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

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No glimpse of the waters flowing.
Just once, where the surf broke in white and gold,
A hollow sound like a thunder-clap rolled
And they saw something red was showing.
Then the mist lifted and daylight broke.
The wild-surging seas seemed to burn and smoke
As they drowned in each other’s scurry.
But trapped in the breakers they saw a brig
With trimmest of cordage and ship-shape rig,
And the Danes’ national flag all a-flurry.
The flag that had proudly waved o’er the field
Now smote the air but for help appealed! —
Too late for a tack, folk reckoned.
The anchor had failed and the sail had backed;
A matter of life and death in fact
Quite likely the very next second.
Up at the look-out the old exchange notes:
“Is this fit weather for open boats?”
“Isn’t the sea much too broken?”
But all lamented as one; they found:
“The fact it’s Danes being blown aground
Seems dreadful by any token!”
“They sent us over such food as we got,
We went smuggling together though never a lot:
Our many shared memories aren’t banished.”
So they moaned on in the old-uns’ ring;
But the trio, they said not a single thing, —
For they weren’t to the found, they’d vanished.
But out from the head shot a boat at a rate;
Swifter by far than the elders’ debate,
There is burst its way through the weather!
Sometimes it fell, sometimes rose on the sea;
But the three in the boat, they yelled out with glee; —
Then they boarded, — they’d won together.
The sea was black, like a torrent of mold;
Menacing sun added red and gold;
The wreck showed now bright, now sorry.
The colours resembled the German three —
They spread out to windward, they foamed on the lee,
The Danes’ national flag their quarry.
Then the encounter turned war-game instead;
Aboard the Danes’ vessel the fluttering red
Call for help was no longer blowing —
The trio who’d come know the fairway sound,