Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (341 page)

My soul would live alone unto herself
 
In her high palace there.

O god-like isolation which art mine!
 
I can but count thee perfect gain,
What time I watch the darkening droves of swine
 
That range on yonder plain.

Up here on the fells must be freedom and God:
 
Men do but grope in the valley!
My life is broken, my bark is wrecked —

I surely find, when my heart I scan,
All symptoms of petrifaction.

I

THE wallet’s on my back again,
 
The rifle slung once more,
The ingle closed to snow or rain,
 
The bolt shot in the door;
To mother now, to bid good-bye;
 
One stride ‘twixt but and ben;
One clasp, one question and reply —
“Quick gone, quick home again am I;
 
God’s peace with thee till then.”

So up the little path I wind
 
That threads the birchwood maze;
But over fiord and vale behind
 
The moonlight lies in haze.
I pass my neighbour’s farm anear;
 
No creature stirring there;
But by the wicket, low and clear,
A clash of trinkets meets my ear —
 
The trinkets maidens wear.

There in her kirtle white she stood
 
And gave to me good e’en;
A mountain flower of maidenhood,
 
The freshest e’er was seen!
A laughing light was in her eye
 
That mocked and lured as well;
And I laughed back, and merrily
Stood at one leap the wicket by —
 
But there a tear-drop fell.

I drew her boldly to my side, —
 
She flushed and paled again;
I called her love, I called her bride, —
 
Her bosom heaved amain.
Already she was mine, I pressed; —
 
Her shoe-string held her look;
Mine, wholly mine, not half possess’d; —
The trinkets tinkled on her breast
 
To tell me how she shook.

She prayed so sweetly, I let go;
 
Once more we laughed and smiled;
But my heart hammered to and fro,
 
My mind was dazed and wild.
I prayed so sweetly, she was mute;
 
Then, arm-in-arm, we went; —
Methought the green earth underfoot
Was all alive with song and hoot
 
Of eldritch merriment.

So up the little path we go
 
That threads the birchwood maze;
But over fiord and vale below
 
The moonlight lay in haze.
Then, sitting sheer above the height,
 
I glowed, she languid turned;
We whispered in the sultry night,
And how it fell I know not right;
 
I know my forehead burned.
I clasped her yielding to my side,
 
She sank in my embrace;
I made my maiden love a bride
 
To elfin roundelays.
If devils laughed into my ear
 
‘Twas little heed I took;
I blenched for no foul spirit’s leer; —
I saw her beauty and her fear,
 
And felt but how she shook.

II

Stretched out upon the southward scaur
 
I watched how the sun rose.
The depths lay shadow-veiled afar,
 
Ablaze the mountain snows.
The red-walled house from here I see,
 
My mother’s and my own;
Here has she toiled and moiled for me;
Here grew my mind up fresh and free —
 
God knows what else ‘tis grown.

She’s all astir; her fire alight
 
Sends smoke up in the air;
I see her ‘gainst a patch of white
 
Out on the bleaching-square.
God bless thee! aye, once more begin
 
Thy round of housewifery;
I’m for the fells, up there I’ll win
My mother a fine reindeer skin,
 
My sweetheart two or three.

Aye, what of her? with dreams at play
 
That foot it o’er the quilt?
Remember naught from yesterday!
 
Dream of it, if thou wilt:
But, waking, pluck it out — no less
 
Will I — from memory clear;
Soon, soon the priest our love shall bless;
Weave linen, sew thy bridal dress;
 
Our wedding-bells are near.
A heavy task, to take the path
 
That parts, when hearts are fain;
But longing cleanses like a bath;
 
It makes me whole again.
My blood is cooled, and calm its source;
 
I stand with soul reborn;
A life with all or half its course
Parcelled ‘twixt sinning and remorse
 
I trample down in scorn.

All lawless thoughts, all dark desires
 
Are driven from my heart;
Refreshed, my inner self aspires;
 
I stand with God apart.
O’er hill and fiord I cast an eye
 
That skims the firwood swell,
Then turn: the slot leads far and high:
My mother and my wife, good-bye!
     
And now for the wild fell!

III

The low cloud smoulders in the west;
 
Ablaze the mountains stand;
The vast pavilion of the mist
 
The valley’s breadth has spanned.
My eyes are heavy, tired my feet,
 
And pensive is my mind;
Out on the shelving brink I sit,
The ling, a bloody crimson lit,
 
Shakes to the evening wind.

I pulled myself a heather-spray,
 
And stuck it in my hat;
Then in a bush all night I lay —
 
No bed to grumble at.
And thoughts they came, and thoughts they went
 
Like churchward-pacing folk;
They met and talked, they looked and leant;
They tried, and portioned punishment;
 
Or passed and never spoke.

O — now were I beside thee found,
 
My flower with broken stem!
I’d lay me like a trusty hound
 
Before thy garment’s hem.
Or into thy pure eyes I’d float,
 
And wash my soul there clean;
Till I arose in scorn, and smote
The troll that had me by the throat
 
Beside thy gate yestreen!

Up sprang I, warm with victory;
 
And up to God I cried
A prayer that sunshine still might be
 
About thy days, my bride.
Yet no: my lusty youth shall ne’er
 
Such weak petition raise;
A better strain I know and dare;
Then hearken, God: be
this
my prayer:
 
Make difficult her ways!

The stream she crosses, make it deep;
 
The stepping-stones like ice;
The rolling screes make sore and steep,
 
The path a precipice.
I’ll lift her high upon my arm
 
Above the brawling ford;
My breast shall shield her from alarm;
If there Thou threaten any harm,
 
I’ll wrestle with Thee, Lord!

IV

Far he comes by watery ways,
 
From the south he sought our heights.
Thoughts unutterable blaze
 
Round his brow like northern lights.

Laughter with a sob behind;
 
Lips that speak yet say no word; —
Speak of what? Ask what the wind
 
Whispers when the woods are stirred.

Cold his eye: my spirit fears
 
Depths that it no more has sounded
Than the blue-black mountain-mere’s,
 
Glacier-born and glacier-bounded.

Birds of heavy-winging thought
 
Low and slow beat sweeping o’er it; —
Then in sudden gust ‘tis caught,
 
‘Ware the squall, — drop sail before it!

He with dogs, with rifle I,
 
Midmost met upon the fell;
And between us some strange tie
 
Grew that holds me like a spell.

Why with him do I delay?
 
Oft I part yet linger still.
Surely he has stolen away
 
From my heart the power to will.

V

Why this gaze at daylight’s close
 
Toward thy mother’s cot beneath?
Gave a sheep-skin more repose
 
Than the tussocks of brown heath?

There my poor old mother sat
 
By my bed, and as she span
Sang to me and to the cat
 
Till my dreamland flights began.

Dreaming, dreaming, wherefore dream?
 
Seize life’s cup, and drain it deep!
Better day-light’s deeds beseem
 
Than to nod where forbears sleep.

O’er the fells the reindeer bound;
 
After them in wind and wrack
!
Better than in thankless ground
 
Breaking stones and bending back!

But I hear the kirk-bells chime;
 
From the ness I hear them call. —
Let them chime
!
to better rhyme
 
Goes the roaring water-fall.

She and mother walk to kirk
 
Psalm-books wrapped against the dust. —
Trust me
,
thou hast better work;
 
Leave the lych-gate latch to rust.

There the pealing organ speaks
 
Quiet shine the altar lights. —
Thunder peals about the -peaks;
 
Sunshine bathes the snow-clad heights.

Then lead on, in wind and wrack,
 
O’er the billowing snowfield’s hoar!
Tread who will the kirkward track,
 
I set foot in it no more.

VI

Autumn comes: the last cow-bells
 
Tinkle down the ridge’s fall,
Down from freedom and the fells
 
To the cramped life of the stall.

Soon the winter’s coverlet
 
Will the precipice festoon;
Homeward must my face be set;
 
Paths will all be snow-bound soon.

Home! the thought of it grows dim.
 
Have I one to call my own?
In forgetting schooled by him,
 
Hardening soon I learned alone.

Daylight deeds have nought to do
 
With the lowland’s plodding lives;
Here my thought to manhood grew,
 
Only on the fell it thrives.

In the mountain hut alone
 
All my hunter’s spoils I count;
There’s a bench, a good hearth-stone,
 
Air that thought can breathe and mount.

Vainly spirits of the night
 
Haunt the seasoned hunter’s roof;
He
has taught me spells of might;
 
Fiends may tempt me — I am proof.

Winter-life on the wild fell
 
Turns weak thoughts to steel again;
Twittering tales that old wives tell
 
Pulse not sickly through the brain.

In the spring, steeled through and through,
 
I will lift from vale to wold,
From their daily moil, those two —
 
Throne them in my mountain-hold;