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,