Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/126

The Mayor.

Great memories bear the seed of growth.

Brand.

Yes, <g>memories</g> that to <g>life</g> are bound;
But you, of memory's empty mound,
Have made a stalking-horse for sloth.

The Mayor.

I said at first, and still I say:—
To leave us were the wisest way.
Your work here cannot come to good,
Nor your ideas be understood.
The little flights to purer air,
The lifting-up which, now and then,
Is doubtless well for working men,
Shall be my unremitting care.
Many agreeable facts declare
My ceaseless energy as mayor,—
Through me the population's grown
Double, nay, almost three to one,
Since for the district I have bred
Ever new ways of getting fed.
With stubborn nature still at strife
We've steam'd ahead: our forward march
Here hew'd a road, there flung an arch—
To lead from——

Brand.

                Not from Faith to Life.

The Mayor.

To lead from fjordside to the hill.

Brand.

But not from Doctrine unto Will.