Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
NOW, rallying once if ne'er again,
With flag at half-mast flown,
A people in dire need and strain
Mans Tyra's bastion.
Betrayed in danger's hour, betrayed
Before the stress of strife!
Was this the meaning that it had--
That clasp of hands at Axelstad
Which gave the North new life?
The words that seemed as if they rushed
From deepest heart-springs out
Were phrases, then! -- the freshet gushed,
And now is fall'n the drought.
The tree, that promised rich in bloom
Mid festal sun and shower,
Stands wind-stript in the louring gloom,
A cross to mark young Norway's tomb,
The first dark testing-hour.
They were but Judas kisses, lies
In fatal wreaths enwound,
The cheers of Norway's sons, and cries
Towards the beach of Sound.
What passed that time we watched them meet,
'Twixt Norse and Danish lord?
Oh! nothing! only to repeat
King Gustav's play at Stockholm's seat
With the Twelfth Charles' sword.
"A people doomed, whose knell is rung,
Betrayed by every friend!" --
Is the book closed and the song sung?
Is this our Denmark's end?
Who set the craven colophon,
While Germans seized the hold,
And o'er the last Dane lying prone
Old Denmark's tattered flag was thrown
With doubly crimsoned fold?
But thou, my brother Norsemen, set
Beyond the war-storm's power
Because thou knewest to forget
Fair words in danger's hour:
Flee from thy homes of ancient fame--
Go chase a new sunrise--
Pursue oblivion, and for shame
Disguise thee in a stranger's name
To hide from thine own eyes!
Each wind that sighs from Danish waves
Through Norway's woods of pine,
Of thy pale lips an answer craves:
Where wast thou, brother mine?
I fought for both a deadly fight;
In vain to spy thy prow
O'er belt and fiord I strained my sight:
My fatherland with graves grew white:
My brother, where wast thou?
It was a dream! Arise, awake
To do a nation's deed!
Each to his post, swift counsel take;
A brother is in need!
A nobler song may yet be sung--
Danes, Danes, keep Tyra's hold--
And o'er a Northern era, young
And rich in hope, be proudly flung
The red flag's tattered fold.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
HER griefs were the hours
When my struggle was sore,--
Her joys were the powers
That the climber upbore.
Her home is the boundless
Free ocean that seems
To rock, calm and soundless,
My galleon of dreams.
Half hers are the glancing
Creations that throng
With pageant and dancing
The ways of my song.
My fires when they dwindle
Are lit from her brand;
Men see them rekindle
Nor guess by whose hand.
Of thanks to requite her
No least thought is hers,--
And therefore I write her,
Once, thanks in a verse.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
IN summer dusk the valley lies
With far-flung shadow veil;
A cloud-sea laps the precipice
Before the evening gale:
The welter of the cloud-waves grey
Cuts off from keenest sight
The glacier, looking out by day
O'er all the district, far away,
And crowned with golden light.
But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow,
Where gold and amber kiss,
Stands up the archipelago,
A home of shining peace.
The mountain eagle seems to sail
A ship far seen at even;
And over all a serried pale
Of peaks, like giants ranked in mail,
Fronts westward threatening heaven.
But look, a steading nestles, close
Beneath the ice-fields bound,
Where purple cliffs and glittering snows
The quiet home surround.
Here place and people seem to be
A world apart, alone; --
Cut off from men by spate and scree
It has a heaven more broad, more free,
A sunshine all its own.
Look: mute the saeter-maiden stays,
Half shadow, half aflame;
The deep, still vision of her gaze
Was never word to name.
She names it not herself, nor knows
What goal my be its will;
While cow-bells chime and alp-horn blows
It bears her where the sunset glows,
Or, maybe, further still.
Too brief, thy life on highland wolds
Where close the glaciers jut;
Too soon the snowstorm's cloak enfolds
Stone byre and pine-log hut.
Then wilt thou ply with hearth ablaze
The winter's well-worn tasks; --
But spin thy wool with cheerful face:
One sunset in the mountain pays
For all their winter asks.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
SEE, dear, what thy lover brings;
'Tis the flower with the white wings.
Buoyed upon the quiet stream
In the spring it lay adream.
Homelike to bestow this guest,
Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast;
There its leaves the secret keep
Of a wave both still and deep.
Child, beware the tarn-fed stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though the sprite pretends to sleep,
And above the lilies peep.
Child, thy bosom is the stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though above the lilies peep,
And the sprite pretends to sleep.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
TO skies that were brighter
Turned he his prows;
To gods that were lighter
Made he his vows.
The snow-land's mountains
Sank in the deep;
Sunnier fountains
Lulled him to sleep.
He burns his vessels,
The smoke flung forth
On blue cloud-trestles
A bridge to the north.
From the sun-warmed lowland
Each night that betides,
To the huts of the snow-land
A horseman rides.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
"GOOD Heavens, man, what a freak of taste!
What blindness to form and feature!
The girl's no beauty, and might be placed
As a hoydenish kind of creature.
"
No doubt it were more in the current tone
And the tide today we move in,
If I could but choose me to make my own
A type of our average woman.
Like winter blossoms they all unfold
Their primly maturing glory;
Like pot-grown plants in the tepid mould
Of a window conservatory.
They sleep by rule and by rule they wake,
Each tendril is taught its duties;
Were I worldly-wise, yes, my choice I'd make
From our stock of average beauties.
For worldly wisdom what do I care?
I am sick of its prating mummers;
She breathes of the field and the open air,
And the fragrance of sixteen summers.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
NOW they sing the hero loud; --
But they sing him in his shroud.
Torch he kindled for his land;
On his brow ye set its brand.
Taught by him to wield a glaive;
Through his heart the steel ye drave.
Trolls he smote in hard-fought fields;
Ye bore him down 'twixt traitor shields.
But the shining spoils he won,
These ye treasure as your own.
--
Dim them not, that so the dead
Rest appeased his thorn-crowned head.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
BEETLING rock, with roar and smoke
Break before my hammer-stroke!
Deeper I must thrust and lower
Till I hear the ring of ore.
From the mountain's unplumbed night,
Deep amid the gold-veins bright,
Diamonds lure me, rubies beckon,
Treasure-hoard that none may reckon.
There is peace within the deep--
Peace and immemorial sleep;
Heavy hammer, burst as bidden,
To the heart-nook of the hidden!
Once I, too, a careless lad,
Under starry heavens was glad,
Trod the primrose paths of summer,
Child-like knew not care nor cummer.
But I lost the sense of light
In the poring womb of night;
Woodland songs, when earth rejoiced her,
Breathed not down my hollow cloister.
Fondly did I cry, when first
Into the dark place I burst:
"Answer spirits of the middle
Earth, my life's unending riddle!--"
Still the spirits of the deep
Unrevealed their answer keep;
Still no beam from out the gloomy
Cavern rises to illume me.
Have I erred? Does this way lead
Not to clarity indeed?
If above I seek to find it,
By the glare my eyes are blinded.
Downward, then! the depths are best;
There is immemorial rest.
Heavy hammer burst as bidden
To the heart-nook of the hidden!--
Hammer-blow on hammer-blow
Till the lamp of life is low.
Not a ray of hope's fore-warning;
Not a glimmer of the morning.
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Written by
Henrik Ibsen |
WITH palette laden
She sat, as I passed her,
A dainty maiden
Before an Old Master.
What mountain-top is
She bent upon? Ah,
She neatly copies
Murillo's Madonna.
But rapt and brimming
The eyes' full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
Its fairy-palaces.
* * *
The eighteenth year rolled
By, ere returning,
I greeted the dear old
Scenes with yearning.
With palette laden
She sat, as I passed her,
A faded maiden
Before an Old Master.
But what is she doing?
The same thing still--lo,
Hotly pursuing
That very Murillo!
Her wrist never falters;
It keeps her, that poor wrist,
With panels for altars
And daubs for the tourist.
And so she has painted
Through years unbrightened,
Till hopes have fainted
And hair has whitened.
But rapt and brimming
The eyes' full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
Its fairy-palaces.
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