Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 1).pdf/478

 To live again as friendship, to the last That song shall link that present to this past. And what tho' at the desk my back grow round, And my day's work a battle for mere bread, Yet joy will lead me homeward, where the dead Enchantment will be born again in sound. If one poor bit of evening we can claim, I shall come off undamaged from the game!

[He goes into the house. turns towards the summer-house.  ''comes out, she is pale and agitated. They gaze at each other in silence a moment, and fling themselves impetuously into each other's arms.''

O, Svanhild, let us battle side by side! Thou fresh glad blossom flowering by the tomb,— See what the life is that they call youth's bloom! There's coffin-stench of bridegroom and of bride; There's coffin-stench wherever two go by At the street corner, smiling outwardly, With falsehood's reeking sepulchre beneath, And in their blood the apathy of death. And this they think is living! Heaven and earth, Is such a load so many antics worth? For such an end to haul up babes in shoals, To pamper them with honesty and reason, To feed them fat with faith one sorry season, For service, after killing-day, as souls?