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

175
Then cried Terje Vigen: “You held my all
In your hand, — thrown away for renown.
One moment from now and revenge will fall — —“.
‘Twas then the Norwegian stood there, tall,
While the proud English lord knelt down.
But Terje stood propped on the upright oar
As straight as in younger days;
His hair streamed wild in the gusting flaw,
His eyes one compelling blaze.
“You sailed in your mighty corvette with pride,
I rowed in my humble boat;
I toiled for my own till I nearly died,
You robbed them of food and then when I cried
Found it easy to mock and gloat.
Your wealthy lady’s as bright as the spring,
Her hand is all silken-fine, —
My poor wife’s hand was a roughened thing,
But still, for all that, she was mine.
Your child’s hair is golden, her eyes as blue
As a little guest of our Lord;
My daughter was nothing to boast of, true,
Was thin, God help us, and grey-faced too
Like most at the poor folks’ board.
See, those were my riches upon this earth,
They were all I could claim as my due.
I thought it a treasure of such great worth;
Yet it weighed but a mite with you.
The hour of revenge has now struck, beware, —
Your turn to endure has come round
To match the long years that I’ve had to bear
That bowed down my shoulders and whitened my hair
And buried my joy in the ground.”
Seizing the child he wrenched it free,
With his left grasped the lady’s waist.
“Stand back there, my lord! One step and ‘twill be
At the cost of both lives, your haste!”
The Briton poised to renew the fray,
His arm, though, was limp with fright; —
His breathing came hot; his eyes turned away,
And his hair — it showed in the dawn of day —
Turned grey in that single night.
But Terje’s forehead had shed its frown,
His bosom moved calm and free.
He reverently set the young infant down,
He kissed its hand, tenderly.
He breathed as though loosed from a prison cell,