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

91
VIII
For you must not forget: in realms aesthetic
It is the form that counts and form alone;
To gauge the bard’s full range in terms poetic,
Take note of how, not what he may intone.
The artist’s thought means nothing, it’s bathetic, —
Leave the ideal to fend all on its own;
Aspiring heavenward must prove pathetic
Unless you soar on pinions sturdy-grown;
Yes, it is form, yes form in everything
That elevates poetical creation
And stamps it as sheer genius, plainly shown.
Yes, form I’ll praise — hang cost and calculation!
Of course! remember how it reimburses:
It’s form that has made poems of my verses.
IX
So why, then, should we poets, fervour pleading,
Go lurching round the pyre to the Idea,
And trot away on metric feet, proceeding
Ahead of rational speech, a good length clear?
For Art’s an ostrich when it comes to feeding,
Can stomach steel and granite, any cheer, —
And you can feed it hash and greens, I hear,
As well as mellow fruit of Eden’s breeding.
So why, then, all this high pitched agitation,
This urge to swarm in regional migration,
Where wings get broken, voices crack and quaver;
Instead of striking root in honest mud,
And shaping images of flesh and blood,
Like still-life artists, full of real life’s savour?
X
The morning peace now comes to its conclusion,
A rude awakening from my dream-trance follows, —
For through each room a jumbled clamour wallows
To seek me out, where’er I seek seclusion.
Confounded by the critical intrusion
I feel I’m like the first of spring-time’s swallows
That, visiting its native dales and hollows,
Can’t recognise the nest in its confusion.
I’d looked at everything through magic hazing;
Now, from all sides, pours critical appraising,
Till I become distracted by what passes.