Wildflowers And Hot-House Plants

Henrik Johan Ibsen 1828 (Skien, Telemark) – 1906 (Kristiania)



'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.'

No doubt it were more in the current tone
And the tide today we move in,
If I could but choose me to make my own
A type of our average woman.

Like winter blossoms they all unfold
Their primly maturing glory;
Like pot-grown plants in the tepid mould
Of a window conservatory.

They sleep by rule and by rule they wake,
Each tendril is taught its duties;
Were I worldly-wise, yes, my choice I'd make
From our stock of average beauties.

For worldly wisdom what do I care?
I am sick of its prating mummers;
She breathes of the field and the open air,
And the fragrance of sixteen summers.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 16, 2023

42 sec read
96

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CXCX DEDE FGFG HGHX
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 746
Words 142
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

Henrik Johan Ibsen

Henrik Johan Ibsen was a Norwegian playwright and theatre director. As one of the founders of modernism in theatre, Ibsen is often referred to as "the father of realism" and one of the most influential playwrights of his time. His major works include Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, When We Dead Awaken, Rosmersholm, and The Master Builder. He is the most frequently performed dramatist in the world after Shakespeare, and A Doll's House was the world's most performed play in 2006. Ibsen's early poetic and cinematic play Peer Gynt has strong surreal elements. more…

All Henrik Johan Ibsen poems | Henrik Johan Ibsen Books

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