Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/257



Between God's summons choose, and his!

Consult your own shrewd faculties!

A Miracle Divine is here! A Providential Token clear! How oft I dreamt that this befell! I took it for a nightmare's spell; And now its meaning is revealed

Yourselves you ruin, if you yield!

A herring-horde!

By millions told!

For wife and children, bread and gold!

You see, then, this is not an hour To waste your forces in a fray, And against energies whose power Strikes in the very Dean dismay. Now ye have other ends in view Than idly pining for the sky. Heaven, trust me, can your arms defy, And God's not easy to subdue. Don't mix yourselves in others' strife, But gather in the proffer'd fruit,