Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, TO HENRIK IBSEN IN DRESDEN, by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

TO HENRIK IBSEN IN DRESDEN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Within the bowery window-nook
Last Line: Proclaim you home at last!
Subject(s): Dramatists; Ibsen, Henrik (1828-1906); Plays & Playwrights ; Dramatists


WITHIN the bowery window-nook,
My red azalea flowered to-day;
Its colour fell upon the book
That I was reading where I lay, --
Your own sardonic masque of Love,
Wherein, when last azaleas blew,
I read, and marked the light above
Come faintly-tinted through.

And as your gracious verse unfolds
Its fluted meanings, leaf by leaf,
And knows not half the wealth it holds,
Till, gathered in a rosy sheaf,
The full-proportioned flowers of song
Flame, finished, from the perfect tree,
And pour out perfume, pure and strong,
For all the world and me, --

So, now that May is well begun,
And cuckoos in the woodland shout,
My perfect flower that loves the sun
Will spread its faultless petals out;
Each bloom will tell my brain of you,
Norse poet with the tropic heart,
From whose blind root there slowly grew
Such flowers of perfect art!

And while I wait for your new song
To waft its fragrance o'er the sea,
I hold the memories that belong
To you, to Norway and to me;
I wander where the wild swan calls,
And where the dark lake lies and shines,
And watch sonorous waterfalls
Rush, whitening, through the pines.

You in the city of sweet names,
Where Raffaelle and Correggio meet, --
I by the dismal-tided Thames,
In dreary square and sultry street, --
Both, by one magnet drawn, extend
Our thoughts across the northern deep,
Till both our beings mix and blend
Where jarls and vikings sleep.

So flies a bridge across the sea
From you to Norway, clear like glass
A mistier framework, built for me,
Permits my vaguer hopes to pass;
One link remains unforged, one base
The wizard's weird triangle needs,
One ray to join us face to face,
And then our art succeeds.

That link between your land and mine,
My English and your Norse denies;
Your verses lie like gems that hide
In coffers sealed from English eyes;
Behind the veil we dimly know
A solemn figure stands complete,
But feel not how the draperies flow,
How poised the hands and feet.

For me slow hours have drawn aside
The curtain that concealed the work;
Diaphanous thin webs still hide,
And gauzy faint concealments lurk,
But all the gracious form displayed
Delights me with its sweeping lines,
And every day some progress made
Decreases what confines.

But oh! to win my people's eyes
To stand with me -- to gaze, admire,
To praise the statue's form and size, --
That is the goal of my desire;
But, friend, you dream not of the weight
Of insular phlegmatic pride,
The sturdy self-sufficient hate
Of all the world beside.

My England, where the grass is deep,
And burns with buttercups in May,
Whose brookside violets nod in sleep,
Washed purer purple by the spray;
My England of the August corn, --
The heavy-headed waving gold, --
Sweet blossoming land from bourne to bourne,
Whose name and speech I hold,

Receives my homage; none the less
I deem some precious things may be,
With which the sovereign Muses bless
The world outside our circling sea;
Some unknown gift the gods may leave
To be enshrined in alien lands,
A boon we humbly must receive
From unfamiliar hands.

For you the slow revenge of time
Will bring the meed your works have won,
When common speech from clime to clime
Shall link the nations into one;
The vast Republic of the arts
Will crown your deathless fame with bays,
When our poor tongues and beating hearts
Are dust on trodden ways.

For me what is there? Just to sit
Beneath my red azalea-tree,
Half in the sun, and flecked with it,
And with flower-shadows, silently;
To read the strong sonorous verse,
And think, my poet, now and then,
How, though the times wax worse and worse,
You walk the world of men.

Till this consoles me, for I know
That though the nations, old and weak,
Tremble with change, and shivering so,
With gathered voices shake and shriek,
You tremble not, but brave and strong,
Pour forth as from a trumpet's mouth,
The great anathemas of song
Sent northward from the south.

Work then in patience, till you see
The confines of your Holy Land,
That Palestine of poesy,
Where Agnes waits for you, and Brand;
Pull on with strenuous arm and oar,
The sandy bar will soon be past,
And grassy odours from the shore
Proclaim you home at last!





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