Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/209

 "Down with it! Down with it!" they cried At first; but soon that clamour died, And many felt their ears a-flame, And stole shy glances of distrust. When the ancestral House of Prayer Was to be levell'd—then and there,— By hands unhallow'd, in the dust.

But countless bonds, they fancied, knit Them ever to the ghost of it, So long as yonder Palace lack'd The final seal of consecration; And so in anguish'd expectation They watch'd it growing into fact, And blinked before the glorious End, When the old tatter should descend And the new colours flaunt the gale. But ever as the spire upclomb They grew more silent and more pale, And now,—well, now the End is come.

Look at the throng. Both young and old Swarm hither.

And by thousands told.— How still they are!

And yet they moan, Like sea fore-feeling tempest's fret.

It is the People's hearts that groan,