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

86
Everything is rich and rare,
Infancy new-rendered, —
Many a verse I whisper there
To my goddess tendered.
Every woe there finds its balm,
Every pang its easing,
Evening’s breeze casts, soft and calm,
Drowsiness well-pleasing.
Sun sinks in the glassy sea,
I’m drawn thither, yearning —
Mind’s craft spreads its sail with glee,
Airy billows churning,
Sails, an eagle in the blue,
For the strands far yonder,
Many a moment lives anew,
Grows, in dream-land, fonder.
Thither many a night I’ve steered,
Blissful, passion-laden,
Rapt in what I most revered,
The picture of a maiden — — —
O, how bold my mind, how warm,
Heavenward directed —
Till I woke amid life’s swarm,
Wretched and rejected.
Let one uttered word of thine
Doom my future clearly; —
Must joy’s treasure then be mine
But in day-dream merely?
Shall I stay, devoid of hope,
Rapt in Memory’s pleasure —
Or discover, in life’s scope,
My most precious treasure?
d. 6/6 53.
Henr. Ibsen
This, and the following poem, may hint of the impending break with Rikke Holst.
WITH A ROSE
Forgive! Forgive me, little rose!
I snap through your stem and your life must close
Mid your sisterhood — six of you, seven?
But grieve not, — for know that I send you away
To awaken where all must awaken one day, —
— In Heaven!
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