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 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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