Singing in their white clapboard churches—
The Danes and buttoned-down Norwegians,
The tall, big-boned Swedes with shocks
Of white hair. You should hear them
Hoisting their voices from this world
To the next, those bachelor farmers
Who're there at every service, every funeral,
Bellowing out the hymns in the back pews,
Those old Carusos from Bergen, Trondheim,
The last ones left from the big crossing.
You should hear them rejoicing in their little
Drafty churches with the one-story steeples,
Under the bells that haven't rung in years.
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