cultural resources in henrik ibsen's early environment - Ibsen.net

I have my mistress, just like everyone else! But no earthly woman is she whom I call
mine; only a dream-vision, projected by a longing unfulfilled, perhaps unattainable!
(What if love's yearning died suffocated in the heart's prison, like her, only a beautiful
idea!)
You believe you will recognize an earthly maiden in my beloved's features, that I have
fetched from earth what I adorned her with! That from one I borrowed the forehead rich
in thoughts, and from another this sea of emotions in my mistress' eyes? No, oh no, not
from earth did I take what I gave to her!
Come, my heart's ideal! I want to daydream by your side, from your tender glance I want
gently to seek cooling relief for the longing consuming me. That which sustains my
dream, that which never dies out, will in silence burn only when I meet again on earth my
dream's spiritual bride!
THE SOUL'S GLIMPSE OF THE SUN
Oh, how my breast storms! I have heard this voice, which I recognize from the land of
dreams when, sleeping dully, I heard in the dawning night the waves whisper by the
shore!
I have seen the glance that my spiritual bride received in my poeticizing dream of love!
Through the soul-depth guiding, like a hurricane over the earth, the trembling stream of
my ideas!
And that pain of longing that my soul's ideal kindled deep in my yearning breast, from
being a burning, frenzied, all-consuming fire, became a flame, so peaceful and warm!
My cloudy breast was illuminated by a spark, not like the summer's burning sun, when it
casts a glow on us nearby, no, like the shine of the stars when they twinkle from the
farthest pole!
In my soul there was day; then I did not feel resentment, nor pain's poison-dipped sword;
it was only for a second, but that fleeting moment was still more worthwhile than an
eternity!
Shall I be disappointed once more? Shall the visions flee and become merely phantoms
again, when the storming roar of ecstasty’s intoxication sounds faint and dies wasting
away?
O, with the treasure of memory I shall fantasize on the sea of dreams throughout the
future's night, until I descend wearily to seek my peace in the calm, cooling grave!
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