Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Volume 4).djvu/50

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 * Where are now the sacks of coin
 * left behind by Rasmus Gynt?
 * Ah, your father lent them wings,-
 * lavished them abroad like sand,
 * buying land in every parish,
 * driving round in gilded chariots.
 * Where is all the wealth he wasted
 * at the famous winter-banquet,
 * when each guest sent glass and bottle
 * shivering 'gainst the wall behind him?

PEER
 * Where's the snow of yester-year?

ASE
 * Silence, boy, before your mother!
 * See the farmhouse! Every second
 * window-pane is stopped with clouts.
 * Hedges, fences, all are down,
 * beasts exposed to wind and weather,
 * fields and meadows lying fallow,
 * every month a new distraint-

PEER
 * Come now, stop this old-wife's talk!
 * Many a time has luck seemed dropping,
 * and sprung up as high as ever!

ASE
 * Salt-strewn is the soil it grew from.
 * Lord, but you're a rare one, you,-
 * just as pert and jaunty still,
 * just as bold as when the pastor,
 * newly come from Copenhagen,
 * bade you tell your Christian name,