I think of the thing that hath been, but no shape is in my thought;
I think of the day that passeth, and its story comes to nought.
I think of the days that shall be, nor shape I any tale.
I will hearken thee, O mother, if hearkening may avail."

The Carline gazed at her with dark eyes that shone brightly from amidst
her brown wrinkled face: then she sat herself down beside her and spake:

"From a far folk have I wandered and I come of an alien blood,
But I know all tales of the Wolfings and their evil and their good;
And when I heard of thy fairness, thereof I heard it said,
That for thee should be never a bridal nor a place in the warrior's
bed."

The maiden neither reddened nor paled, but looking with calm steady eyes
into the Carline's face she answered:

"Yea true it is, I am wedded to the mighty ones of old,
And the fathers of the Wolfings ere the days of field and fold."

Then a smile came into the eyes of the old woman and she said.

"How glad shall be thy mother of thy worship and thy worth,
And the father that begat thee if yet they dwell on earth!"

But the Hall-Sun answered in the same steady manner as before:

"None knoweth who is my mother, nor my very father's name;
But when to the House of the Wolfings a wild-wood waif I came,
They gave me a foster-mother an ancient dame and good,