Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (103 page)

THE DEAN.
Really, a lie?

THE MAYOR.
I just let loose
At the first fancy that came by;
Is it a sin such means to use
In such a cause?

THE DEAN.
God bless me, no
Need is an adequate excuse.

THE MAYOR.
And then, to-morrow, when the glow
Of agitation’s dead, or dying,
What will it matter if the end
Was gain’d by telling truth, or lying?

THE DEAN.
I am no formalist, my friend.
[Looks up into the wild.]
But is’t not Brand that yonder drags
His slow course upward?

THE MAYOR.
Ay, you’re right!
A lonely warrior off to fight!

THE DEAN.
Nay, there’s another too-that lags
Far in the rear!

THE MAYOR.
Why;-that is Gerd;
The herdsman’s worthy of the herd.

THE DEAN.
[Facetiously.]
When he has still’d his losing whim,
This is the epitaph for him:
“Here hall Brand; his tale’s a sad one;
O n e soul he saved,-and that a mad one!”

THE MAYOR.
[With his finger to his nose.]
But, on reflection, I have some
Misgivings that the folk’s decree
A little lack’cl humanity.

THE DEAN.
[Shrugging his shoulders.]
Vox populi vox Dei.
Come!
[They go.]

[High up among the mountains. A storm is rising and chasing the clouds heavily over the snow-slopes; black peaks and summits appear here and there, and are veiled again by the mist.]

[BRAND comes, bleeding and broken, up the mountain.]

BRAND.
[Stops and looks backward.]
From the vale they follow’d thronging,
Never o n e has reached the height.
Through all bosoms thrill’d the longing
For a greater Day’s dawn-light;
Through all souls subduing strode
The alarum-call of God.
But the sacrifice they dread!
Will, the weakling, hides his head; —
O n e man died for them of yore, —
Cowardice is crime no more!
[Sinks down on a stone, and looks with shrinking gaze around.]

Oft I shuddeed at their doom;
And I walk’d, with horror quivering,
As a little child walks shivering
Amid shrieking shapes that loom
In a dim and haunted room.
But I chcck’d my bosom’s quaking,
And bethought me, and consoled it:
Out of doors the day is breaking,
Not of night it is, this gloom,
But the shutters bared enfold it;
And I thought, the day inwelling,
Rich with summer’s golden bloom,
Shall anon prevail, expelling
All the darkness that is dwelling
In the dim and haunted room.

O how bitter my dismay!
Pitchy darkness on me broke, —
And, without, a nerveless folk
Sat forlorn by fjord and bay,
Dim traditions treasuring
While their sotted souls decay.
Even as, year by year, the king
Treasured up his Snefrid dead,
Loosed the linen shroud o’erspread
By her mute heart listening low,
Still upon hope’s fragments fed,
Thinking, “Now the roses red
In her pallid ashes blow!”
None, like him, arose, and gave
The grave’s debt unto the grave;
None among them wise to know:
“Dreaming cannot kindle dust,
Down into the earth it must,
Dust is only made to breed
Nurture for the new-sown seed.”
Night, black night,-and night again
Over children, women, men!
O could I with levin-flame
Save them from the straw-death’s shame!
[Leaps up.]

Gloomy visions I see sweep
Like the Wild Hunt through the night.
Lo, the Time is Tempest-dight,
Calls for heroes, death to dare,
Calls for naked steel to leap,
And for scabbards to hang bare; —
Kinsfolk, lo, to battle riding,
While their gentle brothers, hiding,
From the hat of darkness peep.
And yet more I do divine —
All the horror of their shame, —
Men that shriek and wives that whine,
Deaf to every cry and claim,
See them on their brows imprinting
“Poor folks sea-bound” for their name,
“Humble farthings of God’s minting!”
Pale they listen to the fray,
Willing-weakness for their shield. —
Rainbow o’er the mead of May,
Flag, where fliest thou now afield?
Where’s that tricolor to-day,
Which the wind of myriad song,
Beat and bellied from the mast
Till a zealot king at last
Split it into teeth and tongue?

But you used the tongue to brag;
And what boots the toothed flag
If the dragon dares not bite?
Would the folk had spared those cheers,
And the zealot king those shears!
Four-square flag of peace suffices,
When a stranded craft capsizes,
To give warning of her plight!
Direr visions, worse foreboding,
Glare upon me through the gloom!
Britain’s smoke-cloud sinks corroding
On the land in noisome fume;
Smirches all its tender bloom,
All its gracious verdure dashes,
Sweeping low with breath of bane,
Stealing sunlight from the plain,
Showering down like rain of ashes
On the city of God’s doom. —
Fouler featured men are grown; —
Dropping water’s humming drone
Echoes through the mine’s recesses:
Bustling, smug, a pigmy pack
Plucks its prey from ore’s embraces,
Walks with crooked soul and back,
Glares like dwarfs with greedy eyes
For the golden glittering lies;

Speechless souls with lips unsmiling,
Hearts thal fall of brothers rends not,
Nor their own to fury frets,
Hammer-wielding, coining, filing;
Light’s last gleam forlornly flies;
For this bastard folk forgets
That the need of willing ends not
When the power of willing dies!
Direr visions, direr doom,
Glare upon me through the gloom.
Craft, the wolf, with howl and yell,
Bays at Wisdom, sun of earth;
Cries of ruin ring to North,
Call to arms by fjord and fell;
And the pigmy, quaking, grim,
Hisses: “What is that to him?”
Let the other nations glow,
Let the mighty meet the foe,
We can ill afford to bleed, —
We arc weak, may fairly plead
From a giants’ war exemption,
Need not offer All as raced
For our fraction of Redemption

Not for us the cup He drank,
Not for us the thorny wreath
In His temples drove its teeth,
Not for us the spear-shaft sank
In the Side whose life was still.
Not for us the burning thrill
Of the nails that clove and tore.
We, the weak, the least accounted,
Battle-summons may ignore!
Not for us the Cross He mounted!
Just the stirrup-slash’s stain,
Just the gash the cobbler scored
In the shoulder of the Lord,
Is our portion of His pain!
[Throws himself down in the snow and covers his face; presently he looks up.]
Was I dreaming! Dream I still?
Mist-enshrouded is the hill.
Were those visions but the vain
Phantoms of a fever’d brain?
Is the image clean outworn
Whereunto Man’s soul was born?
Is the Maker’s spirit fled
[Listening.]
Ha, what song breaks overhead?

INVISIBLE CHOIR.
[In the sough of the storm.]
Never shalt thou win His spirit;
Thou in mortal flesh was born:
Spurn his bidding or revere it;
Equally thou art forlorn.

BRAND.
[Repeats the words, and says softly.]
Woe’s me; I may well fear it!
Stood He not, and saw me pray,
Sternly smote my prayer away?
All I loved He has demanded,
All the ways of light seal’d fast,
Made me battle single-handed,
And be overthrown at last!

THE CHOIR.
[Louder, above him.]
Worm, thou mayst not win His spirit, —
For Death’s cup thou hast consumed;
Fear His Will, or do not fear it,
Equally thy work is doom’d.

BRAND.
[Softly.]
Agnes, Alf, the gladsome life
When unrest and pain I knew not —
I exchanged for tears and strife,
In my own heart plunged the knife, —
But the fiend of evil slew not.

THE CHOIR.
[Tender and alluring.]
Dreamer, thine is not His spirit,
Nought to Him thy gifts are worth;
Heaven thou never shalt inherit,
Earth-born creature, live for Earth!

BRAND.
[Breaks into soft weeping.]
Alf and Agnes, come unto me!
Lone I sit upon this peak!
Keen the north wind pierces through me,
Phantoms seize me, chill ones, meek — !
[He looks up; a glimmering space opens and clears in the mist; the APPARITION of a WOMAN stands in it, brightly clad, with a cloak over its shoulders. It is AGNES.]

THE PHANTOM.
[Smiles, and spreads its arms towards him.]
See, again, Brand, I have found thee!

BRAND.
[Starting upin bewilderment.]
Agnes! Agnes! What is this?

THE PHANTOM.
Dearest, it is thy release
From the fever’d dreams that bound thee!

BRAND.
Agnes! Agnes!
[He is hurrying towards her.]

THE PHANTOM.
[Screams.]
Cross not! Deep
Rolls between us the abyss,
Where the mountain-torrents sweep!
[Tenderly.]
Thou Bost dream not, neither sleep,
Nor with phantoms wagest war;
Dear, by sickness thou vast wasted, —
Frenzy’s bitter cup hast tasted,
Dreamt, thy wife had fled afar.

BRAND.
Oh, thou livest! Blessed be

THE PHANTOM.
[Hastily.]
Peace! Of that no murmur now!
Follow fast, the moments press.

BRAND.
Oh, but Alf!

THE PHANTOM.
Alive, no less.

BRAND.
Lives!

THE PHANTOM.
And with unfaded brow!
All thy sorrows did but seem!
All thy batles were a dream,
Alf is with thy mother; she
Vigorous yet, and stalwart he;
Still the old Church stands entire;
Pluck it down if thou desire; —
And the dalesmen still drudge on
As they did in good days gone.

BRAND.
“Good!”

THE PHANTOM.
For days of peace they were.

BRAND.
“Peace?”

THE PHANTOM.
O haste thee, Brand, O fly!

BRAND.
Woe, I dream!

THE PHANTOM.
Thy dream’s gone by,
But thou needest sheltering care

BRAND.
I am strong.

THE PHANTOM.
Ah me, not yet;
Still the fell dream lies in wait.
Once again from wife and child
It shall sweep thee, cloud-beguiled,
Once again thy soul obscure, —
If thou wilt not seek the cure.

BRAND.
Oh, vouchsafe it!

THE PHANTOM.
Thou availest,
Thou alone, that cure to reach.

BRAND.
Name it then!

THE PHANTOM.
The aged leech,
Who has conn’d so many a page, —
The unfathomably sage,
He discovered where thou ailest.
All the phantoms of thy strife,
Three words conjured them to life.
Them thou boldly must recall,
From thy memory efface them,
From thy conscience blot, erase them;
At their bidding, lo, thou burnest
In this maddening blast of bane; —
O forget them, if thou yearnest
To make white thy soul again!

BRAND.
Say, what arc they?

THE PHANTOM.
“Nought or all.”

BRAND.
[Reeling back.]
Is it so?

THE PHANTOM.
So sure as I
Am alive, and thou wilt die.

BRAND.
Woe on us! The sword once more
Swings above us, as before!

THE PHANTOM.
Brand, be kind; my breast is warm;
Clasp me close in thy strong arm; —
Let us fly where summer’s sun

BRAND.
Never more that plague shall bind me

THE PHANTOM.
Ah, Brand, all is not yet won.

BRAND.
[Shaking his head.]
I have flung that dream behind me.
Me no more that phantom-strife’s
Horror thrills;-but Life’s! but Life’s!

THE PHANTOM.
Life’s?

BRAND.
Come, Agnes, where I lead!

THE PHANTOM.
Brand, what is it thou wilt do?

BRAND.
What I must: the dream make true, —
Live the vision into deed.

THE PHANTOM.
Ha, thou canst not! Think but whither
That road led thee

BRAND.
Thither! Thither!

THE PHANTOM.
What thou dared’st, dream-beguiled,
Wilt thou, whole and waking, dare?

BRAND.
Whole and waking.

THE PHANTOM.
Lose the child?

BRAND.
Lose it.

THE PHANTOM.
Brand!

BRAND.
I must.

THE PHANTOM.
And tear
Me all bleeding from the snare?
With the rods of sacrifice
Scourge me to the death?