen low, And they tarried not, though he perished, and the world grew dark below.

Then they rode a mighty desert, a glimmering place and wide, And into a narrow pa.s.s high-walled on either side By the blackness of the mountains, and barred aback and in face By the empty night of the shadow; a windless silent place: But the white moon shone o'erhead mid the small sharp stars and pale, And each as a man alone they rode on the highway of bale.

So ever they wended upward, and the midnight hour was o'er, And the stars grew pale and paler, and failed from the heaven's floor, And the moon was a long while dead, but there was the promise of day, No change came over the darkness, no streak of the dawning grey; No sound of the wind's uprising adown the night there ran: It was blind as the Gaping Gulf ere the first of the worlds began.

Then athwart and athwart rode Sigurd and sought the walls of the pa.s.s, But found no wall before him; and the road rang hard as bra.s.s Beneath the hoofs of Greyfell, as up and up he trod: --Was it the daylight of h.e.l.l, or the night of the doorways of G.o.d?

But lo, at the last a glimmer, and a light from the west there came, And another and another, like points of far-off flame; And they grew and brightened and gathered; and whiles together they ran Like the moonwake over the waters; and whiles they were scant and wan, Some greater and some lesser, like the boats of fishers laid About the sea of midnight; and a dusky dawn they made, A faint and glimmering twilight: So Sigurd strains his eyes, And he sees how a land deserted all round about him lies More changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its floor: Then the heart leaps up within him, for he knows that his journey is o'er, And there he draweth bridle on the first of the Glittering Heath: And the Wrath is waxen merry and sings in the golden sheath As he leaps adown from Greyfell, and stands upon his feet, And wends his ways through the twilight the Foe of the G.o.ds to meet.

_Sigurd slayeth Fafnir the Serpent_.

Nought Sigurd seeth of Regin, and nought he heeds of him, As in watchful might and glory he strides the desert dim, And behind him paceth Greyfell; but he deems the time o'erlong Till he meet the great gold-warden, the over-lord of wrong.

So he wendeth midst the silence through the measureless desert place, And beholds the countless glitter with wise and steadfast face, Till him-seems in a little season that the flames grow somewhat wan, And a grey thing glimmers before him, and becomes a mighty man, One-eyed and ancient-seeming, in cloud-grey raiment clad; A friendly man and glorious, and of visage smiling-glad: Then content in Sigurd groweth because of his majesty, And he heareth him speak in the desert as the wind of the winter sea:

"Hail Sigurd! Give me thy greeting ere thy ways alone thou wend!"

Said Sigurd: "Hail! I greet thee, my friend and my fathers' friend."

"Now whither away," said the elder, "with the Steed and the ancient Sword?"

"To the greedy house," said Sigurd, "and the King of the Heavy h.o.a.rd."

"Wilt thou smite, O Sigurd, Sigurd?" said the ancient mighty-one.

"Yea, yea, I shall smite," said the Volsung, "save the G.o.ds have slain the sun."

"What wise wilt thou smite," said the elder, "lest the dark devour thy day?"

"Thou hast praised the sword," said the child, "and the sword shall find a way."

"Be learned of me," said the Wise-one, "for I was the first of thy folk."

Said the child: "I shall do thy bidding, and for thee shall I strike the stroke."

Spake the Wise-one: "Thus shalt thou do when thou wendest hence alone: Thou shalt find a path in the desert, and a road in the world of stone; It is smooth and deep and hollow, but the rain hath riven it not, And the wild wind hath not worn it, for it is but Fafnir's slot, Whereby he wends to the water and the fathomless pool of old, When his heart in the dawn is weary, and he loathes the Ancient Gold: There think of the great and the fathers, and bare the whetted Wrath, And dig a pit in the highway, and a grave in the Serpent's path: Lie thou therein, O Sigurd, and thine hope from the glooming hide, And be as the dead for a season, and the living light abide!

And so shall thine heart avail thee, and thy mighty fateful hand, And the Light that lay in the Branstock, the well beloved brand."

Said the child: "I shall do thy bidding, and for thee shall I strike the stroke; For I love thee, friend of my fathers, Wise Heart of the holy folk."

So spake the Son of Sigmund, and beheld no man anear, And again was the night the midnight, and the twinkling flames shone clear In the hush of the Glittering Heath; and alone went Sigmund's son Till he came to the road of Fafnir, and the highway worn by one, By the drift of the rain unfurrowed, by the windy years unrent, And forth from the dark it came, and into the dark it went.

Great then was the heart of Sigurd, for there in the midmost he stayed, And thought of the ancient fathers, and bared the bright blue blade, That shone as a fleck of the day-light, and the night was all around.

Fair then was the Son of Sigmund as he toiled and laboured the ground; Great, mighty he was in his working, and the Glittering Heath he clave, And the sword shone blue before him as he dug the pit and the grave: There he hid his hope from the night-tide and lay like one of the dead, And wise and wary he bided; and the heavens hung over his head.

Now the night wanes over Sigurd, and the ruddy rings he sees, And his war-gear's fair adornment, and the G.o.d-folk's images; But a voice in the desert ariseth, a sound in the waste has birth, A changing tinkle and clatter, as of gold dragged over the earth: O'er Sigurd widens the day-light, and the sound is drawing close, And speedier than the trample of speedy feet it goes; But ever deemeth Sigurd that the sun brings back the day, For the grave grows lighter and lighter and heaven o'erhead is grey.

But now, how the rattling waxeth till he may not heed nor hark!

And the day and the heavens are hidden, and o'er Sigurd rolls the dark, As the flood of a pitchy river, and heavy-thick is the air With the venom of hate long h.o.a.rded, and lies once fas.h.i.+oned fair: Then a wan face comes from the darkness, and is wrought in manlike wise, And the lips are writhed with laughter and bleared are the blinded eyes; And it wandereth hither and thither, and searcheth through the grave And departeth, leaving nothing, save the dark, rolled wave on wave O'er the golden head of Sigurd and the edges of the sword, And the world weighs heavy on Sigurd, and the weary curse of the h.o.a.rd: Him-seemed the grave grew straiter, and his hope of life grew chill, And his heart by the Worm was enfolded, and the bonds of the Ancient Ill.

Then was Sigurd stirred by his glory, and he strove with the swaddling of Death; He turned in the pit on the highway, and the grave of the Glittering Heath; He laughed and smote with the laughter and thrust up over his head, And smote the venom asunder, and clave the heart of Dread; Then he leapt from the pit and the grave, and the rus.h.i.+ng river of blood, And fulfilled with the joy of the War-G.o.d on the face of earth he stood With red sword high uplifted, with wrathful glittering eyes; And he laughed at the heavens above him for he saw the sun arise, And Sigurd gleamed on the desert, and shone in the new-born light, And the wind in his raiment wavered, and all the world was bright.

But there was the ancient Fafnir, and the Face of Terror lay On the huddled folds of the Serpent, that were black and ashen-grey In the desert lit by the sun; and those twain looked each on each, And forth from the Face of Terror went a sound of dreadful speech:

"Child, child, who art thou that hast smitten? bright child, of whence is thy birth?"

"I am called the Wild-thing Glorious, and alone I wend on the earth."

"Fierce child, and who was thy father?--Thou hast cleft the heart of the Foe!"

"Am I like to the sons of men-folk, that my father I should know?"

"Wert thou born of a nameless wonder? shall the lies to my death-day cling?"

"How lieth Sigurd the Volsung, and the Son of Sigmund the King?"

"O bitter father of Sigurd!--thou hast cleft mine heart atwain!"

"I arose, and I wondered and wended, and I smote, and I smote not in vain."

"What master hath taught thee of murder?--Thou hast wasted Fafnir's day."

"I, Sigurd, knew and desired, and the bright sword learned the way."

"Thee, thee shall the rattling Gold and the red rings bring to the bane."

"Yet mine hand shall cast them abroad, and the earth shall gather again."

"I see thee great in thine anger, and the Norns thou heedest not."

"O Fafnir, speak of the Norns and the wisdom unforgot!"

"Let the death-doomed flee from the ocean, him the wind and the weather shall drown."

"O Fafnir, tell of the Norns ere thy life thou layest adown!"

"O manifold is their kindred, and who shall tell them all?

There are they that rule o'er men-folk and the stars that rise and fall: --I knew of the folk of the Dwarfs, and I knew their Norns of old; And I fought, and I fell in the morning, and I die afar from the gold: --I have seen the G.o.ds of heaven, and their Norns withal I know: They love and withhold their helping, they hate and refrain the blow; They curse and they may not sunder, they bless and they shall not blend; They have fas.h.i.+oned the good and the evil; they abide the change and the end."

"O Fafnir, what of the Isle, and what hast thou known of its name, Where the G.o.ds shall mingle edges with Surt and the Sons of Flame?"

"O child, O Strong Compeller? Unshapen is its hight; There the fallow blades shall be shaken and the Dark and the Day shall smite, When the Bridge of the G.o.ds is broken, and their white steeds swim the sea, And the uttermost field is stricken, last strife of thee and me."

"What then shall endure, O Fafnir, the tale of the battle to tell?"

"I am blind, O Strong Compeller, in the bonds of Death and h.e.l.l.

But thee shall the rattling Gold and the red rings bring unto bane."