Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/73



''by the beach. Presently comes out of the hut.'']

.

That was death. The horror-rifted Bosom at its touch grew whole. Now he looks a calm great soul, All illumined and up-lifted. Has a false illusion might Out of gloom to win such light? Of his devil's-deed he saw Nothing but the outward flaw,— That of it which tongue can tell And to hands is palpable,— That for which his name's reviled,— The brute slaying of his child. But those two, that sat and gazed With great frighten'd eyes, amazed, Speechless, like two closely couching Birdlets, in the ingle crouching,— Who but look'd, and look'd, and ever Look'd, unwitting upon what,— In whose souls a poison-spot Bit and sank, which they shall never Even as old men bent and gray, In Time's turmoil wear away,— They, whose tide of life proceeds From this fountain of affright, Who by dark and dreadful deeds Must be nurtured into light, Nor by any purging flames May that carrion thought consume,— This he saw not, being blind, That the direst of the doom Was the doom he left behind. And from them shall haply rise Link'd offences one by one.