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

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I’ve breathed elegiacal frost-flowers white
On window-panes chill as ice;
A heart-felt beam from the home of light
Has destroyed now that cold device.
My mind’s like a barque with topsail spread,
I am blithesome, young and I’m free;
My course is set for the heights ahead,
You’ll be left behind in my sea!
So out with the ballast of judgement sound!
Then set the last scrap she’ll take!
Perhaps I’ll be running my vessel aground
But I’ll leave your astern in my wake!
2
Birch trees sprout on the mountain sides
Mid anemones, stones clad in mosses,
A seething vitality resides
In each fresh young branch that tosses.
Birches turn green in the fell-side’s lee
So lushly as though they’d be bursting;
A birth-pang courses voluptuously
Through virginal twigs, life-thirsting.
Birches brightly spangle the fell,
Scent freshly the dew of morning,
Though they, come Mid-summer Eve, could well
Be stripped for the vent’s adorning.
Hillside birch! For each leaf you gain
For your glittering virgin raiment, —
I’ll treasure a pregnant pollen-grain
To grow into song, as repayment.
Like you I have vital strengths that heave
And strive for the daylight shining;
Should they run dry come Mid-summer Eve
That’s little cause for repining.
Perhaps I’ll fall silent ere you are stripped bare —
Can I know what fate to adjust to — ?
But free in the Spring while it’s lush and fair
I’ll keep singing, because I must do!