Still were its boughs but for them, when lo on an even of May
    Comes a man from Siggeir the King with a word for his mouth to say: 
    “All hail to thee King Volsung, from the King of the Goths I come: 
    He hath heard of thy sword victorious and thine abundant home;
    He hath heard of thy sons in the battle, the fillers of Odin’s Hall;
    And a word hath the west-wind blown him, (full fruitful be its fall!)
    A word of thy daughter Signy the crown of womanhood: 
    Now he deems thy friendship goodly, and thine help in the battle good,
    And for these will he give his friendship and his battle-aid again: 
    But if thou wouldst grant his asking, and make his heart full fain,
    Then shalt thou give him a matter, saith he, without a price,
    —­Signy the fairer than fair, Signy the wiser than wise.”

    Such words in the hall of the Volsungs spake the Earl of Siggeir
      the Goth,
    Bearing the gifts and the gold, the ring, and the tokens of troth. 
    But the King’s heart laughed within him and the King’s sons deemed
      it good;
    For they dreamed how they fared with the Goths o’er ocean and acre
      and wood,
    Till all the north was theirs, and the utmost southern lands.

    But nought said the snow-white Signy as she sat with folded hands
    And gazed at the Goth-king’s Earl till his heart grew heavy and cold,
    As one that half remembers a tale that the elders have told,
    A story of weird and of woe:  then spake King Volsung and said: 

    “A great king woos thee, daughter; wilt thou lie in a great king’s bed,
    And bear earth’s kings on thy bosom, that our name may never die?”

    A fire lit up her face, and her voice was e’en as a cry: 
    “I will sleep in a great king’s bed, I will bear the lords of the
      earth,
    And the wrack and the grief of my youth-days shall be held for
      nothing worth.”

    Then would he question her kindly, as one who loved her sore,
    But she put forth her hand and smiled, and her face was flushed no more
    “Would God it might otherwise be! but wert thou to will it not,
    Yet should I will it and wed him, and rue my life and my lot.”

    Lowly and soft she said it; but spake out louder now: 
    “Be of good cheer, King Volsung! for such a man art thou,
    That what thou dost well-counselled, goodly and fair it is,
    And what thou dost unwitting, the Gods have bidden thee this: 
    So work all things together for the fame of thee and thine. 
    And now meseems at my wedding shall be a hallowed sign,
    That shall give thine heart a joyance, whatever shall follow after.” 
    She spake, and the feast sped on, and the speech and the song and
      the laughter
    Went over the words of boding as the tide of the norland main
    Sweeps over the hidden skerry, the home of the shipman’s bane.