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

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No, there’s a thought grips my imagination:
That this my soul can function still so soundly,
Feel faith (despite the clergy), hope profoundly, —
Though I’ve had problems with that formulation.
Yes, here I feel God doth my heart pervade;
That I can be possessed, intoxicated
With the ideal of beauty here displayed.
I contemplate God’s thought made clear, made plastic;
Lo, hence my soul swells too, expands, elastic,
And demon Doubt within me lies prostrated.
VI
Correggio’s “Night”! Your radiant veneration
Has dewed my mind with its bright hallowed rays!
I have gazed deep as any mortal gaze
May dare into its shadowy creation.
I sense the strain that Mary’s cheek displays,
Depicting both her grief and exultation, —
I share the Moor’s prayer at his presentation
Of rich bowls to the Child in dazzled praise.
And, too, the star the humble shepherds sighted, —
Directing where the Saviour had descended
In mortal form to earth, inspired by ruth, —
Behold, my night-time too has been thus lighted,
My terror been subdued, my doubts all ended,
That lovely myth become a sober truth!
VII
And Raphael’s work, the Sistine “Madonna”,
The infant Saviour clasped in her safe keeping,
While under heaven’s vault range faces, peeping —
A host of angels kindly gazing on her.
Then there’s the sturdy Dutchman who, half-sleeping,
Relaxes in his booth and gazes on the
Dead ducks, fowl, geese in their prodigious heaping
With other worldly goods that vie for honour!
And neither painting overshades its brother,
The violet and tulip suit each other
Quite happily combined in one bouquet;
So can’t I, in a sonnet too, display,
Like the anemone and golden iris,
Both Raphael and with him Jan van Mieris? —