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

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it dulls the river’s roar, the foss’s fountain,
and far and wide its spreading billows search.
It stops joy’s blessed offspring in their traces,
where late, defying sprite and troll, they’d sped; —
they start, they listen, scan the upland spaces
whence rolls the voice intoning overhead.
“Lord, bestow on me wealth of pain;
from Joy’s wiles, be my defender.
Scourge me into a self-disdain!
Lord God, Father in Heaven’s domain,
teach me to pray and surrender!
Teach me to pass through the flesh-world’s span
blind to bright summer, I pray Thee.
Teach me to will beyond what I can.
Call me, Lord Saviour, o call on Thy man, —
and bow so my mind, I obey Thee!
Earth resembles a winter night;
each sorrow a constellation.
They serve to give far-straying wayfarers light; —
if that be quenched, I am lost outright,
know not where to turn for salvation.
Sorrow sits like a queen in pride,
in her Northern-light icy splendour.
Come with me all to the night outside!
Lord, God of Heaven where Thou dost abide,
teach us to pray and surrender!”
The sound came from above, where, through the rocks,
a curved track issued from a minor valley.
It sounded like a solemn trump, to rally
far over hill and dale, the wide world’s flocks.
Then both recalled, with private self-reproaches,
the cross they had forgotten they should drop.
Too late. No twiglet grew that they might crop,
and now the mighty singer, look, approaches.
Dressed all in black, fine features pale and set,
a little sharp, the hair somewhat receded; —
with his right hand he wiped away the sweat,
the other held his hat as he proceeded.
His eye, a shadowed tarn amid the boulders,
a secret something, deep, denied the light.
He bore a well-laced knapsack on his shoulders,
and held a staff beneath his arm clamped tight.
His way, like theirs, led to the place down under.
He greeted them politely in his stride;