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

130
SONG AT THE STUDENT BALL
the 15 th December 1858.
Festive is the student’s mind;
In his rich young soul there’s beaming
Lamp-light cast by Thought refined,
The Ideal’s bright tapers gleaming;
Everyday’s null regimen,
Where folk slave and where folk slumber,
Lies beyond the student’s ken,
He’ll not yield and swell the number.
(Festive is the student’s mind!)
Spell-bound is the student’s sight;
World’s grim field where carnage lowers,
Lit by Soul’s brave flash of light
Seems to him the best of bowers.
Strife itself seems festive play,
Boldly in the ranks he marches,
Seeks his goal the nearest way
Through fair rose-chain-woven arches.
(Spell-bound is the student’s sight!)
Lovely is the student’s dream,
Precious his envisioned booty, —
Long live, then, the student’s dream.
Long live Woman in her beauty!
Her ideal-fired radiance, —
For the youth, a dew-like shower, —
Never fell on him perchance
With tonight’s abundant power.
(Lovely is the student’s dream!)
Henr. Ibsen
LIFE’S SPRING
A poem
by
HENR. IBSEN
1858
1
I will out, I will out, God’s nature’s there,
The joy of a bright spring day;
My bosom bursts, at my cage-bars I tear,
I’ve the wings and the heart for the fray.
I’ve the heart for a battle with worldly woe;
It has fettered me far too long.
Now I must revel and laughing go
With the spring-time’s fluttering throng.