High above the timberline where freezing shadows creep, A squat and armored predator awakens from the deep, Entombed in karst and dolomite where mountain currents freeze, Beyond the sunlit valleys and the whispering of trees, A heavy alpine sovereign wrapped in subterranean sleep. The alpine winds grow silent on the sheer and jagged height, As bitter mist descends to swallow up the morning light. The scree begins to tumble down the steep and narrow track, A clawed and heavy terror pushes through the mountain crack! With iron-plated scales that scrape against the brittle stone, He stalks the frozen passes where the hunter walks alone! Two muscular and clawed forelegs divide the broken shale, While lightless caverns echo with the dragging of his tail, From hollowed karst and sinkholes where no mountain cattle stray, He waits within the crevice for the scent of living prey, To drag another victim down beyond the light of day. A pale and chilling vapor drifts across the frozen ledge, Extinguishing the lantern flame along the rocky edge. The suffocating venom clouds the thin and frosty air, Before the startled wanderer can offer up a prayer! No wings unfold to ride the gale, no fire lights the sky, Just quiet, creeping slaughter where the high plateaus lie! The mountain herdsmen whisper of the missing and the lost, Whose tracks dissolve to nothing in the early autumn frost, Dragged down into the fissures where the glacial waters weep, To feed the hungry monarch in his subterranean keep, While shadows settle cold across the Berchtesgaden steep. The limestone groans beneath the weight of prehistoric bone, Where ancient darkness claims the peaks and makes the crags its own. Beware the clawed leviathan that slumbers in the crag, Who drags the heavy bullock and the antler-bearing stag! The mountain keeps its secrets in the lightless alpine deep, Where ancient, cold sovereigns their eternal vigil keep! When winter locks the peaks in ice and blinding drifts of snow, He curls into the sinkhole far from mortal eyes below, A living relic resting in the heart of frozen stone, Untouched by human history, untamed and all alone, A solitary ruler of a lightless mountain throne. The mountain passes freeze in white, The shadow slumbers out of sight, The peaks endure in quiet stone, The Alpine wyrm sleeps alone!
