Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/470



Yes, laugh away, and say it be so, grant I am a hen. There clusters to my cluck A crowd of little chickens,—which you want! And I've the hen's high spirit and her pluck, And for my little ones forget myself. You think me dull, I know it. Possibly You pass a harsher judgment yet, decree Me over covetous of worldly pelf. Good, on that head we will not disagree.

[Seizes arm and continues in a low tone but with gathering vehemence.

You're right, I'm dull and dense and grasping, yes; But grasping for my God-given babes and wife, And dense from struggling blindly for bare life, And dull from sailing seas of loneliness. Just when the pinnace of my youthful dream Into the everlasting deep went down, Another started from the ocean stream Borne with a fair wind onward to life's crown. For every dream that vanished in the wave, For every buoyant plume that broke asunder, God sent me in return a little Wonder, And gratefully I took the good He gave. For them I strove, for them amassed, annexed,— For them, for them, explained the Holy text; My clustering girls, my garden of delight! On them you've poured the venom of your spite! You've proved, with all the cunning of the schools, My bliss was but the paradise of fools, That all I took for earnest was a jest;— Now I implore, give me my quiet breast Again, the flawless peace of mind I had—