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

80
It wakes into life, it sets singing
The folk’s heart with echoes ringing.
And that is the great Nordic spirit whose might
The years have not lulled with their tally,
The great Nordic spirit that’s bonded tight
With elves of the wood and the valley.
It stays with us too on fell and on wave,
Presides at the hero’s moss-covered grave,
Addresses the wide world, construing
The modest path we’re pursuing.
It speaks to us clearly through myth and song,
Through strains we have heard down the ages.
It gently allays when our need is too strong,
Our yearning it kindly assuages;
Its tap-root is Memory, mighty in length,
That ennobles our blood, enhances our strength.
At home, as when distance divides us,
That is the star sent to guide us.
A rare attempt at blank verse. Ibsen spent part of 1852 travelling to study theatrical practice
abroad. One of the principal purposes of the Theatre was to encourage the performance of
plays in Norwegian, as distinct from the Dano-Norwegian literary language.
PROLOGUE
at the performance of “Midsummer Night”
(2 Jan. 1853)
Whatsoever course life plots,
One word travels with us, weaving
Many blue forget-me-nots
Into Bygone’s memory-sheaving.
For our yearnings as we roam
It supplies soft balm, rejoices
Whispering in familiar voices; —
What the word denotes is “home”.
Saw you not the swallow wing
Late in fall to southern summers?
Yet return with next year’s spring,
First among the North’s newcomers?
For its mother’s song, her nest,
Can no longer be forgotten;
It is driven, yearning-pressed,
Homeward — where it was begotten.
Had you sought a foreign strand, —
You would longingly be ferried
To that old and cherished land