Oft they saw him sadly staring on the flaming sunset sky;
Watched the purple-stainèd Yokul, half in joy and half in pain,
As if hoped he there to see her coming back to earth again;
Mourned his silence,
Fateful silence,
That had rent two lives atwain.

Till at length one Sabbath morning--deep-voiced church-bells shook the air--
While in festal garb the church-folk wandered to their house of prayer,
Reached their ears a hollow thunder from the glaciers overhead,
And huge blocks of ice came crashing downward to the river's bed,
And in silence,
Wrathful silence,
Down the seething stream they sped.

Ah, the breathless hush that followed! for amid the icy waste
They a human shape discernèd, madly, as by demons chased,
Up the crystal ledges climbing, pausing now where ice-walls screen
From the blast, then upward springing o'er abyss and dread ravine,
Until silence,
Glittering silence,
Reigned amid the icebergs' sheen.

They have searched for him, they told me, sought him far and sought him near:
Ne'er a trace was found to tell them of his grave so lone and drear;
But the legend goes that angels swift the shining ether clove,
And with them his youth's beloved bore him up to God above,
Where shall silence,
Deepest silence,
Never sunder hearts that love.