Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (344 page)
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Authors: Henrik Ibsen
One arm round the lady — one in air
Lifts the daughter with gesture wild:
“Stand back, my lord! if a step you dare,
It costs you your wife and child!”
And the Briton fain had leapt at his foe,
But his strong arm lost its might;
His breath was laboured, his look bent low,
And his hair, as the dawning was to show,
Turned grey in that single night.
But on Terje’s forehead was clearness and peace,
His bosom was free and at rest;
He gave back the child with tenderness,
As his lips to its hands he pressed.
He breathed like a captive loosed from his chain,
And calmly he turned to speak:
“Now is Terje Vigen himself again;
Till now there was fever in every vein, —
There was vengeance, vengeance to wreak!
“The years in the prison’s choking night,
They sickened my heart and hope;
Like wheat that roots on the shelving height,
I leaned to a dreadful slope.
But now we are quit: ‘tis the end of it:
I pay you the debt I owe.
You took my all, and I give no less.
If ye think to come short, ye must seek redress
Of the God that made me so.”
They were rescued, all, when the daylight broke;
The yacht lay in port at last.
Sparely of Terje’s deed they spoke,
But the tale flew far and fast.
He grew open-browed, for the boding cloud
Had burst in one night of wreck.
Once more he carried erect and proud
The neck that had grown so bent and bowed
Since he knelt on the war-ship’s deck.
The English lord and his lady came,
And with them a crowd they brought;
They wrung his hand and they blessed his name,
As they stood in his humble cot.
For rescue brave from the wind and the wave
They thanked him; but Terje smiled,
And gently stroking the golden head,
“The one ye should thank stands there,” he said,
“You were saved by the little child.”
When the yacht swung round for Hesnaze Sound,
The Norse flag flew at her mast.
Just westward, surf marks the shallow ground:
She saluted it as she passed.
Then Terje watched till the sail grew small
And the watching eyes grew wet;
“Much have I lost, much gained withal,
Maybe ‘twas the best that could befall, —
So, God! I am e’en in Thy debt.”
So, once, I saw old Terje. His craft
With fish lay moored by the quay;
His hair was white, but he sang and laughed,
And brisk as a boy was he.
He’d a jest for each young lass on the beach,
With the bairns he was full of fun;
He sprang aboard and waved them a cheer,
Then hoisted foresail, for home to steer,
The old sea-hawk, in the sun.
In Fjære churchyard a grave they show
In a weather-beaten spot;
‘Tis all untended, sunken and low,
But the headboard is not forgot.
There “THAERIE WIIGHEN,” in letters neat,
With the date of his death, is seen.
It lies where the sun and the sea-winds beat,
And coarse are the grasses that cover it —
But with wild-flowers in between.
Original written 1860. Translation printed from revised manuscript.
II
(From
The Feast of Solhaug.)
I WALKED in the greenwood
All lonely and heavy;
The little birds twittered
Where coverts were leafy.
The shrewd little singers,
From thicket and thorn,
Listen, they twittered, how true love is born!
It grows like the oak
With the growth of the years;
‘Tis nourished by thoughts
And by songs and by tears;
So light as it springeth,
Yet swift as a dart
Root it will strike in the depths of the heart.
Translation reprinted from the
Westminster Gazette
of August 15, 1903.
(From
Love’s Comedy.)
SUNNY noon ‘twixt garden hedges
Calls to dalliance and delight.
Never muse how April’s pledges
Niggard autumn loves to spite.
Apple-blossom spreads a shadow
White and lovely overhead,
Let it strew to-morrow’s meadow
Like a snow-drift tempest-shed.
Would’st be reckoning up the harvest
In the trees’ high blossom-noon?
Toil and moil till joy thou starvest
Dull to blessing and to boon?
Must the scolding clapper’s noises
Day and night the birds appal?
Playmate mine, the birds’ own voices
Make a better madrigal.
From your boughs’ rich blossom-burden
Why the hungry chaffinch scare?
Let him take his singing-guerdon,
Strip the budding foison bare.
Trust me ‘twere a thrifty buying:
Coining laggard fruit as song.
Heed the proverb “Time is flying,”
Leafy leisure breathes not long.
I will live, and live a singer
While a haw is on the spray.
Then let pass what may not linger,
Sweep the fading pomp away.
Swing the gate, let cow-hooves batter,
Hog-snouts root the orchard through,
Mine the flower was; — little matter
Whose the mouldering residue.
Translation printed from MS.
(From
The Pretenders.)
Now light the roof is lifted
Up the blue starry skies;
And now my little Haakon
Puts dream-wings on and flies.
From earth away to heaven
A great great ladder stands;
A’top climbs little Haakon,
Helped up by angel-hands.
God’s little angel-children
The cradle-watch keep true;
God bless thee, little Haakon,
Thy mother watcheth too.
Translation reprinted from the
Westminster Gazette
of July 20, 1903.
(From
Peer Gynt
, Act IV.)
MAYBE both the snowtime and the springtime will go,
And summer after that, and the whole year so;
But some day thou art coming, full sure I know,
And I shall be waiting, for I promised thee so.
God strengthen thee faring by sea or land —
God gladden thee if at His footstool thou stand.
While thou art coming I shall wait for thee here;
And waitest thou in heaven, I’ll meet thee there, my Dear.
Translation reprinted from the
Westminster Gazette
of September 29, 1903.
(From
Peer Gynt
, Act V.)
SLEEP, dear heart o’ me, laddie mine!
I will cradle thee, I will watch thee.
Laddie and mother, they have been at play;
They two were together all the livelong day.
Laddie has sat upon his mother’s knee
All the livelong day; God’s blessing, Sweet, with thee!
Laddie lay close to his mother’s heart, so tight,
All the livelong day. He is tired to-night.
VI
MY white and glistening
Swan, my mute one —
Who wouldst not flute one
Note for my listening —
I will cradle thee, I will watch thee;
Sleep and dream, then, laddie mine.
Translation reprinted from the
Westminster Gazette
of September 21, 1903.
