TO THE SURVIVORS

by: Henrik Ibsen

      OW they sing the hero loud; --
      But they sing him in his shroud.
       
      Torch he kindled for his land;
      On his brow ye set its brand.
       
      Taught by him to wield a glaive;
      Through his heart the steel ye drave.
       
      Trolls he smote in hard-fought fields;
      Ye bore him down 'twixt traitor shields.
       
      But the shining spoils he won,
      These ye treasure as your own.--
       
      Dim them not, that so the dead
      Rest appeased his thorn-crowned head.

'To the Survivors' was originally written in 1860. This English translation is reprinted from Lyrics & Poems from Ibsen. Trans. Fydell Edmund Garrett. New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1912.

Written on the death of Johan Ludwig Heiberg (1791-1860), a Danish dramatist, critic and apostle of Hegel's philosophy. He was often engaged in polemics and in conscious attempt so reform or change the public taste. For a time he became the accepted oracle of poetic criticism, but in his closing years found himself more and more isolated and estranged from the currents of contemporary opinion.

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