Unspeakable, unchanging, with white unknitted
brow With half-closed lips untrembling, with deedless
hands and cold Laid still on knees that stir not, and the linen's
moveless fold.
Turned Hogni unto the spear-wall, and smote from
where he stood,
And hewed with his sword two-handed as the axe- man in a wood : Before his sword was a champion, and the edges clave
to the chin, And the first man fell in the feast-hall of those that
should fall therein. Then man with man was dealing, and the Niblung
host of war Was swept by the leaping icon, as the rock anigh
the shore By the ice-cold waves of winter: yet a moment
Gunnar stayed As high in his hand unblooded he shook his awful
blade ; And he cried: 'O Eastland champions, do ye behold
it here, The sword of the ancient Giuki? Fall on and have
no fear, But slay and be slain and be famous, if your master's
will it be! Yet are we the blameless Niblungs, and bidden
guests are we :
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