Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/287



Indeed you may. List to me, Signë! The years sped away, But faithful was I in my thoughts to you, My fairest flowers, ye sisters two. My own heart I could not clearly read. When I left, my Signë was but a child, A fairy elf, like the creatures wild Who play, while we sleep, in wood and mead. But in Solhoug's hall to-day, right loud My heart spake, and right clearly; It told me that Margit's a lady proud, Whilst you're the sweet maiden I love most dearly.

I mind me, we sat in the hearth's red glow, One winter evening—'tis long ago— And you sang to me of the maiden fair Whom the neckan had lured to his watery lair. There she forgot both father and mother, There she forgot both sister and brother; Heaven and earth and her Christian speech, And her God, she forgot them all and each. But close by the strand a stripling stood And he was heartsore and heavy of mood. He struck from his harpstrings notes of woe, That wide o'er the waters rang loud, rang low. The spell-bound maid in the tarn so deep, His strains awoke from her heavy sleep. The neckan must grant her release from his rule, She rose through the lilies afloat on the pool—