Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen (89 page)

EINAR.
What a yell!
Rang through the storm!

A WOMAN.
‘Twas from the fell.

ANOTHER.
[Pointing up.]
See, there stands Gerd upon the cliff,
Hallooing at the passing skiff!

FIRST WOMAN.
She’s flinging pebbles like witch-corn,
And blowing through a twisted horn.

SECOND WOMAN.
Now she has slung it like a wand,
And pipes upon her hollow’d hand.

A MAN.
Ay, pipe away, thou troll abhorr’d!
He has a Guide and Guard on board!

ANOTHER.
In a worse storm, with him to steer,
I’d put to sea and never fear.

FIRST MAN.
[TO EINAR.]
What is he?

EINAR.
A priest.

SECOND MAN.
What is he, nay —
That’s plain: he is a m a n, I say!
Strong will is in him, and bold deed.

FIRST MAN.
That were the very priest we need!

MANY VOICES.
Ay, ay, the very priest we need!
[They disperse along the slopes.]

THE MAYOR.
[Collecting his books and papers.]
Well, ‘tis opposed to all routine
To labour in a strange vocation,
Intrusively to risk one’s skin
Without an adequate occasion. —
I do my duty with precision, —
But always in my own Division.
[Goes.]

[Outside the but on the Ness. Late afternoon. The fjord is smooth and gleaming.

AGNES is sitting by the beach. Presently BRAND comes out of the hut.]

BRAND.
That was death. The horror-rifted
Bosom at its touch grew whole.
Now he looks a calm great soul,
All illumined and uplifted.
Has a false illusion might
Out of gloom to win such light?
Of his devil’s-deed he saw
Nothing but the outward flaw, —
That of it which tongue can tell
And to hands is palpable, —
That for which his name’s reviled, —
The brute slaying of his child.
But those two, that sat and gazed
With great frighten’d eyes, amazed,
Speechless, like two closely couching
Birdlets, in the ingle crouching, —
Who but look’d, and look’d, and ever
Look’d, unwitting upon what, —
In whose souls a poison-spot
Bit and sank, which they shall never
Even as old men bent and gray,
In Time’s turmoil wear away, —
They, whose tide of life proceeds
From this fountain of affright,
Who by dark and dreadful deeds
Must be nurtured into light,
Nor by any purging flames
May that carrion thought consume, —
This he saw not, being blind,
That the direst of the doom
Was the doom he left behind.

And from them shall haply rise
Link’d offences one by one.
Wherefore? The abyss replies:
From the father sprang the son!
What shall be by Love erased?
What be quietly effaced?
Where, O where, does guilt begin
In our heritage of sin?
What Assizes, what Assessors,
When that Judgment is declared?
Who shall question, who be heard,
Where we’re all alike transgressors?
Who will venture then to plead
His foul-borrow’d title-deed?
Will the old answer profit yet:
“From my father dates my debt?”
O, abysmal as the night,
Riddle, who can read thee right!
But the people dance light-footed,
Heedless by the dizzy brink;
Where the soul should cry and shrink,
None has vision to perceive
What uptowering guilt is rooted
In that little word: We live.
[Some men of the community come from behind the house and approach BRAND.]

A MAN.
We were to meet again, you see.

BRAND.
His need of human help has ceased.

THE MAN.
Yes; he is ransom’d and released;
But in the chamber still sit three.

BRAND.
And what then?

THE MAN.
Of the scraps we got
Together, a few crumbs we’ve brought —

BRAND.
Though you give all, and life retain,
I tell you that your gift is vain.

THE MAN.
Had he to-day, who now lies dead,
By mortal peril been bested,
And i had heard his foundering cry,
I also would have dared to die.

BRAND.
But peril of the Soul you slight?

THE MAN.
Well, we’re but drudgers day by day.

BRAND.
Then from the downward-streaming light
Turn your eyes utterly away;
And cease to cast the left askance
At heaven, while with the right you glance
Down at the mould where, crouching low,
Self-harness’d in the yoke you go.

THE MAN.
I thought you’d say we ought to shake us
Free of the yoke we toil in?

BRAND.
Yea,
If you are able.

THE MAN.
You can make us!

BRAND.
Can I?

THE MAN.
Full many have been sent
Who told us truly of the way;
The path they pointed to, you w e n t.

BRAND.
You mean — ?

THE MAN.
A thousand speeches brand
Less deeply than one dint of deed.
Here in our fellows’ name we stand; —
We see, a man is what we need.

BRAND.
[Uneasily.]
What will you with me?

THE MAN.
Be our priest.

BRAND.
I? Here!

THE MAN.
You’ve maybe heard it told,
There is no pastor for this fold.

BRAND.
Yes; I recall

THE MAN.
The place of old
Was large, which now is of the least.
When evil seasons froze the field,
And blight on herd and herdsman fell,
When want struck down the Man, and seal’d
The Spirit with its drowsing spell,
When there was dearth of beef and brew, —
T h e n came a dearth of parsons too.

BRAND.
Aught else: but this ye must not ask!
I’m summoned to a greater task.
The great world’s open ear I seek;
Through Life’s vast organ I must speak.
What should I here? By mountains pent
The voice of man falls impotent.

THE MAN.
By mountains echoed, longer heard
Is each reverberating word.

BRAND.
Who in a cavern would be bound,
When broad meads beckon all around?
Who’ll sweat to plough the barren land
When there are fruitful fields at hand?
Who’ll rear his fruitage from the seed
When orchards ripen to the skies?
Who’ll struggle on with daily need
When vision gives him wings and eyes?

THE MAN.
[Shaking his head.]
Your deed I fathom’d,-not your word.

BRAND.
[Going.]
Question no more! On board! on board!

THE MAN.
[Barring his way.]
This calling that you must fulfil,
This work, whereon you’ve set your will,
Is it so precious to you, say?

BRAND.
It is my very life!

THE MAN.
Then stay!
[Pointedly.]
“Though you give all and life retain,
Remember, that your gift is vain.”

BRAND.
O n e thing is yours you may not spend,
Your very inmost Self of all.
You may not bind it, may not bend,
Nor stem the river of your call.
To make for ocean is its end.

THE MAN.
Though tarn and moorland held it fast, —
As dew ‘twould reach the sea at last.

BRAND.
[Looking fixedly at him.]
Who gave you power to answer thus?

THE MAN.
You, by your deed, y o u gave it us.
When wind and water raged and roar’d,
And you launch’d out through wind and wave,
When, a poor sinning soul to save,
You set your life upon a board,
Deep into many a heart it fell,
Like wind and sunshine, cold and hot,
Rang through them like a chiming bell, —
[With lowered voice.]
To-morrow, haply, all’s forgot,
And furl’d the kindling banner bright
You just now lifted in our sight.

BRAND.
Duty is not, where power is not.
[Sternly.]
If you cannot be what you ought,
Be in good earnest what you may;
Be heart and soul a man of clay.

THE MAN.
[After gazing on him a moment.]
Woe! you, who quench the lamp you lit;
And us, who had a glimpse of it!
[He goes; the others silently follow.]

BRAND.
[After long watching them.]
Homewards, one by one, with flagging
Spirits, heavily and slow,
Foreheads bowed, and weary lagging
Footsteps, silently they go.
Each with sorrow in his eyes,
Walks as from a lifted rod,
Walks like Adam spurn’d by God
From the gates of Paradise, —
Walks like him, with sin-veil’d sight, —
Sees, like him, the gathering night,
All his gain of knowledge shares,
All his loss of blindness bears.
I have boldly dared to plan
The refashioning of Man, —
-There’s my work,-Sin’s image grown,
Whom God moulded in His own. —
Forth! to wider fields away!
Here’s no room for battle-play!
[Going; but pauses as he sees AGNES by the beach.]
See, she listens by the shore,
As to airy songs afloat.
So she listen’d in the boat
As the stormy surge it tore, —
Listening, to the thwart she clung, —
Listening still, the sea-foam hoar
From her open forehead flung.
‘Tis as though her ear were changing
Function, and her eye were listening.
[He approaches.]
Maiden, is it o’er those glistening
Reaches that your eye is ranging?

AGNES.
[Without turning round.]
Neither those nor aught of earth;
Nothing of them I descry.
But a greater earth there gleams
Sharply outlined on the sky,
Foaming floods and spreading streams,
Mists and sunshine breaking forth.
Scarlet-shafted flames are playing
Over cloud-capp’d mountain heads,
And an endless desert spreads,
Whereupon great palms are swaying
In the bitter-breathing blast.
Swart the shadows that they cast.
Nowhere any living thing;
Like a new world at its birth;
And I hear strange accents ring,
And a Voice interpreting:
“Choose thy endless loss or gain,
Do thy work and bear thy pain; —
Thou shalt people this new earth!”

BRAND.
[Carried away.]
Say, what further!

AGNES.
[Laying her hand on her breast.]
In my soul
I can feel new powers awaking,
I can see a dayspring breaking,
I can feel full floods that roll,
And my heart grows larger, freer,
Clasps the world within its girth,
And a voice interprets: Here
Shalt thou people a new earth!
All the thoughts that men shall utter,
All the deeds men shall achieve,
Waken, whisper, quiver, mutter,
As if now they were to live;
And I rather feel than see
Him who sits enthroned above,
Feel that He looks down on me
Full of sadness and of love,
Tender-bright as morning’s breath,
And yet sorrowing unto death:
And I hear strange accents wake:
“Now thou must be made, and make;
Choose thy endless loss or gain! —
Do thy work and bear thy pain!”

BRAND.
Inwards! In! O word of might,
Now I see my way aright.
In ourselves is that young Earth,
Ripe for the divine new-birth;
Will, the fiend, must there be slain,
Adam there be born again.
Let the world then take its way,
Brutal toil or giddy play;
But if e’er we meet in fight,
If my work it seek to blight,
Then, by heaven, I’ll smite and slay!
Room within the wide world’s span,
Self completely to fulfil, —
That’s a valid right of Man,
And no more than that I will!
[After pondering awhile in sil6nce.]
To fulfil oneself! And yet,
With a heritage of debt?
[Pauses and looks out.]
Who is she, that, stooping deep,
Clambers hither up the steep, —
Crooked back and craning crop?
Now for breath she has to stop,
Clutches wildly lest she stumble,
And her skinny fingers fumble
Fierce for something that she drags
In those deep and roomy bags.
Skirt, like folds of feather’d skin,
Dangling down her shrivelled shin;
Hands, a pair of clenched hooks;
So the eagle’s carcass looks
Nail’d against the barn-door top.
[In sudden anguish.]
What chill memories upstart, —
O, what gusts from childhood dart
Frosty showers on her-and other
Fiercer frost upon my heart — ?
God of grace! It is my Mother!

BRAND’S MOTHER.
[Comes up, stops when half seen above the slope, holds her hand up to shade her eyes, and looks round.]
He’s here, they told me.
[Coming nearer.]
Drat the blaze, —
It nearly takes away my sight!
Son, is that you?

BRAND.
Yes.

HIS MOTHER.
[Rubbing her eyes.]
Hoo, those rays,
They burn one’s very eyes outright;
I can’t tell priest from boor.

BRAND.
At home I never saw at allSun’s light
‘Twixt fall of leaf and cuckoo’s call.