It was summer:  thrush and linnet sung their gladsome summer-lay;
Through the fir trees’ cooling vista rose the cataract’s white spray;
And the light blue smoke of even o’er the darksome forests fell—­
Rose and lingered like a lover loath to bid his love farewell;
And in silence,
Wistful silence,
Shed its peace o’er sunlit dell.

On the pleasant hillside sat they, where the silvery birches grow,
And th’ eternal sun of midnight bathed them in its fitful glow—­
She a maid of eighteen summers, fresh and fair as Norway’s spring;
Tall and dark-browed he, like pine-woods in whose gloom the Hulders[1] sing,
When in silence,
Deep-toned silence,
Night lets droop her dusky wing.

It was now that he must leave her, and the waves and tempest breast: 
Heavy-hearted sat they, gazing on the Yokul’s flaming crest;
And she spoke:  “O Ragnas, never, while yon airy peak shall gleam
O’er our home, shall I forget thee or our childhood’s blissful dream,
Until silence,
Death and silence,
Freeze my heart and memory’s stream.”

Up he sprang, and boldly looked he toward the midnight-lighted west,
Seized her white, soft hand and pressed it closely to his throbbing breast,
And the love his childhood fostered, and in youth made warm his blood,
Trembled on his lips as trembles bursting flower in freezing bud: 
Ah, but silence,
Fateful silence,
Held the mighty feeling’s flood.

Years had passed with autumn’s splendor, like a glistening shower of gems;
Doubly rich the sunlight streamed from the Yokul’s diadems;
Once again in joyful rapture he his native vale beheld,
For the love long years had fostered whispered still of faith unquelled,
Spite of silence,
Hapless silence,
That the timid tongue had spelled.

And his boat shot swiftly onward:  well the rowers plied their oar,
Till a heavy tolling reached them from the church-tower on the shore;
And a solemn train of barges slowly wound their pensive way
Through the hushed waves that glittered o’er their image in the bay;
And the silence,
Listening silence,
Dimmed the splendor of the day.

O’er the barge that now drew nearer countless virgin lilies wept,
Telling that some white-souled maiden in the snowy bower slept. 
Dumb he stood, and gazed in terror on the shroud and lilies sweet,
And a dread foreboding filled him, and his heart forgot to beat;
And in silence,
Deathlike silence,
Fell he at the boatman’s feet.

So the parish-people told me; and as years went rolling by
Oft they saw him sadly staring on the flaming sunset sky;
Watched the purple-stained 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.