Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/55



Lies there that church of yours? Why, that way leads but to the moors.

Come with me, you; I've got to show A church that's built of ice and snow!

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.

It seems a mountain-cleft,—ah, yes, It is a church, though, none the less.

Never go there; a sudden gust Has often crack'd that hollow crust; A rifle shot, a scream, a whoop

[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.