Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/268

 Glare upon me through the gloom. Craft, the wolf, with howl and yell, Bays at Wisdom, sun of earth; Cries of ruin ring to North, Call to arms by fjord and fell; And the pigmy, quaking, grim, Hisses: "What is that to him?" Let the other nations glow, Let the mighty meet the foe, We can ill afford to bleed,— We are weak, may fairly plead From a giants' war exemption, Need not offer All as meed For our fraction of Redemption. Not for us the cup He drank, Not for us the thorny wreath In His temples drove its teeth, Not for us the spear-shaft sank In the Side whose life was still. Not for us the burning thrill Of the nails that clove and tore. We, the weak, the least accounted, Battle-summons may ignore! Not for us the Cross He mounted! Just the stirrup-slash's stain, Just the gash the cobbler scored In the shoulder of the Lord, Is our portion of His pain!

[''Throws himself down in the snow and covers his face; presently he looks up.'']

Was I dreaming! Dream I still? Mist-enshrouded is the hill. Were those visions but the vain Phantoms of a fever'd brain? Is the image clean outworn Whereunto Man's soul was born?