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

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Like some blood-boltered child it wails,
It never learnt sweet, dulcet scales,
Spring’s serenade, from you!
Trust me, as little as the spruce
And birch on moorland ground
Will to the tempest’s bow produce
The self-same fiddle sound,
So little can your starling be,
Your royal bird, a sounding-board
For the late Autumn’s melody
Sea-borne at dusk across the sea
From Senjen’s nesting horde.
You, Dane — you are yourself as weak
In voice and meanly bred;
But do not bid us, out of pique,
Change Norway’s steel for lead.
For you it was who missed the breeze
That sped the time’s swift keel,
Long since you held the obsequies
For language keen as winter seas,
As your forefathers’ steel.
You coped well, on the frontier lined,
When your dear blood must flow;
But hostile forces in your mind —
When did you face that foe?
You trounced the Teuton in fair fray,
Drove south his horde in flight —
But exultation fades away;
The Hun troll in your breast holds sway,
Still claims his freehold right.
You lauded feats your sons achieved,
But German was the mode, —
In German style your daughters grieved,
So too your bards’ song flowed!
And German your best runic stave
On saga-folk of yore — ;
Come, break the bond, the times so crave!
And if you dare not — then the grave —
You will be worth no more!
Henr. Ibsen
Ibsen’s admiration for the physical courage shown by the Danes in the face of German
aggression was matched by his contempt for their reluctance to recognise native Norwegian
language in place of the Dano-Norwegian used for literary purposes. He goes further by
accusing the Danes of cultural subservience to Germanic models. Ran, a sea-goddess whose
wild horse symbolises the storm; Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen stands; Senjen, a
rookery of sea birds off the Norwegian coast.