  Poetry
This week: Henrik Ibsen Edited by: Stormy Lady  
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In The Picture Gallery
by Henrik Ibsen
With palette laden
She sat, as I passed her,
A dainty maiden
Before an Old Master.
What mountain-top is
She bent upon? Ah,
She neatly copies
Murillo's Madonna.
But rapt and brimming
The eyes' full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
Its fairy-palaces.
* * *
The eighteenth year rolled
By, ere returning,
I greeted the dear old
Scenes with yearning.
With palette laden
She sat, as I passed her,
A faded maiden
Before an Old Master.
But what is she doing?
The same thing still--lo,
Hotly pursuing
That very Murillo!
Her wrist never falters;
It keeps her, that poor wrist,
With panels for altars
And daubs for the tourist.
And so she has painted
Through years unbrightened,
Till hopes have fainted
And hair has whitened.
But rapt and brimming
The eyes' full chalice says
The heart builds dreaming
Its fairy-palaces.
On March 20, 1828 Henrik Ibsen was born. His father Knud Ibsen was a merchant and his mother, Marichen Altenburg, a daughter of ship-owner. The family started off in high standings in their community but Knud's business took a turn for the worst when Ibsen was seven. Ibsen's father was so distraught by his financial downward spiral, he turned to alcoholism. Eventually he took his frustration out on his wife and children. This left Henrik and his sister Hedvig to admire their mother; she took the brunt of their father's anger, without bitterness.
At fifteen the family's finances forced Ibsen to leave school. Ibsen moved to a small town and started an apprenticeship with a pharmacist. It was during this time he started writing his plays. By the age of eighteen, Ibsen fathered a child with a servant girl. After several attempts at getting into college, Ibsen turned to his writing full time. In 1848 he wrote two plays, 'Catilina', a tragedy, and 'The Burial Mound'. In 1851 he was appointed a 'stage poet' of Den Nationale Scene, a small theater in Bergen. Over the next couple of years he wrote four plays based on Norwegian folklore, including 'Lady Inger of Ostrat' in 1855.
In 1858 Ibsen married Suzannah Thoresen. The couple had one child, Sigurd who was born in 1859. The theatre Ibsen worked with had many productive plays, but eventually went bankrupt. He was then appointed to the Christiania Theatre. There he worked on 'The Vikings of Helgoland' in 1858 and 'The Pretenders' in 1864, both historical pieces, and 'Love's Comedy' in 1862. The plays didn't bring in the audiences the theatre was looking for and became a burden on Ibsen. Public reviews of his plays wade heavily on him. Ibsen turned to travelling abroad for the next twenty-seven years. In 1873 he wrote 'The Emperor and the Galilean' it is considered his most important play. Followed by many other plays, 'Pillars of Society' in 1877, 'A Doll's House' in 1879, 'Ghosts' in 1881, and 'An Enemy of the People' in 1882.
Ibsen returned to Norway in 1891. He continued to write until he suffered a stroke in 1900. The last years of Ibsen life were unfortunately clouded by mental illness. Kenrik Ibsen died in Christiania on May 23, 1906.
With A Water-Lily
by Henrik Ibsen
See, dear, what thy lover brings;
'Tis the flower with the white wings.
Buoyed upon the quiet stream
In the spring it lay adream.
Homelike to bestow this guest,
Lodge it, dear one, in thy breast;
There its leaves the secret keep
Of a wave both still and deep.
Child, beware the tarn-fed stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though the sprite pretends to sleep,
And above the lilies peep.
Child, thy bosom is the stream;
Danger, danger, there to dream!
Though above the lilies peep,
And the sprite pretends to sleep.
Mountain Life
by Henrik Ibsen
In summer dusk the valley lies
With far-flung shadow veil;
A cloud-sea laps the precipice
Before the evening gale:
The welter of the cloud-waves grey
Cuts off from keenest sight
The glacier, looking out by day
O'er all the district, far away,
And crowned with golden light.
But o'er the smouldering cloud-wrack's flow,
Where gold and amber kiss,
Stands up the archipelago,
A home of shining peace.
The mountain eagle seems to sail
A ship far seen at even;
And over all a serried pale
Of peaks, like giants ranked in mail,
Fronts westward threatening heaven.
But look, a steading nestles, close
Beneath the ice-fields bound,
Where purple cliffs and glittering snows
The quiet home surround.
Here place and people seem to be
A world apart, alone; --
Cut off from men by spate and scree
It has a heaven more broad, more free,
A sunshine all its own.
Look: mute the saeter-maiden stays,
Half shadow, half aflame;
The deep, still vision of her gaze
Was never word to name.
She names it not herself, nor knows
What goal my be its will;
While cow-bells chime and alp-horn blows
It bears her where the sunset glows,
Or, maybe, further still.
Too brief, thy life on highland wolds
Where close the glaciers jut;
Too soon the snowstorm's cloak enfolds
Stone byre and pine-log hut.
Then wilt thou ply with hearth ablaze
The winter's well-worn tasks; --
But spin thy wool with cheerful face:
One sunset in the mountain pays
For all their winter asks.
Thank you all!
Stormy Lady
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Poetry: April 11, 2012 Issue [#4983]
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