THE COLLECTED POEMS OF HENRIK IBSEN Translated by John ...

128
Brings just an hour’s glowing.
But folk on the farm scarce give it a thought;
They calmly perform their labours; —
Six week-days, milking and on the fell,
And Sundays, church with the neighbours.
Now, though, the worst has befallen, —
The man lies coffined and tended,
The door stands wide open, just one last time
Will he darken it; then it’s all ended.
The holy words have been read and been heard,
Church-candles light the bier dimly;
Grandmother stares with an eye of grief
Up through the smoke-vent, grimly.
Today the old lady feels crushed between
Those summits devoid of cover;
It seems to her that the pair of them loom
Over the roof above her.
Each mourner there broods and then broods again,
Each breast feels the sorrow’s starkness;
As though it were perched up there on the peaks
And were beating its wings of darkness.
But out where the church is the valley’s broad,
Heaven’s heights are displayed, the sun’s shining, —
Out there such a beautiful light’s bestowed
On those who must sit repining.
The weeks will pass by for those quiet folk
Up at the hut and byre;
The naked summits will doubtless glare,
Yet more closely massed, on the fire.
The sun will appear to them briefer still
When the mid-summer light starts sinking;
But wounds will be healed, the mind is strong,
The years will pass, to their thinking.
For though it is hard in loss and gloom
To cope with the daily labours, —
Yet it is bliss to be looking ahead
To Sunday church with the neighbours.