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

99
Then you’ll have felt your lips were clamped together,
When the heart pounds, the tongue in knots keeps tying —
In brief, it’s what we here describe as “drying”.
IV
But you perhaps reflect in serious mood
On vanished Summer’s flowery profusion,
For though its fair plants rooted, many-hued,
The grave of life’s hope was its cruel conclusion,
And out of the abundance thus accrued,
You’re left with memory’s sad disillusion,
And now sit mountain-fast, bewitched, to brood,
A dumb slave on the height’s ridge, in seclusion.
Although bereavement may o’er-cloud the skies,
Youth has one boon, one universal blessing
That keeps on shining, though the flower dies.
It sprinkles memory with daylight’s charm,
It is a heavenly spirit, still professing
That life for every grief provides a balm.
V
And that is why we stand, mute and depressed:
The mind is clouded with a secret sorrow
When sere leaves rattle, forest halls ring hollow
And life recedes in mother Mother Nature’s breast.
What man is he that would not deem it best
That for the aged bloom a Spring he’d borrow
When Autumn’s wind had on its calyx pressed
The kiss that summons: “Unto dust tomorrow!”
What man is he that would not halt, right gladly,
The trilling current of Time’s rapid streaming,
The bier whereon Spring’s progeny decay?
We’re left with wreaths of memories, musing sadly,
And gaze behind us silently, day-dreaming
Of all the golden wealth that passed away.
VI
Preserve, then, in dire Winter’s sleet and squall
The same benevolence for all things growing,
Since Art’s a kind of seedling too, recall,
That, starved for warmth, makes but a stunted showing.
It is a bud that won’t unfold at all
Unless it finds the love and care that’s owing
Here, where it burgeoned first at Nature’s call
And put down roots in all directions going.