Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/202

 :why I have your heart selected,
 * and established, so to speak,
 * there my being's Caliphate?
 * All your longings shall be mine.
 * I'm an autocrat in passion!
 * You shall live for me alone.
 * I'll be he who shall enthrall
 * you like gold and precious stones.
 * Should we part, then life is over,-
 * that is, your life, nota bene!
 * Every inch and fibre of you,
 * will-less, without yea or nay,
 * I must know filled full of me.
 * Midnight beauties of your tresses,
 * all that's lovely to be named,
 * shall, like Babylonian gardens,
 * tempt your Sultan to his tryst.
 * After all, I don't complain, then,
 * of your empty forehead-vault.
 * With a soul, one's oft absorbed in
 * contemplation of oneself.
 * Listen, while we're on the subject,-
 * if you like it, faith, you shall
 * have a ring about your ankle:-
 * 'twill be best for both of us.
 * I will be your soul by proxy;
 * for the rest-why, status quo.
 * [ANITRA snores.]
 * What! She sleeps! Then has it glided
 * bootless past her, all I've said?-
 * No; it marks my influence o'er her
 * that she floats away in dreams
 * on my love-talk as it flows.
 * [Rises, and lays trinkets in her lap.]
 * Here are jewels! Here are more!
 * Sleep, Anitra! Dream of Peer-.
 * Sleep! In sleeping, you the crown have
 * placed