Translation:

Beetling rock, with roar and smoke

Break before my hammer-stroke!

Deeper I must thrust and lower

Till I hear the ring of ore.

From the mountain's unplumbed night,

Deep amid the gold-veins bright,

Diamonds lure me, rubies beckon,

Treasure-hoard that none may reckon.

There is peace within the deep--

Peace and immemorial sleep;

Heavy hammer, burst as bidden,

To the heart-nook of the hidden!

Once I, too, a careless lad,

Under starry heavens was glad,

Trod the primrose paths of summer,

Child-like knew not care nor cummer.

But I lost the sense of light

In the poring womb of night;

Woodland songs, when earth rejoiced her,

Breathed not down my hollow cloister.

Fondly did I cry, when first

Into the dark place I burst:

"Answer spirits of the middle

Earth, my life's unending riddle!--"

Still the spirits of the deep

Unrevealed their answer keep;

Still no beam from out the gloomy

Cavern rises to illume me.

Have I erred? Does this way lead

Not to clarity indeed?

If above I seek to find it,

By the glare my eyes are blinded.

Downward, then! the depths are best;

There is immemorial rest.

Heavy hammer burst as bidden

To the heart-nook of the hidden!--

Hammer-blow on hammer-blow

Till the lamp of life is low.

Not a ray of hope's fore-warning;

Not a glimmer of the morning.

Henrik Ibsen, Digte, 1871

Translated by Fydell Edmund Garrett

As a relative of Henrik Ibsen, ever since I began composing, I assumed I would one day set his words to music, as did Grieg and others before me. There is peculiar power in using the words of an ancestor. After receiving a first edition book of Ibsen’s poetry, my father had suggested I set this particular poem, The Miner. Coincidentally, I had encountered the text during my own research and had already planned to use it. It felt like ancestral forces from within and outside my lifetime had been directing me to this endeavor, and thus I heeded the call. During the writing process, it felt as if the piece were being channeled through me, not written by me. I feel my best work emerges from this state of mind.

Ibsen first wrote the text at 23, which is incredibly impressive considering the depth of emotion and pain in the text. It is evident that he had a tumultuous childhood and adolescence—he did not attend either of his parents’ funerals, for instance. He revised it twice, resulting in the 1871 version used here. It is perhaps his most famous poem, after the epic Terje Vigen. Even Ibsen’s gravestone is inscribed with a hammer and a line from Bergmanden: “Bryt mig vejen, tunge hammer, til det dulgtes hjertekammer!”

In the vein of Norse epics, I felt this poem, with its austere, mountainous setting, required a tone and scope that was grand and mythical—hence why I consider it a saga in song. As a friend pointed out, Tolkien used mining as a symbol for greed. When read in this manner, the text is not a joyful quest for enlightenment by a spiritual seeker, but an unflinching account of the struggles of seeking fulfillment and ultimate understanding in life without a single “ray of hope”. Alternatively, the text can easily be read autobiographically. For Ibsen, this could have meant answering the poet’s call to go down into the dark depths of human emotion to reveal personal truths, but also, as with much of Ibsen’s body of work, to expose and engage with the darker sides of society. I also have a more personal reading of the text, in light of when I chose to set it—this piece was written during the COVID-19 quarantine. Thus, the topic of humankind’s eternal striving for peace amidst a relentless tide of greed permeating our political and personal lives could not be more reflective of the time of its creation. May we all come to understand our lives’ unending riddle.