Part 14 (1/2)
--Pa.s.s by me and hearken, and pity me not!
Ye know not how void is your hope and your living: Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me, There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
--Pa.s.s by me and hearken, and waken me not!
Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me?
Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter, And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after!
Nay this I sell not,--though ye bought me and sold me,-- For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter.
--Pa.s.s by me, I hearken, and think of you not!
4.
Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it, And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving; These know the Cup with the roses around it; These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it: Cry out, the World heedeth not, ”Love, lead us home!”
He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward; Set your faces as steel to the fears that a.s.semble Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward: Lo! his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble!
Lo! his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble!
Cry out, for he heedeth, ”O Love, lead us home!”
O hearken the words of his voice of compa.s.sion: ”Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken Of the weary unrest and the world's pa.s.sing fas.h.i.+on!
As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken, But surely within you some G.o.dhead doth quicken, As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.
”Come--pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending!
Come--fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting!
Come--change ye shall have, for far are ye wending!
Come--no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting, But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting!
Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!”
Is he gone? was he with us?--ho ye who seek saving, Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it?
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving; Here is the Cup with the roses around it; The World's Wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it: Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home.
FROM
”THE STORY OF SIGURD THE VOLSUNG.”
BOOK II.
R E G I N.
Now this is the first book of the life and death of Sigurd the Volsung, and therein is told of the birth of him, and of his dealings with Regin the master of masters, and of his deeds in the waste places of the earth.
_Of the birth of Sigurd the son of Sigmund._
Peace lay on the land of the Helper and the house of Elf his son; There merry men went bedward when their tide of toil was done, And glad was the dawn's awakening, and the noontide fair and glad: There no great store had the franklin, and enough the hireling had; And a child might go unguarded the length and breadth of the land With a purse of gold at his girdle and gold rings on his hand.
'Twas a country of cunning craftsmen, and many a thing they wrought, That the lands of storm desired, and the homes of warfare sought.