Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/305

 h!
 * To flash forth, to go out, and be naught at a gulp-

[Pulls himself together as though in terror, and goes deeper in among the mists; stillness for awhile; then he cries:]
 * Is there no one, no one in all the turmoil,-
 * in the void no one, no one in heaven-!

[He comes forward again further down, throws his hat upon the ground, and tears at his hair. By degrees a stillness comes over him.]
 * So unspeakably poor, then, a soul can go
 * back to nothingness, into the grey of the mist.
 * Thou beautiful earth, be not angry with me
 * that I trampled thy grasses to no avail.
 * Thou beautiful sun, thou hast squandered away
 * thy glory of light in an empty hut.
 * There was no one within it to hearten and warm;-
 * the owner, they tell me, was never at home.
 * Beautiful sun and beautiful earth,
 * you were foolish to bear and give light to my mother.
 * The spirit is niggard and nature lavish;
 * and dearly one pays for one's birth with one's life.-
 * I will clamber up high, to the dizziest peak;
 * I will look once more on the rising sun,
 * gaze till I'm tired o'er the promised land;
 * then try to get snowdrifts piled up over me.
 * They can write above them: "Here No One lies buried;"
 * and afterwards,-then-! Let things go as they can.

CHURCH-GOERS [singing on the forest path].
 * Oh, morning thrice blessed,
 * when the tongues of God's kingdom
 * struck