Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (339 page)

But rapt and brimming
 
The eyes’ full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
 
Its fairy-palaces.

XI

THE EIDER-DUCK

THE eider’s home is in Norroway;
He dwells by the fiord that is leaden-grey.
He plucks the soft, soft down from his breast,
And warm and cosy he builds his nest.

But the cruel fisherman does not spare;
He plunders the nest till all is bare.

The fisher is hard, but the bird holds true;
He strips his own warm bosom anew;
And robbed once more, he will yet make rich
Once more his nest in a secret niche.

But steal this treasure, his third, his last —
One night he spreads his wings to the blast;

With bleeding bosom the sea-fog dun
He cleaves, to the South, to the South and sun!

XII

TO THE SURVIVORS

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.

XIII

FOR PROFESSOR SCHWEIGAARD’S JUBILEE

(15
th Year of his Professorship)

LIKE the forest in a country’s childhood
   
Lay our fatherland.
Pleasant ploughs o’er weak against the wild wood
   
Fruitless sank in sand.
Sun must enter e’er the waste be settled, —
   
Light, the forest lacks:
Forth then fared the brethren of the axe,
Holy pioneers, heroic-mettled.

Then came life among the touchwood mouldered
   
In the wilderness;
Where the resin-root had flared and smouldered,
   
Corn sprang up to bless.
And to crown the labour of the clearers, —
   
Sprang up, one by one,
Homes, a people strengthened in the sun:
Even in the wood a song found hearers.

(Last two verses untranslated.)
Original written 1860. Translation printed from MS. notes.

XIV

A BROTHER IN NEED

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’s 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 Norseman, 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 Tyro’s hold
—
And o’er a Northern era, young
And rich in hope, be proudly flung
 
The red flag’s tattered fold.

Original written 1863. Translation reprinted from the
Westminster Gazent
of May 27, 1903, with an added stanza from MS.

XV

FREDERICK THE SEVENTH’S MEMORY

(Song for the Students’ Union
)

DANES in arms on Danish marches
 
Scan the south in doubt;
Frederick sleeps where Roskild’s arches
 
Shut the war sounds out.
Danes must strike for Denmark’s standard,
With no Frederick in the vanguard;
By the northern beacon only
“Jens” keeps vigil lonely.

Nay, some waft from Jutland bears him
 
Word of border fight,
Frederick from his coffin tears him,
 
Cleaves the winds of night.
Storming on like ancient viking,
Brandishing his blade and striking,
“Charge my children, lift the standard,
Frederick leads the vanguard!”

For in memory yet he liveth
 
Denmark’s royal Dane,
Proof his people’s mettle giveth
 
Of the kingly strain.
Strike for right then! wrong shall vanish,
Frederick and the right are Danish.
Slav and Wend and Croat foemen
Ne’er shall cow your yeomen!

Original written 1864. Translation printed from MS. notes.

XVI

WELL-GROUNDED FAITH

I BLEW through the land a bugle call
In my verse; but nobody stirred at all.

My bolt was shot; I embarked, and forth
I steamed from the dearly-belovèd North.

We lay in the Cattegat, seafog-bound;
The first night nobody slumbered sound.

There was council of war in the cabin, all
The passengers canvassed Dybbol’s fall.

Stories were told, of the kind one hears,
About the deeds of the young volunteers.

One man had lost an apprentice keen,
Another a nephew of just eighteen.

It was but natural people felt it —
I was myself in a measure melted.

On the sofa, directly under the light,
Sat an elderly lady, calm and bright;

The conversation centred in her,
All vied in playing the comforter.

With sighs and moans the ladies as one
Expressed their concern for her only son.

I can see her nodding — of fear no shade —
As she smiles: “For him I am not afraid.”

How lovely she is with her silver tresses,
And the rock-built faith that her look expresses!

A warm glow coursed through marrow and blood;
‘Twas courage and steel to my failing mood.

“The people slumbers, but not unto death;
It lives in the wonder of woman’s faith!”...

But later I found the young soldier’s mother
A woman of this world more than the other;

And somewhat she puzzled me, after that.
Whence this gracious calm? Came an answer pat.

And so obvious as quite to disarm me:
Her warrior was in the
Norwegian
army.

Original written 1864. Translation reprinted from the Westminster Gazette
of June 3, 1903.

XVII

THE POWER OF MEMORY

Do you know how a trainer teaches his bear
A lesson time can never impair?

In a brewer’s copper he ties him tight,
And under it sets the fire alight.

Then comes the lesson: without a word he
Plays
The Joy of Life
on a hurdy-gurdy.

The bear, half-daft as the heat advances,
Finds he cannot stand, so perforce he dances.

That tune henceforth if you but begin to him,
Straight enters a dancing-devil into him.

I, too, had once a taste of the copper,
With orchestra and a fire, all proper,

And burned a trifle more than my fingers;
Still lively the recollection lingers.

So let of that day but an echo sound,
On a glowing grid I seem to be bound;

As the quick of the nail to a stab must answer,
I find my verse-feet and straight turn dancer.

Original written
ca.
1864. Translation reprinted from the
Westminster
Gazette
of May 8, 1903.