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

45
And I rushed the trap I’d fashioned
Back indoors with cruel relish,
Scared the bird with my impassioned
Scowls that shouts and threats embellish.
When I’d had my fun, been able
To indulge my spite completely,
Setting cage upon the table
I then raised the flap discreetly.
Life and freedom both invite it;
O, but how it makes its wings go!
Watch it soar towards the light it
Sees, but — crash against the window. — —
You’re avenged, avenged most cruelly!
I’ve been trapped, too, by some power
In a snare where I, unsurely
Fluttering, in confusion cower.
At me too an eye is staring
Cold and scornful through the grating,
It confounds my soul, the glaring,
Terror shakes me unabating.
And when freedom’s luring pathway
Beckons my imagination,
Broken-winged I fall but half-way
On dream’s flight to liberation!
AMID THE RUINS
Settle, my tremulous
Soul from your emulous
Flight in the towering
Blue of the sky!
Sink on the soft-bedewed
Shore where in oft-renewed
Dreams over-powering
Lulled you would lie!
I, near the hurrying
Waves, mid the flurrying
Smiles of bloom-multitudes
Paused in my path,
Cleansed my most innocent,
Fondest, magnificent
Yearnings in Solitude’s
Reverie-bath.