5 Must-Read Henrik Ibsen Poems

Henrik Ibsen is best-remembered as a playwright. But, he also worked as a theatre director and composed a few poems. He is one of the founders of modernist theatre. His best-known plays include “A Doll’s House” and “Peer Gynt.” The latter contains many interesting examples of his more poetic prose.

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Gone

‘Gone’ by Henrik Ibsen is a sad but moving poem that illustrates the melancholy that arrives after one’s company has departed.

Although Ibsen only released one collection of poetry in his lifetime, his lines of verse represent a deeply affecting part of his work as a writer. Much in the same ways his dramas illustrated with deft clarity the entanglements of domestic life and romance, poems like this one insert the reader into the unguarded intimacies of the speaker.

The last, late guest

To the gate we followed;

Goodbye — and the rest

The night-wind swallowed.

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Wildflowers and Hothouse-plants

‘Wildflowers and Hothouse-plants’ by Henrik Ibsen begins as a defense of an individual’s attraction to another, revealing in the process the beauty standards imposed on women and the splendor of what is arbitrarily deemed ordinary.

At the center of this Ibsen poem is a speaker who expresses a preference for what they refer to as an "average woman," an opinion that incites shock and disgust from other people. What follows is their justification for this preference, explaining in their eyes, such women are filled with longevity and passion.

"Good Heavens, man, what a freak of taste!

What blindness to form and feature!

The girl's no beauty, and might be placed

As a hoydenish kind of creature."

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Loving Someone You Can't Have

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With a Water-lily

‘With a Water-lily’ by Henrik Ibsen is a poem that effuses affection and apprehension in equal measure, revealing a subtle but critical truth about the people we choose to love.

Ambiguity is a common feature of Ibsen's poetry, often found enshrouding details of both romantic and domestic relationships. This poem is no different, beginning with an offering of love in the form of a delicate flower, a gift that ultimately reveals its recipient is hiding something. The truth of this secret is never articulated, but the poem's imagery and symbolism imply that there are hidden depths in the ones we love.

See, dear, what thy lover brings;

'Tis the flower with the white wings.

Buoyed upon the quiet stream

In the spring it lay adream.

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A Brother in Need

‘A Brother in Need’ explores betrayal during the Second Schleswig War, urging unity against adversity with a tone of desperation and hope.

NOW, rallying once if ne'er again,

With flag at half-mast flown,

A people in dire need and strain

Mans Tyra's bastion.

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Mountain Life

‘Mountain Life’ by Henrik Ibsen describes a paradise separate from the outside world and that plays host to isolated, peace loving farmers.

IN summer dusk the valley lies

With far-flung shadow veil;

A cloud-sea laps the precipice

Before the evening gale:

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5 Must-Read Henrik Ibsen Poems

Gone

Wildflowers and Hothouse-plants

With a Water-lily

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