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

261
That was when my thanks were owing;
that’s my reason now for rhyming.
Last year’s visit I just squandered,
I stayed dumb;
Beauty’s debt, the whole round sum
still heart-hoarded, I just wandered
off again.
And since then
daily interest keeps growing,
and for all that’s in this letter
I shall, like a welshing debtor,
never pay the sum that’s owing. —
The mind’s eye will always see you
wondrous, merged with Denmark’s reaches,
with a day, a lovely sea-view
by the Sound mid lofty beeches.
Sun-warmed vessels, sun-warmed breezes,
fairway rippling
with a blue and limpid stippling;
summer’s wafting,
“Greenwood’s” offspring,
breathes a poem that appeases.
It is Sunday; laughter ringing,
gay throngs singing,
boats a-swinging
where the steep banks overlean.
Dresses dashing,
flirting, flashing
where the chimes and fiddles clashing
set the backcloth to the scene.
But out yonder, —
north where Kronberg’s throned in power,
southward where the Three Crowns tower
gasconading,
what a show of swans parading,
what elation,
what white canvas pageantry;
vessels keeping close formation;
sunlight on the sails’ curvation,
pennants legion,
heaven’s region
preen them in the glassy sea.
One contender,
dream-fraught maiden slim and slender,
now floats past me under sail.
She is like some legend hiding
wrapped within a trembling veil;