Brand.
Lies <g>there</g> that church of yours?
Why, that way leads but to the moors.
Gerd.
Come with me, you; I've got to show
A church that's built of ice and snow!
Brand.
Of ice and snow! I see the truth!
There, amid peak and precipice
As I remember from my youth,
There yawns a cavernous abyss;
"Ice-church" they call'd the place of old;
And of it many a tale was told;
A frozen tarn has paved the floor;
Aloft, in massy-piled blocks,
The gather'd snow-drifts slope and soar
Arch-like over the yawning rocks.
Gerd.
It seems a mountain-cleft,—ah, yes,
It is a church, though, none the less.
Brand.
Never go there; a sudden gust
Has often crack'd that hollow crust;
A rifle shot, a scream, a whoop
Gerd.
[Without listening to him.]
Just come and see a reindeer troop
Gulf'd in the fall, and never found
Till spring and the great thaw came round.
