THE COLLECTED POEMS OF HENRIK IBSEN Translated by John ...

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“To church!” was shouted as a screech, full-lung,
but next time as a shout the horn emitted.
“To church!” she shouted, now from here, now there,
but always higher, further rang her whooping,
now amidst snowfields, now black outcrops grouping
scree-strewn and black, such as the uplands bear.
“To church!” the lass yelled out, by mouth once more,
now through cupped hand, now horn, now both it sounded;
the din spilled wide across the valley floor,
and echoes from its northern wall rebounded.
“To church!” rang out again, sometimes like singing,
sometimes like laughter, or like chimes beguiled,
sometimes a shriek, sometimes like far-off ringing
enchantments from a palace in the wild.
Within the priest’s blood something froze it seemed.
He stood a long while silent, listening, seeking,
while on the fleeting, shifting voice kept shrieking
behind, now to the side, ahead it screamed.
She sought the church; but there the church lay, yonder,
deep in the dale, yet it’s the height she seeks.
How far? And where? Amongst the tops and peaks;
the pillared mountain-hall is where she’d wander.
And yet, to church! To church? A name, that second,
like flickered lightning flashed through memory’s night;
it came, it went; it hissed at him and beckoned,
slipped from his tongue; but then he seized it tight.
At first it sounded to him strange and darkly;
but more and more took on the well-known trait;
at length the mists of time all rolled away
and there, by light of home, the name stood, starkly.
A dale flashed through his mind, remote, deserted,
where under frozen drifts the fells repose;
a cleft midst peaks and mountain tops inserted,
half-roofed and spanned by ice-cap and packed snows.
In frost, in thaw, in blizzard, winter fashioned
the gleaming vault hung from the valley wall; —
and through the dale would rage a stream impassioned;
and on a tarn would livid shadows fall.
The vault would often span one half the dale;
extending so far out and yet so brittle;
the cunning thaw would little carve by little;
but year by year the snow-pack grew in scale.
But in a summer warm from sun’s embracing,
the wilderness’s structure would crash down;
the stream would swell, the river would be racing,
the snow-pack split across its soaring crown.