Page:The collected works of Henrik Ibsen (Heinemann Volume 3).djvu/90

A child's a steward, you suppose,
Of the parental cast-off clothes;
A glimpse of the Eternal flits
At times across your wandering wits;
You snatch at it, and dream you spring
Into the essence of the thing
By grafting Riches upon Race;—
That Death with Life you can displace,
That years, if steadily amass'd,
Will yield Eternity at last.

His Mother.

Don't rummage in your Mother's mind,
But take what she will leave behind.

Brand.

The debt as well?

His Mother.

                  The debt? What debt?
There is none.

Brand.

               Very good; but yet
Suppose there were,—I should be bound
To settle every claim I found.
The son must satisfy each call
Before the mother's burial.
Though but four empty walls I took,
I still should own your debit-book.

His Mother.

No law commands it.

Brand.

                    Not the kind
That ink on parchment ever writ;
But deep in every honest mind