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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/6619.txt b/6619.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b8bed24 --- /dev/null +++ b/6619.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9065 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems and Songs, by Bjornstjerne Bjornson + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Poems and Songs + +Author: Bjornstjerne Bjornson + +Release Date: October, 2004 [EBook #6619] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on January 1, 2003] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS AND SONGS *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by Nicole Apostola. + + + +POEMS AND SONGS +BY BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON + +TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN +IN THE ORIGINAL METERS +BY +ARTHUR HUBBELL PALMER +Professor of the German Language and Literature +In Yale University + +New York +The American-Scandinavian Foundation +London: Humphrey Milford +Oxford University Press +1915 + + + + +INTRODUCTION +BJÖRNSON AS A LYRIC POET + +I lived far more than e'er I sang; +Thought, ire, and mirth unceasing rang + Around me, where I guested; +To be where loud life's battles call +For me was well-nigh more than all + My pen on page arrested. + +What's true and strong has growing-room, +And will perhaps eternal bloom, + Without black ink's salvation, +And he will be, who least it planned, +But in life's surging dared to stand, +The best bard for his nation. + +A life seventy-seven years long and but two hundred pages of +lyrical production, more than half of which was written in about +a dozen years! The seeming disproportion is explained by the +lines just quoted from the poem _Good Cheer_, with which Björnson +concluded the first edition of his _Poems and Songs_. Alongside +of these stanzas, in which the cause of his popularity and powerful +influence is also unconsciously revealed, may well be placed the +following one from _The Poet_, which discloses to us the larger +conception of the mission that Björnson himself in all his work +and life, no less than in his lyrics, so finely fulfilled: + +The poet does the prophet's deeds; +In times of need with new life pregnant, +When strife and suffering are regnant, +His faith with light ideal leads. +The past its heroes round him posts, +He rallies now the present's hosts, + The future opes + Before his eyes, + Its pictured hopes + He prophesies. + Ever his people's forces vernal + The poet frees, --by right eternal. + +"The best bard for his nation" is he who "does the prophet's +deeds," who "rallies now the present's hosts," and "frees, +--by right eternal." Poet and prophet Björnson was, but more +than all else the leader of the Norwegian people, "where loud +life's battles call," through conflict unto liberation and growth. +It has been said that twice in the nineteenth century the national +soul of Norway embodied itself in individual men,--during the +first half in Henrik Wergeland and during the second half in +Björnstjerne Björnson. True as this is of the former, it is +still more true of the latter, for the history of Norway shows +that the soul of its people expresses itself best through will +and action. Björnson throughout all his life willed and wrought +so much for his country, that he could give relatively little +time and power to lyrical self-expression. + +But Björnson strikingly represented the past of Norway as well +as his contemporary age. He was a modern blending of the heroic +chieftain and the gifted skald of ancient times. He was the first +leader of his country in a period when the battles of the spirit +on the fields of politics and economics, ethics, and esthetics +were the only form of conflict,--a leader evoking, developing, +and guiding the powers of his nation into fuller and higher life. +In his many-sidedness Björnson was also in his time the first +skald of his people, almost equally endowed with genius as a +narrative, a dramatic, and a lyric poet; with talents scarcely +less remarkable as an orator, a theater-director, a journalistic +tribune of the people (his newspaper articles amounted, roughly +estimated, to ten thousand book-pages), a letter-writer, and a +conversationalist. + +If, furthermore, we take into account also Björnson's labors and +achievements in the domain of action more narrowly considered, it +is no wonder that his _Poems and Songs_ make only a small volume. +Examining the book more closely, we find that three-quarters of +its pages were written before the year 1875, so that the lyrical +output, here published, of the thirty-four years thereafter +amounts to but fifty pages. From the year 1874 on in Björnson's +life the chieftain supplanted the skald, so far as lyrical +utterance was concerned. He was leading his nation in thought and +action on the fields of theology and religion, of politics, economics, +and social reform; he was tireless in making speeches, in writing +letters and newspaper articles; his poetic genius flowed out +copiously in the dramatic and epic channels of his numerous modern +plays, novels, and stories. + +That soon after 1874 Björnson passed through a crisis in his +personal thought and inner life was probably, in view of the +sufficient explanation suggested above, without influence in +lessening his production of short poems. This crisis was in his +religious beliefs. His father was a clergyman in the Lutheran State +Church, and from his home in western Norway Björnson brought with +him to Christiania in 1850 fervent Christian faith of the older +orthodox sort. Here his somewhat somber religion was soon made +brighter and more tender by the adoption of Grundtvig's teachings, +and until past mid-life he remained a sincere Christian in the fullest +sense, as is repeatedly shown in his lyrics. But in the years +just before 1877 study of modern science and philosophy, of the +history of the Church and dogma, led him to become an evolutionist, +an agnostic theist. Nevertheless, he ever practiced the Christian +art of life, as he tried to realize his ideals of truth, justice, +and love of humanity. This large and simple Christian art of life, +in distinction from the dogmas of the Church, he early sung in +lines which sound no less true to the keynote of his later years: + +Love thy neighbor, to Christ be leal! +Crush him never with iron-heel, + Though in the dust he's lying! +All the living responsive await +Love with power to recreate, + Needing alone the trying. + +II + +The quantity, then, of Björnson's short poems is small. Their +intrinsic worth is great. Their influence in Norway has been broad +and deep, they are known and loved by all. If lyrical means only +melodious, "singable," they possess high poetic value and distinction. +In a unique degree they have inspired composers of music to pour out +their strains. When a Scandinavian reads Björnson's poems, his ears +ring with the familiar melodies into which they have almost sung +themselves. + +Here is not the place for technical analysis of the external poetic +forms. A cursory inspection will show that Björnson's are wonderfully +varied, and that the same form is seldom, if ever, precisely duplicated. +In rhythm and alliteration, rhyme sequence and the grouping of lines into +stanzas, the form in each case seems to be determined by the content, +naturally, spontaneously. Yet for one who has intimately studied these +verses until his mind and heart vibrate responsively, the words of all +have an indefinable melody of their own, as it were, one dominant melody, +distinctly Björnsonian. This unity in variety, spontaneous and +characteristic, is not found in the earlier poems not included in this +volume. So far as is known, Björnson's first printed poem appeared in a +newspaper in 1852. It and other youthful rhymes of that time extant in +manuscript, and still others as late as 1854, are interesting by reason +of their contrast with his later manner; the verse-form has nothing +personal, the melodies are those of older poets. It is in the lyrics +of _Synnöve Solbakken_, written in 1857 or just before, that Björnson +for the first time sings in his own forms his own melody. + +Style and diction are the determining factors in the poetic form of +lyric verse, along with the perhaps indistinguishable and indefinable +quality of melodiousness. Of Björnson's style or manner in the larger +sense it must be said that it is not subjectively lyrical. He is not +disposed to introspective dwelling on his own emotions and to profuse +self-expression without a conscious purpose. In general he must have +some definite objective end in view, some occasion to celebrate for +others, some "cause" to champion, the mood of another person or of +other persons, real or fictitious, to reproduce synthetically in a +combination of thoughts, feelings, similes, and sounds. In his +verses words do not breed words, nor figures beget figures unto lyric +breadth and vagueness. When Björnson was moved to make a poem, he was +so filled with the end, the occasion, the cause, the mood to be +reproduced, that he was impatient of any but the most significant +words and left much to suggestion. Often the words seem to be in one +another's way, and they are not related with grammatical precision. +Thus in the original more than in the translation of the poem +_Norway, Norway!_ the first strophe of which is: + Norway, Norway, + Rising in blue from the sea's gray and green, + Islands around like fledglings tender, + Fjord-tongues with slender + Tapering tips in the silence seen. + Rivers, valleys, + Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope + Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten, + Lake and plain brighten, + Hallow a temple of peace and hope. + Norway, Norway, + Houses and huts, not castles grand, + Gentle or hard, + Thee we guard, thee we guard, + Thee, our future's fair land. + +Such abrupt brevity of expression, not uncommon among Norwegian +peasants, was no doubt natural to Björnson, but was confirmed by +the influence of the Old Norse sagas and skaldic poetry. The +latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly +not only in the direct imitation of the old form, as in _Bergliot_, +but also in the enrichment of the music of his rhymed verse in +modern forms. Conciseness of style in thought and word permitted +no lyrical elaboration of figures or descriptions; it restricted +the poet to brief hints of the ways his spirit would go, and along +which he wished to guide that of the hearer or reader. Herein is +the source of much of the power of Björnson's patriotic songs and +poems of public agitation. Those who read or hear or sing them +are made to think, or at least to feel, the unwritten poetry +between the lines. Scarcely less notable is this paucity in the +expression of wealth of thought and feeling in the memorial and +other more individual poems. + +Björnson's diction corresponds to the quality of style thus +briefly characterized. The modern Norwegian language has no +considerable, highly developed special vocabulary for poetic use. +From the diction of prose the poet must quarry and carve the verbal +material for his verse. It sometimes seems, indeed, as if it were +hard for Björnson to find the right block and fit it, nicely cut, +into his line. In describing his diction critics have used the +figures of hewing and of hammer-strokes, but then have said that +it is not so much laborious effort we hear as the natural falling +into place of words heavy with thought and feeling. Here it is +that translation must so often come short of faithful reproduction. +The choice of words in relation to rhythm and euphony is a mystery +difficult to interpret even in the poet's own language. If we +try to analyze the verse of great poets, we frequently find, beyond +what is evidently the product of conscious design, effects of +suggestion and sound which could not be calculated and designed. +The verbal material seems hardly to be amenable to the poet's +control, but rather to be chosen, shaped, and placed involuntarily +by the thought and the mood. _The Ocean_ is a good example of +the distinctive power and beauty of Björnson's diction. + +Such, then, in melody, rhythm, style, and diction is the form of +Björnson's verse: compact, reticent, suggestive, without elaborate +verbal ornamentation, strong with "the long-vibrating power of the +deeply felt, but half-expressed." It challenges and stimulates +the soul of the hearer or reader to an intense activity of +appropriation, which brings a fine reward. + +III + +What, now, is the content that finds expression in this form? +As we turn the pages from the beginning, we first meet lyrics that +may be called personal, not utterances of Björnson's individual +self, but taken from his early tales and the drama _Halte Hulda_, +with strains of love, of religious faith, of dread of nature, and +of joy in it, of youthful longing; then after two patriotic choral +songs and a second group of similar personal poems from _A Happy Boy_ +follow one on a patriotic subject with historical allusions, a +memorial poem on J. L. Heiberg, and one descriptive, indeed, of +the ocean, but filled with the human feelings and longings it arouses; +then come a lyric personal to Björnson, and one that is not. As we +progress, we pass through a similar succession of descriptive, +personal, or memorial poems, some of religious faith, historical +ballads, lyrical romances, patriotic and festival choral songs, +poems in celebration of individual men and women, living or dead, +and towards the end poems, like the _Psalms_, of deep philosophic +thought suffused with emotion. + +Now these subjects may be gathered into a small number of groups: +love, religious faith and thought, moods personal to the poet, +patriotism,--love of country, striving for its welfare, pride in +Norway's history, and joy in the beauty and grandeur of its scenery. +The occasional songs and poems in celebration of great personalities, +--whether they were of high station and renown, or lowly and unfamed, +--or for festivals, earnest or jovial, are nearly all conceived in the +spirit of patriotism,--love of Norway, its historic past, its present, +its future. They may be social songs memorial or political poems, +ballads or lyrical romances,--all are inspired by and inspire love of country. + +Not very many of Björnson's lyrics have love as their subject. From +his tales, novels, and dramas we know that his understanding of love +was comprehensive and subtle, yet this volume contains but few of +the love-lyrics of strong emotion, which Björnson must have felt, +if not written. He was a man of will and action with altruistic +ideals; sexual love could not be the whole nor the center of life +for him. + +Nor are the purely religious poems numerous, although Christian faith +is at once the ground and the atmosphere of his lyrics in the earlier +period, and some of the latest are expressions of a broad and deep +philosophy of life. "Love thy neighbor!" and "Light, Love, Life" in +deeds were characteristic of Björnson, rather than the utterance of +passive meditations of a theoretic nature on God and man's relation to Him. + +Björnson's unfailing bent towards activity in behalf of others could +not favor either the lyric outpouring of other purely personal moods. +Such purely personal poems are then also relatively rare. Some of +them, however, are most beautiful and deeply moving. Generally he +frees himself in an epic or dramatic way from subjective introspection; +he projects his feeling into another personality or sends it forth +in choral song in terms of "we" and "our." The moods he does express +more directly for himself are vague youthful longing for the great +and the instant, joyous trustfulness even in adversity and under +criticism, love of parents, wife, family, and friends, faith in the +future and in the power of the good to prevail. + +By far the largest number of the _Poems and Songs_ have as their +subject patriotism in the broadest sense, a theme at once simple and +complex. It is in them that the skald and chieftain so typically +blend in one. Of this group the influence has been widest and +deepest. In his oration at the unveiling of the statue of Wergeland +in Christiania, Björnson spoke of him and of Norway's constitution +as growing up together; with reference to this it has been maintained +that we have still greater right to say that Björnson and Norway's +full freedom and independence grew up together. The truth of the +statement is very largely due to Björnson's patriotic poems. Through +them the poet-prophet interpreted for his nation the historic past +and the evolving present, and forecast the future. Simplifying +the meaning of life, he accomplished the mission which he himself +made the ideal of _The Poet_, and became for his own people the +liberalizing teacher and molder, leading them to freedom in thought +and action, in social and political life. Of this large and seemingly +complex group of patriotic lyrics,--whether they be on its history, +or on contemporaneous events and deeds of individuals with political +significance; or on men, both known and unknown to fame, who had made +and were making Norway great; or on historical, political, and other +national festivals; or on the country, its land and sea and fjords and +forests and fields and cities, in aspects more genial or more stern, +--whether they be poems of the individual or social and choral songs, +manorial poems or ballads or lyrical romances, or descriptions of +Norway's scenery,--the unifying simple theme is Norway to be loved +and labored for. + +Not a single poem is, however, merely descriptive of external nature. +Björnson's relation to nature is indeed more intimate than that of +any other Norwegian writer of his time, but here also he is epic and +dramatic rather than subjectively lyrical. He sees and hears through +what is external, and his feeling for and with nature is but a +profounder looking into the soul of his nation or the inner life of +other human beings. For him Norway's scenery is filled with the +glory of the nation's past, the promise of its future, or the needs +of the present. The poems that contain nature descriptions are +primarily patriotic. In the national hymn _Yes, We Love_, it is the +nation, its history and its future, which with the land towers as a +whole before his vision; in _Romsdal_ the scenery frames the people, +their character and life. More personal poems, as _To Molde_ or +_A Meeting_, are not merely descriptive; in the former childhood's +memories and the love of friends fill the scene, while in the latter +the freshly and tenderly drawn snow-landscape is but the setting for +a vivid picture of a deceased friend. + +The contents of this volume befit the verse-form, as if each were +made by and for the other. The subjects are simple, large, weighty; +the form is compact, strong, suggestive. Björnson is distinctly not +subjectively lyrical, but has a place in the first rank "as a choral +lyric poet and as an epic lyric poet." (Collin.) Georg Brandes +wrote of him many years ago: "In few [fields] has he put forth +anything so individual, unforgettable, imperishable, as in the lyric +field." + + + +POEMS AND SONGS +BY +BJÖRNSTJERNE BJÖRNSON + + + +SYNNOVE'S SONG +(FROM SYNNOVE SOLBAKKEN) + +Have thanks for all from our childhood's day, + Our play together in woodland roaming. +I thought that play would go on for aye, + Though life should pass to its gloaming. + +I thought that play would go on for aye, + From bowers leading of leafy birches +To where the Solbakke houses lay, + And where the red-painted church is. + +I sat and waited through evenings long + And scanned the ridge with the spruces yonder; +But darkening mountains made shadows throng, + And you the way did not wander. + +I sat and waited with scarce a doubt: + He'll dare the way when the sun's descended. +The light shone fainter, was nearly out, + The day in darkness had ended. + +My weary eye is so wont to gaze, + To turn its look it is slow in learning; +No other landmark it seeks, nor strays, + Beneath the brow sorely burning. + +They name a place where I help may find, + And fain to Fagerli church would guide me; +But try not thither to move my mind; + He sits there ever beside me. + +--But good it is, that full well I know, + Who placed the houses both here and yonder, +Then cut a way through the woods so low + And let my eye on it wander. + +But good it is that full well I know, + Who built the church and to pray invited, +And made them meeting in pairs to go + Before the altar united. + + + +THE HARE AND THE FOX +(FROM SYNNOVE SOLBAKKEN) + +The fox lay still by the birch-tree's root + In the heather. +The hare was running with nimble foot + O'er the heather. +Was ever brighter a sunshine-day, +Before, behind me, and every way, + O'er the heather! + +The fox laughed low by the birch-tree's root + In the heather. +The hare was running with daring foot + O'er the heather. + +I am so happy for everything! +Hallo! Why go you with mighty spring + O'er the heather? + +The fox lay hid by the birch-tree's root + In the heather. +The hare dashed to him with reckless foot + O'er the heather. +May God have mercy, but this is queer! -- +Good gracious, how dare you dance so here + O'er the heather? + + + +NILS FINN +(FROM HALTE HULDA) +(see Note 1) + +Now little Nils Finn had away to go; +The skis were too loose at both heel and toe. + --"That's too bad!" rumbled yonder. + +Then little Nils Finn in the snow set his feet: +"You ugliest troll, you shall never me cheat!" + --"Hee-ho-ha!" rumbled yonder. + +Nils Finn with his staff beat the snow till it blew +"Your trollship, now saw you how hapless it flew?" + --"Hit-li-hu!" rumbled yonder. + +Nils Finn pushed one ski farther forward with might; +The other held fast,--he reeled left and right. + --"Pull it up!" rumbled yonder. + +Nils' tears wet the snow, while he kicked and he struck; +The more that he kicked there, the deeper he stuck. + --"That was good!" rumbled yonder. + +The birch-trees, they danced, and the pine-trees said "Hoo!" +They more were than one,--were a hundred and two. + --"Know your way?" rumbled yonder. + +A laugh shook the ridge till it made the snow fly; +But Nils clenched his fists and he swore 't was a lie. + --"Now beware!" rumbled yonder. + +The snow-field yawned wide, and the heavens came low; +Nils thought 't was now time for him also to go. + --"Is he gone?" rumbled yonder.-- + +Two skis in the snow looked about everywhere, +But saw nothing much; for there was nothing there. + --"Where is Nils?" rumbled yonder. + + + +THE MAIDENS' SONG +(FROM HALTE HULDA) + +Good-morning, sun, 'mid the leaves so green -- + Mind of youth in the dales' deep reaches, + Smile that brightens their somber speeches, +Heaven's gold on our earth-dust seen! + +Good-morning, sun, o'er the royal tower! + Kindly thou beckonest forth each maiden; + Kindle each heart as a star light-laden, +Twinkling so clear, though a sad night lower! + +Good-morning, sun, o'er the mountain-side! + Light the land that still sleep disguises + Till it awakens and fresh arises +For yonder day in thy warmth's full tide! + + + +THE DOVE +(FROM HALTE HULDA) + +I saw a dove fear-daunted, + By howling storm-blast driven; +Where waves their power vaunted, + From land it had been riven. +No cry nor moan it uttered, + I heard no plaint repeated; +In vain its pinions fluttered -- +It had to sink, defeated. + + + +THE MOTHER'S SONG +(FROM ARNE) + +Lord! Oh, hold in Thy hand my child, + Guard by the river its playing! +Send Thou Thy Spirit as comrade mild, + Lest it be lost in its straying! +Deep is the water and false the ground. +Lord, if His arms shall the child surround, + Drowned it shall not be, but living, + Till Thou salvation art giving. + +Mother, whom loneliness befalls, + Knowing not where it is faring, +Goes to the door, and its name there calls; + Breezes no answer are bearing. +This is her thought, that everywhere +He and Thou for it always care; + Jesus, its little brother, + Follows it home to mother. + + +LAMBKIN MINE +(FROM ARNE) + +Kille, kille, lambkin mine, +Though it often be hard to climb +Over the rocks upswinging, +Follow thy bell's sweet ringing! + +Kille, kille, lambkin mine, +Take good care of that fleece-coat thine! +Sewed to one and another, +Warm it shall keep my mother. + +Kille, kille, lambkin mine, +Feed and fatten thy flesh so fine! +Know, you dear little sinner, +Mother will have it for dinner! + + + +BALLAD OF TAILOR NILS +(FROM ARNE) + +If you were born before yesterday, +Surely you've heard about Tailor Nils, who flaunts him so gay. + +If it's more than a week that you've been here, +Surely you've heard how Knut Storedragen got a lesson severe. + +Up on the barn of Ola-Per Kviste after a punchin': +"When Nils heaves you again, take with you some luncheon." + +Hans Bugge, he was a man so renowned, +Haunting ghosts of his name spread alarm all around. + +"Tailor Nils, where you wish to lie, now declare! +On that spot will I spit and lay your head right there."-- + +"Oh, just come up so near, that I know you by the scent! +Think not that by your jaw to earth I shall be bent!" + +When first they met, 't was scarce a bout at all, +Neither man was ready yet to try to get a fall. + +The second time Hans Bugge slipped his hold. +"Are you tired now, Hans Bugge? The dance will soon be bold." + +The third time Hans fell headlong, and forth the blood did spurt. +"Why spit you now so much, man?" -- "Oh my, that fall did hurt!"-- + +Saw you a tree casting shadows on new-fallen snow? +Saw you Nils on a maiden smiling glances bestow? + +Have you seen Tailor Nils when the dance he commences? +Are you a maiden, then go!--It's too late, when you've lost your senses. + + + +VENEVIL +(FROM ARNE) +(See Note 2) + +Fair Venevil hastened with tripping feet + Her lover to meet. +He sang, so it rang o'er the church far away: + "Good-day! Good-day!" + +And all the little birds sang right merrily their lay: + "Midsummer Day + Brings us laughter and play; +But later know I little, if she twines her wreath so gay!" + +She twined him a wreath of the flowers blue: + "My eyes for you!" +He tossed it and caught it and to her did bend: + "Good-by, my friend!" +And loudly he exulted at the field's far distant end: + "Midsummer Day + Brings us laughter and play; +But later know I little, if she twines her wreath so gay!" + +She twined him a wreath: "Do at all you care + For my golden hair?" +She twined one, and gave in life's hour so rare + Her red lips' pair; +He took them and he pressed them, and he blushed as she did there. + +She twined one all white as a lily-band: + "'T is my right hand." +She twined one blood-red, with her love in each strand: + "'T is my left hand." +He took them both and kept them both, but would not understand. + +She twined of the flowers that bloomed around + "Every one I found!" +She gathered and twined, while tears would her eyes fill: + "Take them you will!" +In silence then he took them, but to flight he turned him still. + +She twined one so large, of discordant hue: + "My bride's-wreath true!" +She twined it and twined, till her fingers were sore: + "Crown me, I implore!" +But when she turned, he was not there, she never saw him more. + +She twined yet undaunted without a stay + At her bride's-array. +But now it was long past the Midsummer Day, + All the flowers away: +She twined it of the flowers, though they all were now away! + "Midsummer Day + Brings us laughter and play; +But later know I little, if she twines her wreath so gay!" + + + +OVER THE LOFTY MOUNTAINS +(FROM ARNE) +(See Note 3) + +Wonder I must, what I once may see + Over the lofty mountains! +Eyes shall meet only snow, may be; +Standing here, each evergreen tree + Over the heights is yearning;-- + Will it be long in learning? + +Pinions strong bear the eagle away + Over the lofty mountains +Forth to the young and vigorous day; +There he exults in the swift, wild play, + Rests where his spirit orders,-- + Sees all the wide world's borders. + +Full-leaved the apple-tree wishes naught + Over the lofty mountains! +Spreading, when summer hither is brought, +Waiting till next time in its thought; + Many a bird it is swinging, + Knowing not what they are singing. + +He who has longed for twenty years + Over the lofty mountains, +He who knows that he never nears, +Smaller feels with the lapsing years, + Heeds what the bird is singing + Cheerily to its swinging. + +Garrulous bird, what will you here + Over the lofty mountains? +Surely your nest was there less drear, +Taller the trees, the outlook clear;-- + Will you then only bring me + Longings, but naught to wing me? + +Shall I then never, never go + Over the lofty mountains? +Shall to my thoughts this wall say,--No! +Stand with terror of ice and snow, + Barring the way unwended, + Coffin me when life is ended? + +Out will I! Out!--Oh, so far, far, far, + Over the lofty mountains! +Here is this cramping, confining bar, +Baffling my thoughts, that so buoyant are;-- + Lord! Let me try the scaling, + Suffer no final failing! + +_Sometime_ I know I shall rise and soar + Over the lofty mountains. +Hast Thou already ajar Thy door?-- +Good is Thy home! Yet, Lord, I implore, + Hold not the gates asunder,-- + Leave me my longing wonder! + + + +THE DAY OF SUNSHINE +(FROM ARNE) + +It was such a lovely sunshine-day, + The house and the yard couldn't hold me; +I roved to the woods, on my back I lay, + In cradle of fancy rolled me; +But there were ants, and gnats that bite, +The horse-fly was keen, the wasp showed fight. + + "Dear me, don't you want to be out in this fine +weather?" --said mother, who sat on the steps and sang. + +It was such a lovely sunshine-day, + The house and the yard couldn't hold me; +A meadow I found, on my back I lay, + And sang what my spirit told me; +Then snakes came crawling, a fathom long, +To bask in the sun,--I fled with my song. + + "In such blessed weather we can go barefoot,"--said mother, +as she pulled off her stockings. + +It was such a lovely sunshine-day, + The house and the yard couldn't hold me; +I loosened a boat, on my back I lay, + While blithely the current bowled me; +But hot grew the sun, and peeled my nose; +Enough was enough, and to land I chose. + + "Now these are just the days to make hay in,"-- said mother, +as she stuck the rake in it. + +It was such a lovely sunshine-day, + The house and the yard couldn't hold me; +I climbed up a tree, oh, what bliss to play, + As cooling the breeze consoled me; +But worms soon fell on my neck, by chance, +And jumping, I cried: "'T is the Devil's own dance!" + + "Yes, if the cows aren't sleek and shiny to-day, they'll +never be so,"--said mother, gazing up the hillside. + +It was such a lovely sunshine-day, + The house and the yard couldn't hold me; +I dashed to the waterfall's endless play, + There only could peace enfold me. +The shining sun saw me drown and die,-- +If you made this ditty, 't was surely not I. + + "Three more such sunshine-days, and everything will +be in,"--said mother, and went to make my bed. + + + +INGERID SLETTEN +(FROM ARNE) + +Ingerid Sletten of Sillejord + Neither gold nor silver did own, + But a little hood of gay wool alone, +Her mother had given of yore. + +A little hood of gay wool alone, + With no braid nor lining, was here; + But parent love made it ever dear, +And brighter than gold it shone. + +She kept the hood twenty years just so: + "Be it spotless," softly she cried, + "Until I shall wear it once as bride, +When I to the altar go." + +She kept the hood thirty years just so: + "Be it spotless," softly she cried, + "Then wear it I will, a gladsome bride, +When it to our Lord I show." + +She kept the hood forty years just so, + With her mother ever in mind. + "Little hood, be with me to this resigned, +That ne'er to the altar we'll go." + +She steps to the chest where the hood has lain, + And seeks it with swelling heart; + She guides her hand to its place apart,-- +But never a thread did remain. + + + +THE TREE +(FROM ARNE) + +Ready with leaves and with buds stood the tree. +"Shall I take them?" the frost said, now puffing with glee. + "Oh my, no, let them stand, + Till flowers are at hand!" +All trembling from tree-top to root came the plea. + +Flowers unfolding the birds gladly sung. +"Shall I take them?" the wind said and merrily swung. + "Oh my, no, let them stand, + Till cherries are at hand!" +Protested the tree, while it quivering hung. + +The cherries came forth 'neath the sun's glowing eye. +"Shall I take them?" a rosy young girl's eager cry. + "Oh my, yes, you can take, + I've kept them for your sake!" +Low bending its branches, the tree brought them nigh. + + + +THE MELODY +(FROM ARNE) + +The youth in the woods spent the whole day long, + The whole day long; +For there he had heard such a wonderful song, + Wonderful song. + +Willow-wood gave him a flute so fair, + A flute so fair,-- +To try, if within were the melody rare, + Melody rare. + +Melody whispered and said: "I am here!" + Said: "I am here!" +But while he was listening, it fled from his ear, + Fled from his ear. + +Oft when he slept, it to him crept, + It to him crept; +And over his forehead in love it swept, + In love it swept. + +When he would seize it, his sleep took flight, + His sleep took flight; +The melody hung in the pallid night, + In the pallid night. + +"Lord, O my God, take me therein, + Take me therein! +The melody rare all my soul doth win, + My soul doth win." + +Answered the Lord: "'T is your friend alone, + Your friend alone; +Though never an hour you it shall own, + You it shall own." + + + +OUR COUNTRY +(1859) +(See Note 4) + +A land there is, lying near far-northern snow, +Where only the fissures life's springtime may know. +But surging, the sea tells of great deeds done, +And loved is the land as a mother by son. + +What time we were little and sat on her knee, +She gave us her saga with pictures to see. +We read till our eyes opened wide and moist, +While nodding and smiling she mute rejoiced. + +We went to the fjord and in wonder beheld +The ashen-gray bauta, that record of eld; +Still older she stood and her silence kept, +While stone-studded hows all around us slept. + +Our hands she then took and away o'er the hill +She led to the church ever lowly and still, +Where humbly our forefathers knelt to pray, +And mildly she taught us: "Do ye as they!" + +She scattered her snow on the mountain's steep side, +Then bade on swift skis her young manhood to glide; +The North Sea she maddened with scourge of gales, +Then bade her young manhood to hoist the sails. + +Of beautiful maidens she gathered a throng, +To follow our daring with smiles and with song, +While she sat enthroned with her saga's scroll +In mantle of moonlight beneath the Pole. + +Then "Forward, go forward!" was borne on the wind, +"With forefathers' aim and with forefathers' mind, +For freedom, for Norsehood, for Norway, hurrah!" +While echoing mountains voiced their hurrah. + +Then life-giving fountains burst forth on our sight, +Then we were baptized with her spirit of might, +Then gleamed o'er the mountains a vision high, +That summons us onward until we die. + + + +SONG FOR NORWAY +(1859) +NATIONAL HYMN +(See Note 5) + +Yes, we love this land that towers + Where the ocean foams; +Rugged, storm-swept, it embowers + Many thousand homes. +Love it, love it, of you thinking, + Father; mother dear, +And that night of saga sinking + Dreamful to us here. + +This the land that Harald guarded + With his hero-throng, +This the land that Haakon warded, + Hailed by Eyvind's song. +Olaf here the cross erected, + While his blood he shed; +Sverre's word this land protected + 'Gainst the Roman dread. + +Peasants whetted axes carried, + Broke th' invader's blow; +Tordenskjold flashed forth and harried, + Lighted home the foe. +Women oft to arms were leaping, + Manlike in their deed; +Others' lot was naught but weeping, + Tears that brought their meed. + +Many truly were we never, + But we did suffice, +When in times of testing ever + Worthy was the prize. +For we would the land see burning, + Rather than its fall; +Memory our thoughts is turning + Down to Fredrikshald! + +Harder times we bore that tried us + Were cast off in scorn; +In that crisis was beside us + Blue-eyed freedom born. +That gave father-strength for bearing + Famine-need and sword, +Honor death itself outwearing, + And it gave accord. + +Far our foe his weapons flinging + Up his visor raised; +We in wonder to him springing + On our brother gazed. +Both by wholesome shame incited + Southward made our way; +_Brothers three_, in heart united, + We shall stand for aye! + +Men of Norway, high or lowly, + Give to God the praise! +He our land's Defender Holy + In its darkest days! +All our fathers here have striven + And our mothers wept, +Hath the Lord His guidance given, + So our right we kept. + +Yes, we love this land that towers + Where the ocean foams; +Rugged, storm-swept, it embowers + Many thousand homes. +As our fathers' conflict gave it + Vict'ry at the end, +Also we, when time shall crave it, + Will its peace defend. + + + +THE CALL +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +Come calf now to mother, +Come lamb that I choose, +Come cats, one and t' other, +With snowy-white shoes, +Come gosling all yellow, +Come forth with your fellow, +Come chickens so small, +Scarce walking at all, +Come doves, that are mine now, +With feathers so fine now! +The grass is bedewed, +The sunlight renewed, +It's early, early, summer's advancing +But autumn soon comes a-dancing! + + + +EVENING +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +Evening sun in beauty is shining, +Lazy puss on the step's reclining. + "Two small mice, + Cream that was so nice, + Four fine bits of fish, + Stolen from a dish, +And I'm so good and full, +And I'm so lazy and dull!" + Says the pussy. + +Mother-hen her wings now is sinking, +Rooster stands on _one_ leg a-thinking: + "That gray goose, + High he flies and loose; + But just watch, you must admit, + Naught he has of rooster-wit. +Chickens in! To the coop away! +Gladly dismiss we the sun for today!" + Says the rooster. + +"Dear me, it is good to be living, +When life no labor is giving!" + Says the song-bird. + + + +MARIT'S SONG +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +"Dance!" called the fiddle, + Its strings loudly giggled, + The bailiff's man wriggled + Ahead for a spree. +"Hold!" shouted Ola + And tripped him to tumbling, + The bailiff's man humbling, + To maidens' great glee. + +"Hop!" said then Erik, + His foot struck the ceiling, + The beams rang their pealing, + The walls gave a shriek. +"Stop!" said now Elling, + And seizing him collared, + He held him and hollered: +"You still are too weak!" + +"Hei!" said then Rasmus, + Fair Randi embracing: + "Be quick now in placing + The kiss that you know!" + +"Nay!" answered Randi. + A slapping she gave him, + And from her she drave him: +"Here take what I owe!" + + + +LOVE THY NEIGHBOR +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +Love thy neighbor, to Christ be leal! +Crush him never with iron-heel, + Though in the dust he's lying! +All the living responsive await +Love with power to recreate, + Needing alone the trying. + + + +OYVIND'S SONG +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +Lift thy head, thou undaunted youth! +Though some hope may now break, forsooth, +Brighter a new one and higher +Shall throe eye fill with its fire. + +Lift thy head to the vision clear! +Something near thee is calling: "Here!"-- +Something with myriad voicing, +Ever in courage rejoicing. + +Lift thy head, for an azure height +Rears within thee a vault of light; +Music of harps there is ringing, +Jubilant, rapturous singing. + +Lift thy head and thy longing sing! +None shall conquer the growing spring; +Where there is life-making power, +Time shall set free the flower. + +Lift thy head and thyself baptize +In the hopes that radiant rise, +Heaven to earth foreshowing, +And in each life-spark glowing! + + + +LOVE SONG +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +Have you love for me, +Yours my love shall be, + While the days of life are flowing. +Short was summer's stay, +Grass now pales away, + With our play will come regrowing. + +What you said last year +Sounds yet in my ear,-- + Birdlike at the window sitting, +Tapping, trilling there, +Singing, in would bear + Joy the warmth of sun befitting. + +Litli-litli-lu, +Do you hear me too, + Youth behind the birch-trees biding? +Now the words I send, +Darkness will attend, + May be you can give them guiding. + +Take it not amiss! +Sang I of a kiss? + No, I surely never planned it. +Did you hear it, you? +Give no heed thereto, + Haste I make to countermand it. + +Oh, good-night, good-night +Dreams enfold me bright + Of your eyes' persuasive mildness. +Many a silent word +From their corners heard,-- + Breaking forth with gentle wildness. + +Now my song is still; +Is there more you will? + All the tones, to me returning, +Laughing, luring, soar; +Did you wish me more? + Still and warm the night is yearning. + + + +MOUNTAIN SONG +(FROM A HAPPY BOY) + +When you will the mountains roam + And your pack are making, +Put therein not much from home, + Light shall be your taking! +Drag no valley-fetters strong + To those upland spaces, +Toss them with a joyous song + To the mountains' bases! + +Birds sing Hail! from many a bough, + Gone the fools' vain talking, +Purer breezes fan your brow, + You the heights are walking. +Fill your breast and sing with joy! + Childhood's mem'ries starting, +Nod with blushing cheeks and coy, + Bush and heather parting. +If you stop and listen long, + You will hear upwelling +Solitude's unmeasured song + To your ear full swelling; +And when now there purls a brook, + Now stones roll and tumble, +Hear the duty you forsook + In a world-wide rumble. + +Fear, but pray, you anxious soul, + While your mem'ries meet you! +Thus go on; the perfect whole + On the top shall greet you. +Christ, Elijah, Moses, there + Wait your high endeavor. +Seeing them you'll know no care, + Bless your path forever. + + + +ANSWER FROM NORWAY +TO THE SPEECHES IN THE +SWEDISH HOUSE OF NOBLES, 1860 +(See Note 6) + +Have you heard what says the Swede now, + Young Norwegian man? +Have you seen what forms proceed now, + Border-watch to plan? +Shades of those from life departed, +Our forefathers single-hearted, + Who, when words like these were said, + Mounted guard and knew no dread. + +Says the Swede now: That our cherished + Norseland's banner red, +That which flew when Magnus perished, + As to-day outspread, +Which o'er Fredrikshald victorious +And o'er Adler waved all glorious, + That the Swedish yellow-blue + Must in shame henceforth eschew. + +Says the Swede now: Lost their luster + Have our memories, +Brighter honors shall we muster, + If we borrow his. +Bids us forth to Lützen stumble, +Close this straw-thatched cottage humble, + Drag our grandsire's ancient seat + To the Swedes for honor meet. + +Let it stand, that poor old lumber, + To us dear for aye; +Sweden's ground it could but cumber, + And it might not pay. +For, we know from history's pages, +Some sat there in former ages, + Sverre Priest and other men, + Who may wish to come again. + +Says the Swede now: We must know it, + _He_ our freedom gave, +But the Swedish sword can mow it, + Send it to its grave. +Yet the case is not alarming, +He must fare with good fore-arming, + For in truth some fell of yore, + There where he would break a door. + +Says the Swede now: We a clever + Little boy remain, +Very suitable to ever + Hold his mantle's train. +But would Christie be so pliant, +With his comrades self-reliant, + If they still at Eidsvold stood, + Sword-girt, building Norway's good? + +Big words oft the Swede was saying, + Only small were we, +But they never much were weighing, + When the test should be. +On the little cutter sailing, +Wessel and Norse youth prevailing, + Sweden's flag and frigate chased + From the Kattegat in haste. + +Sweden's noblemen are shaking + Charles the Twelfth's proud hat; +We, in council or war-making, + Peers are for all that. +If things take the worse turn in there, +Aid from Torgny we shall win there. + Then o'er all the Northland's skies + Greater freedom's sun shall rise. + + + +JOHAN LUDVIG HEIBERG +(1860) +(See Note 7) + +To the grave they bore him sleeping, + Him the aged, genial gardener; +Now the children gifts are heaping + From the flower-bed he made. + +There the tree that he sat under, + And the garden gate is open, +While we cast a glance and wonder + Whether some one sits there still. + +He is gone. A woman only + Wanders there with languid footsteps, +Clothed in black and now so lonely, + Where his laughter erst rang clear. + +As a child when past it going, + Through the fence she looked with longing, +Now great tears so freely flowing + Are her thanks that she came in. + +Fairy-tales and thoughts high-soaring + Whispered to him 'neath the foliage. +She flits softly, gathering, storing + Them as solace for her woe. + +*** + +Far his wanderings once bore him, + Bore this aged, genial searcher; +One who listening sat before him + Much could learn from time to time. + +Life and letters were his ladder + Up toward that which few discover, +Thought's wide realm, with vision gladder + He explored, each summit scaled. + +In his manhood he defended + All that greatness has and beauty; +Later he the stars attended + In their silent course to God. + +*** + +Older men remember rather + "New Year!" ringing o'er the Northland. +How it power had to gather + Leaders to a greater age + +Do you him remember leaping + Forth, his horn so gladly winding, +Back the mob on all sides sweeping + From the progress of the great? + +Play of thought 'mid tears and laughter, + Fauns and children were about him; +Freedom's beacons high thereafter + Kindled slowly of themselves. + +And his words soon found a hearing, + Peace of heart flowed from his music; +All the land thrilled to the nearing + Of a great prophetic choir. + +*** + +In his manhood he defended + All that greatness has and beauty; +Later he the stars attended + In their silent course to God. + +Northern flowers were his pleasure, + As an aged genial gardener, +From his nation's springtime treasure + Culling seed for deathless growth. + +Now with humor, now sedately, + He kept planting or uprooting, +While the Danish beech-tree stately + Gave his soul its evening peace. + +There the tree we saw him under, + And the garden gate is open, +While we cast a glance and wonder + Whether some one sits there still. + + + +THE OCEAN +(FROM ARNLJOT GELLINE) +(See Note 8) + +... Oceanward I am ever yearning, +Where far it rolls in its calm and grandeur, +The weight of mountain-like fogbanks bearing, +Forever wandering and returning. +The skies may lower, the land may call it, +It knows no resting and knows no yielding. +In nights of summer, in storms of winter, +Its surges murmur the self-same longing. + +Yes, oceanward I am ever yearning, +Where far is lifted its broad, cold forehead! +Thereon the world throws its deepest shadow +And mirrors whispering all its anguish. +Though warm and blithesome the bright sun stroke it +With joyous message, that life is gladness, +Yet ice-cold, changelessly melancholy, +It drowns the sorrow and drowns the solace. + +The full moon pulling, the tempest lifting, +Must loose their hold on the flowing water. +Down whirling lowlands and crumbling mountains +It to eternity tireless washes. +What forth it draws must the one way wander. +What once is sunken arises never. +No message comes thence, no cry is heard thence; +Its voice, its silence, can none interpret. + +Yes, toward the ocean, far out toward ocean, +That knows no hour of self-atonement! +For all that suffer release it offers, +But trails forever its own enigma. +A strange alliance with Death unites it, +That _all_ it give Him,--itself excepting! + +I feel, vast Ocean, thy solemn sadness, +To thee abandon my weak devices, +To thee let fly all my anxious longings: +May thy cool breath to my heart bring healing! +Let Death now follow, his booty seeking: +The moves are many before the checkmate! +Awhile I'll harass thy love of plunder, +As on I scud 'neath thy angry eyebrows; +Thou only fillest my swelling mainsail, +Though Death ride fast on thy howling tempest; +Thy billows raging shall bear the faster +My little vessel to quiet waters. + +Ah! Thus alone at the helm in darkness, +By all forsaken, by Death forgotten, +When sails unknown far away are wafted +And some swift-coursing by night are passing, +To note the ground-swell's resistless current, +The sighing heart of the breathing ocean -- +Or small waves plashing along the planking, +Its quiet pastime amid its sadness. +Then glide my lingering longings over +Into the ocean-deep grief of nature, +The night's, the water's united coldness +Prepares my spirit for death's dark dwelling. + +Then comes day's dawning! My soul bounds upward +On beams of light to the vault of heaven; +My ship-steed sniffing its flank is laving +With buoyant zest in the cooling billow. +With song the sailor to masthead clambers +To clear the sail that shall swell more freely, +And thoughts are flying like birds aweary +Round mast and yard-arm, but find no refuge. ... +Yes, toward the ocean! To follow Vikar! +To sail like him and to sink as he did, +For great King Olaf the prow defending! +With keel unswerving the cold thought cleaving, +But hope deriving from lightest breezes! +Death's eager fingers so near the rudder, +While heaven's clearness the way illumines! + +And then at last in the final hour +To feel the bolts and the nails are yielding +And Death is pressing the seams asunder, +That in may stream the absolving water! +Wet winding-sheets shall be folded round me, +And I descend to eternal silence, +While rolling billows my name bear shoreward +In spacious nights 'neath the cloudless moonlight! + + + +ALONE AND REPENTANT +(TO A FRIEND SINCE DECEASED) +(See Note 9) + +A friend I possess, whose whispers just said, + "God's peace!" to my night-watching mind. +When daylight is gone and darkness brings dread, + He ever the way can find. + +He utters no word to smite and to score; + He, too, has known sin and its grief. +He heals with his look the place that is sore, + And stays till I have relief. + +He takes for his own the deed that is such + That sorrows of heart increase. +He cleanses the wound with so gentle a touch, + The pain must give way to peace. + +He followed each hope the heights that would scale + Reproached not a hapless descent. +He stands here just now, so mild, but so pale; -- + In time he shall know what it meant. + + + +THE PRINCESS + +The princess looked down from her bower high, +The youth blew his horn as he lingered thereby. +"Be quiet, O youth, will forever you blow? +It hinders my thoughts, that would far away go, + Now, when sets the sun." + +The princess looked down from her bower high, +The youth ceased his blowing, his horn he laid by. +"Why are you so quiet? Now more shall you blow, +It lifts all my thoughts, that would far away go, + Now, when sets the sun." + +The princess looked down from her bower high, +The youth blew again, as he lingered thereby. +Then weeping, she whispered: "O God, let me know +The name of this sorrow that burdens me so! -- + Now has set the sun." + + + +FROM MONTE PINCIO + +Evening is coming, the sun waxes red, +Radiant colors from heaven are beaming +Life's lustrous longings in infinite streaming;-- +Glory in death o'er the mountains is spread. +Cupolas burn, but the fog in far masses +Over the bluish-black fields softly passes, +Rolling as whilom oblivion pale; +Hid is yon valley 'neath thousand years' veil. + Evening so red and warm + Glows as the people swarm, + Notes of the cornet flare, + Flowers and brown eyes fair. +Great men of old stand in marble erected, +Waiting, scarce known and neglected. + +Vespers are ringing, through roseate air +Nebulous floating of tone-sacrifices, +Twilight in churches now broadens and rises, +Incense and word fill the evening with prayer. +Over the Sabines the flame-belt is knotted, +Shepherds' lights through the Campagna are dotted, +Rome with her lamps dimly breaks on the sight,-- +Shadowy legend from history's night. + But to the evening's spell + Dances the Saltarell';-- + Fireworks flash and play, + Mora and laughter gay;-- +Colors and tones in all thoughts are enthroning +Harmony's gracious condoning. + +Lost has the light in its soundless affray, +Heaven its vaulting of dark-blue is framing, +Where from infinity deep stars are flaming, +Earth's masses sink into vapor away. +Fleeing the darkness, the eyes seek the city, +Meet with its torches a corpse borne in pity; +These seek the night, but a flag is each light, +Waving the hope of eternity bright. + Gaily to dance and wine + Mandolins give the sign. + Monkish song, noise of streets, + Drowned by a drum's stern beats;-- +Through all the dreaming life's arteries flowing, +Glimpses of daylight are going. + +Silence o'er all, and the darker blue sky +Watches serenely expectant, 'mid cheering +Dreams of the past and the future that's nearing:-- +Fluctuant gleams in the gray that is nigh. +But they will gather, and Rome be resurgent, +Day-dawn from Italy's midnight emergent: +Cannon shall sound and the bells ring the new, +Mem'ries illumine the future's bright blue!-- + Greeting a bridal pair + Charming in hope so rare, + Voices bring soft salute, + Music of harp and flute. +Mightier yearnings sweet sleep is beguiling;-- +Lesser dare waken to smiling. + + + +IF ONLY YOU KNEW IT + + I dare never speak up to you, + For you to look down would not do, + But always you are there each day, + And always I wander this way. +Our thoughts go by stealth to make search and renew it, +But neither dares question nor give answer due it; + If only you knew it! + + When constantly I could be found, + You often in pride on me frowned; + But now that I rarely appear, + I see that you wait for me here! +Two eyes, oh, two eyes made a snare and then drew it, +And who would escape must beware, and eschew it! + If only you knew it! + + Yes, if you but guessed, this might be + A poem for you made by me, + Whose billowy lines just now fly + Up where you stand graceful and high! +But look you, this knowledge, to no purpose grew it, +I farther will go, Heaven guard, lest we rue it,-- + If only you knew it! + + + +THE ANGELS OF SLEEP + + Asleep the child fell + When night cast its spell; + The angels came near + With laughter and cheer. +Her watch at its waking the mother was keeping: +"How sweet, my dear child, was your smile now while sleeping!" + + + To God mother went, + From home it was rent; + Asleep the child fell + 'Neath tears' troublous spell. +But soon it heard laughter and mother-words tender; +The angels brought dreams full of childhood's rare splendor. + + It grew with the years, + Till gone were the tears; + Asleep the child fell, + While thoughts cast their spell. +But faithful the angels their vigils were keeping, +The thoughts took and whispered: "Have peace now, while sleeping!" + + + +THE MAIDEN ON THE SHORE + +She wandered so young on the shore around, +Her thoughts were by naught on earth now bound. +Soon came there a painter, his art he plied + Above the tide, + In shadow wide,-- +He painted the shore and herself beside. + +More slowly she wandered near him around, +Her thoughts by a single thing were bound. +And this was his picture wherein he drew + Herself so true, + Herself so true, +Reflected in ocean with heaven's blue. + +All driven and drawn far and wide around +Her thoughts now by everything were bound. +Far over the ocean,--and yet most dear + The shore right here, + The man so near, +Did ever the sunshine so bright appear! + + + +SECRET LOVE + +He gloomily sat by the wall, +As gaily she danced with them all. + Her laughter's light spell + On every one fell; +His heartstrings were near unto rending, +But this there was none comprehending. + +She fled from the house, when at eve +He came there to take his last leave. + To hide her she crept, + She wept and she wept; +Her life-hope was shattered past mending, +But this there was none comprehending. + +Long years dragged but heavily o'er, +And then he came back there once more. + --Her lot was the best, + In peace and at rest; +Her thought was of him at life's ending, +But this there was none comprehending. + + + +OLAF TRYGVASON +(See Note 10) + +Broad the sails o'er the North Sea go; +High on deck in the morning glow +Erling Skjalgsson from Sole +Scans all the sea toward Denmark: +"Cometh never Olaf Trygvason?" + +Six and fifty the ships are there, +Sails are let down, toward Denmark stare +Sun-reddened men;--then murmur: +"Where is the great Long Serpent? +Cometh never Olaf Trygvason?" + +When the sun in the second dawn +Cloudward rising no mast had drawn, +Grew to a storm their clamor: +"Where is the great Long Serpent? +Cometh never Olaf Trygvason?" + +Silent, silent that moment bound, +Stood they all; for from ocean's ground +Sighed round the fleet a muffled: +"Taken the great Long Serpent, +Fallen is Olaf Trygvason." + +Ever since, through so many a year, +Norway's ships must beside them hear, +Clearest in nights of moonshine: +"Taken the great Long Serpent, +Fallen is Olaf Trygvason." + + + +A SIGH + + Evening sunshine never +Solace to my window bears, +Morning sunshine elsewhere fares;-- + Here are shadows ever. + + Sunshine freely falling, +Wilt thou not my chamber find? +Here some rays would reach a mind, + 'Mid the dark appalling. + + Morning sunshine's gladness, +Oh, thou art my childhood bright; +While _thou_ playest pure and white, + _I_ would weep in sadness. + + Evening sunshine's whiling, +Oh, thou art the wise man's rest;-- +Farther on! Then from the west + Greet my window smiling! + + Morning sunshine's singing, +Oh, thou art the fantasy +That the sun-glad world lifts free, + Past my powers' winging. + + Evening sunshine's quiet, +Thou art more than wisdom's rest, +Christian faith glows in thee blest: + Calm my soul's wild riot! + + + +TO A GODSON +(1861) +(With an album containing portraits of all those who at the time of +his birth were leaders in the intellectual and political world.) + +Here hast thou before thee that constellation + Whereunder was born thy light; +These stars in the vault of high thoughts' mutation + Will fashion thy life with might. +Their prophecy, little one, we cannot know, +They light up the way that, unknown, thou shalt go +And kindle the thoughts that within shall glow. + Thou first shalt them gather, + Then choose thine own,-- + So canst thou the rather + Grope on alone. + + + +BERGLIOT +(See Note 11) +(Harald Haardraade's saga, towards the end of Chapter 45, reads thus: +When Einar Tambarskelve's wife Bergliot, who had remained behind in +her lodgings in the town, learned of the death of her husband and of +her sort, she went straight to the royal residence, where the armed +force of peasants was, and eagerly urged them to fight. But in that +very moment the King (Harald) rowed out along the river. Then said +Bergliot: "Now miss we here my kinsman, Haakon Ivarson; never should +Einar's murderer row out along the river, if Haakon stood here on the +river-bank.") + + (In her lodgings) + + To-day King Harald + Must hold his ting-peace; + For Einar has here + Five hundred peasants. + + Our son Eindride + Safeguards his father, + Who goes in fearless + The King defying. + + Thus maybe Harald, + Mindful that Einar + Has crowned in Norway + Two men with kingship, + + Will grant that peace be, + On law well grounded; + This was his promise, + His people's longing.-- + + What rolling sand-waves + Swirl up the roadway! + What noise is nearing! + Look forth, my footboy! + + --The wind's but blowing! + Here storms beat wildly; + The fjord is open, + The fells low-lying. + + The town's unchanged + Since child I trod it; + The wind sends hither + The snarling sea-hounds. + + --What flaming thunder + From thousand voices! + Steel-weapons redden + With stains of warfare! + + The shields are clashing! + See, sand-clouds rising, + Speer-billows rolling + Round Tambarskelve! + + Hard is his fortune!-- + Oh, faithless Harald: + Death's ravens roving + Ride o'er thy ting-peace! + + Fetch forth the wagon, + Drive to the fighting! + At home to cower + Would cost my life now. + + (On the way) + + O yeomen, yield not, + Circle and save him! + Eindride, aid now + Thine aged father! + + Build a shield-bulwark + For him bow-bending! + Death has no allies + Like Einar's arrows! + + And thou, Saint Olaf, + Oh, for thy son's sake! + Help him with good words + In Gimle's high hall! + + ( Nearer ) + +Our foes are the stronger ... +They fight now no longer ... +Subduing, +Pursuing, +They press to the river,-- +What is it that's done? +What makes me thus quiver? +Will fortune us shun? +What stillness astounding! +The peasants are staying, +Their lances now grounding, +Two dead men surrounding, +Nor Harald delaying! +What throngs now enwall +The ting-hall's high door! ... +Silent they all +Let me pass o'er! +_Where is Eindride_!-- +Glances of pity + +Fear lest they show it, +Flee lest they greet me ... +So I must know it: +Two deaths there will meet me!-- +Room! I must see: +Oh, it is they!-- +Can it so be?-- +Yes, it is they! + + Fallen the noblest + Chief of the Northland; + Best of Norwegian + Bows is broken. + + Fallen is Einar + Tambarskelve, + Our son beside him,-- + Eindride! + + Murdered with malice, + He, who to Magnus + More was than father, + King Knut the Mighty's + Son's counselor good. + + Slain by assassins + Svolder's sharp-shooter, + The lion that leaped on the + Heath of Lyrskog! + + Pride of the peasants + Snared in a pitfall, + Time-honored Tronder, + Tambarskelve. + + White-haired and honored, + Hurled to the hounds here,-- + Our son beside him, + Eindride! + + Up, up, ye peasants, he has fallen, +But he who felled him is living! +Have you not known me? Bergliot, +Daughter of Haakon from Hjörungavaag;-- +Now I am Tambarskelve's widow. + + To you I appeal, peasant-warriors: +My aged husband has fallen. +See, see, here is blood on his blanching hair, +Your heads shall it be on forever, +For cold it becomes, while vain is your vengeance. + + Up, up, warriors, your chieftain has fallen, +Your honor, your father, the joy of your children, +Legend of all the valley, hero of all the land,-- +Here he has fallen, will you not avenge him? + + Murdered with malice within the king's hall, +The ting-hall, the hall of the law, thus murdered, +Murdered by him whom the law holds highest,-- +From heaven will lightning fall on the land, +If thus left unpurged by the flames of vengeance. + + Launch the long-ships from land +Einar's nine long-ships are lying here, +Let them hasten vengeance on Harald! + + If he stood here, Haakon Ivarson, + If he stood here on the hill, my kinsman, + The fjord should not save the slayer of Einar, + And I should not seek you cowards who flinch! + + Oh, peasants, hear me, my husband has fallen, +The high-seat of my thoughts through years half a hundred! +Overthrown it now is, and by its right side, +Our only son fell, oh, all our future! +All is now empty between my two arms; +Can I ever again lift them up in prayer? +Or whither on earth shall I betake me? +If I go and stay in the places of strangers,-- +I shall long for those where we lived together. +But if I betake me thither,-- +Ah, them, themselves I shall miss. + + Odin in Valhall I dare not beseech; +For him I forsook in days of childhood. +But the great new God in Gimle?-- +All that I had He has taken! + + Vengeance? Who speaks of vengeance? +Can vengeance the dead awaken, +Or cover me warm from the cold? +Find I in it a widow's seat sheltered, +Solace to cheer a childless mother? + + Away with your vengeance! Let me alone! +Lay him on the wagon, him and our son! +Come, we will follow them home. +That God in Gimle, new and fearful, who all has taken, +Let Him now also take vengeance! Well He knows how! +Drive slowly! For so drove Einar always; +--Soon enough we shall come home. + + The dogs to-day will not greet us gladly, +But drearily howl with drooping tails. +And lifting their heads the horses will listen; +Neighing they stand, the stable-door watching, +Eindride's voice awaiting. + + In vain for his voice will they hearken, +Nor hears the hall the step of Einar, +That called before him for all to arise and stand, +For now came their chieftain. + + Too large the house is; I will lock it; +Workmen, servants send away; +Sell the cattle and the horses, +Move far hence and live alone. + Drive slowly! +--Soon enough we shall come home. + + + +TO MY WIFE +(WITH A SET OF ROMAN PEARLS) +(See Note 12) + +Pray, take these pearls!--and my thanks for them +You lavished, the home of my youth to gem! +The thousands of hours of peaceful luster +Your spirit has filled, are pearls that cluster + With beauty blest + On my happy breast, + And softly shining + My brow are entwining +With thoughts whence the truth gleams: Thus gave his wife, +Who jeweled with tenderest love his life! + + + +IN A HEAVY HOUR +(See Note 13) + +Be glad when danger presses +Each power your soul possesses! + In greater strain + Your strength shall gain, +Till greater vict'ry blesses! +Supports may break in pieces, +Your friends may have caprices, + But you shall see, + The end will be, +Your need of crutches ceases. + --'T is clear, + Whom God makes lonely, +To him He comes more near. + + + +KAARE'S SONG +(FROM SIGURD SLEMBE) +(See Note 14) + + KAARE +What wakens the billows, while sleeps the wind? + What looms in the west released? +What kindles the stars, ere day's declined, + Like fires for death's dark feast? + + ALL + God aid thee here, our earl, + God aid thee here, our earl, + It is Helga, who comes unto Orkney. + + KAARE +What drives the fierce dragon to ride the foam, + While billows with blood are red? +The sea-fowl are shrieking, they seek their home, + And hover around my head. + + ALL + God aid thee here, our earl, + God aid thee here, our earl, + It is Helga, who comes unto Orkney. + + KAARE +What maiden so strange to the strand draws nigh, + In light with soft music nears? +What is it that makes all the flowers die, + What fills all your eyes with tears? + + ALL + God aid thee here, our earl, + God aid thee here, our earl, + It is Helga, who comes unto Orkney. + + + +IVAR INGEMUNDSON'S LAY +(FROM SIGURD SLEMBE) +(See Note 15) + +Wherefore have I longings, +When to live them strength is lacking? +And wherefore see I, +If I see but sorrow? + +Flight of my eye to the great and distant +Dooms it to gales of darkening doubt; +But fleeing backward to the present, +It's prisoned in pain and pity. + +For I see a land with no leader, +I see a leader with no land. +The land how heavy-laden +The leader how high his longing! + +Might the men but know it, +That he is here among them! +But they see a man in fetters, +And leave him to lie there. + +Round the ship a storm is raging, +At the rudder stands a fool. Who can save it? +He, who below the deck is longing, +Half-dead and in fetters. + +(Looking upward) + +Hear how they call Thee +And come with arms uplifted! +They have their savior at hand, +And Thou sayest it never? + +Shall they, then, all thus perish, +Because the one seems absent? +Wilt Thou not let the fool die, +That life may endure in many? + +What means that solemn saying: +_One_ shall suffer for many? +But many suffer for one. +Oh, what means it? + +The wisdom Thou gavest +Wearies me with guesswork. +The light Thou hast dealt me +Leads me to darkness. + +Not me alone, moreover, +But millions and millions! +Space unending spans not all the questions +From earth here and up toward heaven. + +Weakness cowers in walls of cloisters, +But wills of power press onward, +And thronging, with longing, +They thrust one another out of the lands.-- + +Whither? Before their eyes is night, +"In Nazareth a light is set!" one says aloud, +A hundred thousand say it; +All see it now: To Nazareth! + +But the half-part perish from hunger by the wayside, +The other half by the sword of the heathen, +The pest awaits the pilgrim in Nazareth,-- +Wast Thou there, or wast Thou not there? + +Oh, where art Thou? +The whole world now awakens, +And on the way is searching +And seeking after Thee! + +Or wast Thou in the hunger? +Wast Thou in the pest? +Wast Thou in the sword of the heathen? + +Saltest Thou with the salt of wrath? +Refinest Thou with suffering's fire? +Hast Thou millions of millions hidden in Thy future, +Whom Thou thus wilt save to freedom? + +Oh, to them are the thousands that now suffer +But _one_, +And that one I would beseech Thee for-- +Nothing! + +I follow a little brook +And find it leads to an ocean, +I see here a little drop, +And swelling in mist it mounts a mighty cloud. + +See, how I'm tossed so will-less +By troublous waves of doubt, +The wind overturned my little boat, +The wreck is all my refuge. + +Lead me, lead me, +I see nowhere land! +Lift me, lift me, +I nowhere footing find! + + + +MAGNUS THE BLIND +(FROM SIGURD SLEMBE) +(See Note 16) + +"Oh, let me look once again and see +Starlight the heavens o'ersweeping!" +Begged young Magnus on bended knee, +It was sore to see. +All the women afar were weeping. + +"Oh, till to-morrow! The mountains to see +And ocean its blue displaying, +Only once, and then let it be!" +Thus he bent the knee, +While his friends for mercy were praying. + +"Oh, in the church let God's blood so bright +Be the last blessing that greets me! +It shall bathe with a flood of light +Through eternal night +My eyes, when the darkness meets me!" + +Deep sank the steel, and each seeing eye +Lightning-like night had swallowed. +"Magnus, King Magnus, good-by, good-by!" +--"Oh, good-by, good-by,-- +You who eighteen summers me followed!" + + + + +SIN, DEATH +(FROM SIGURD SLEMBE) +(See Note 17) + +Sin and Death, those sisters two, + Two, two, +Sat together while dawned the morning. +Sister, marry! Your house will do, + Do, do, +For me, too, was Death's warning. + +Sin was wedded, and Death was pleased, + Pleased, pleased, +Danced about them the day they married; +Night came on, she the bridegroom seized, + Seized, seized, +And away with her carried. + +Sin soon wakened alone to weep, + Weep, weep. +Death sat near in the dawn of morning: +Him you love, I love too and keep, + Keep, keep. +He is here, was Death's warning. + + + + +FRIDA +(See Note 18) + +Frida, I knew that thy life-years were counted. +If but before thee a lifting thought mounted, +Upward thy gaze turned all wistful to view it, + As wouldst thou pursue it. + +Eyes that so clear saw the wonderful vision +Looked far away beyond earth's indecision. +Snow-white unfolded the pinions that later + Bore thee to the greater. + +Speaking or asking thou broughtest me sorrow; +Eyes thine and words thine seemed wanting to borrow +Clearness more pure and thoughts, victory gaining + Beyond my attaining. + +When thou wert dancing in all a child's lightness, +Shaking thy locks like a fountain in brightness, +Laughing till heaven was opened in gladness + Over thy gladness,-- + +Or when affliction in sternness had spoken, +So that thy heart in that moment seemed broken, +Far from thy thoughts in thy suffering riven + Were both earth and heaven,-- + +Then, oh, I saw then: thy joy and thy grieving +Ever the bounds of the mortal were cleaving. +All seems so little where silent we ponder,-- + But room they have yonder. + + + +BERGEN +(See Note 19) + + As thou sittest there + Skerry-bound and fair, +Mountains high around and ocean's deep before thee, + On thee casts her spell + _Saga_, that shall tell +Once again the wonders of our land. + + Honor is thy due, + "Bergen never new," +Ancient and unaging as thy Holberg's humor; + Once kings sought thine aid,-- + Mighty now in trade,-- +First to fly the flag of liberty. + + Oft in proud array, + As a sunshine-day +Breaks forth from thy rain and fog wind-driven, + Thou didst come with men + Or great deeds again, +When the clouds were darkest o'er our land. + + Thy soul was the ground, + Wit-enriched and sound, +Whence there sprang stout thoughts to make our country's harvest, + Whence our arts exist, + In their birth-hour kissed +By thy nature, somber, large, and strong. + + In thy mountain-hall + Learned our painter, _Dahl_; +Wand'ring on thy strands our poet dreamed, _Welhaven_; + All thy morning's gold + _Ole Bull_ ensouled, + Greeted on thy bay by all the world. + + With thy sea-wide sway + Thou hast might for aye, + Fjords of blue convey thy life-blood through our country. + Norway's spirit thou + Dost with joy endow,-- +Great thy past, no less thy future great. + + + +P. A. MUNCH +(1863) +(See Note 20) + +Many forms belong to greatness. +He who now has left us bore it +As a doubt that made him sleepless, +But at last gave revelation,-- +As a sight-enhancing power, +That gave visions joined with anguish +Over all beyond our seeing,-- +As a flight on labor's pinions +From the thought unto the certain, +Thence aloft to intuition,-- +Restless haste and changeful ardor, +God-inspired and unceasing, +Through the wide world ever storming, +Took its load of thoughts and doubtings, +Bore them, threw them off,--and took them, +Never tired, never listless. + + Still! for he had one haven of rest: + Family-life peace-bestowing! + Powers of light gave repose to his breast, + Calm 'mid the strife of his knowing. + + Softly with music his wife led him in + Unto the sweet-smelling birches! + Unto the flowers and still deeper in + Under the fir-forest's churches! + + Daughters drew near him in love secure + Cooling his forehead's hot fever; + Gently their message of innocence pure + Made him a childlike believer. + + Or he joined glad in their light-hearted game, + Colors and music surrounding,-- + Gone were the clouds, in the heavens came + Sparkling of star-light abounding. + +But as in an autumn evening +Silent, dreamy, dark, sheet-lightning +Wakens thought and feeling stormward,-- +Or as in a boat a sudden +Stroke when gliding as in slumber +On between the cliffs that tower +In a quiet, balmy spring night,-- +But a single stroke and soft, then +Echo takes it up and tosses +To and fro 'mid walls of mountains, +Thrush and grouse send forth their wood-calls +Deer rise up and listen keenly, +Stones are rolling, all are up now, +Dogs are barking, bells are clanging, +Ushering in the strife of daytime,-- +Thus could oft a recollection +Down-light falling in that playtime, +Waken all his thought and doubting! + + Then it roved the wide world over, +Then it hottest burned within him,-- +But it lavished light for others! + + Rise of races, spread of language, +Birth of names, all laws' close kinship, +Small and great in equal passion, +Equal haste and doubting goal-ward!-- +There where others stones saw only, +He saw precious gems that glistened, +Sunk his shaft the mine to deepen. +And where others thought the treasure +Sure and safe for years a hundred, +Doubt possessed him as he burrowed +Day and night -- and saw it vanish! +But the unrest that gave power +Made him oft the goal pass over; +While to others he gave clearness, +Intuitions new deceived him. +Therefore: where he once had striven, +Thither he would turn him never, +Changed his ground and shifted labor, +From his own thought-conquests fleeing. +But his thoughts pursued, untiring, +Followed, growing, as the fire, +Kindled in Brazilian forests, +Storm-wind makes and storm-wind follows! +Where before no foot had trodden, +Ways were burned for many millions! + + Northward stretches Scandinavia +'Mid the fog that dims the Ice-sea, +Darkness of the months of winter +Lays its weight on sea and mountain. +Like our lands are too our peoples. +Their beginnings prehistoric +Stretch afar in fog and darkness. +But as through the fog a lighthouse, +Or as Northern Lights o'er darkness, +Gleamed his thought with light and guidance. +When with filial fond remembrance +Tenderly he sought and questioned, +Searching for his people's pathways-- +Names and graves and rusty weapons, +Stones and tools their answer gave him. +Through primeval Asian forests, +Over steppes and sands of deserts, +'Neath a thousand years that moldered, +Saw he caravan-made footsteps +Seek a new home in the Northland. +And as they the rivers followed, +Followed them his thought abundant, +Into Nature's All full-flowing.-- + + See his restless soul's creation! +Harmony of truth he yearned for, +Found it not, but wonder-working +New discoveries and pathways, +--Like those alchemists aforetime +Who, though gold was all their seeking, +Found not that, but mighty forces, +Which to-day the world are moving.-- + + *** + + Deepest ground of all his being +Was the polar power of contrast, +For his thought, to music wakened +By the touch of _Northern Saga_, +Vibrated melodious longing, +Toward the _South_ forever tending. +In his eye the lambent fire, +Of his thought the glint, showed kinship +With the free improvisator +In the land of warmth and vineyards. +And his swiftly changing feeling +And his all-consuming ardor, +That could toil the livelong winter +Till caprice the fruit discarded,-- +That immeasurable richness +Wherein thoughts and moods and music, +Joy and sorrow, jest and earnest, +Gleamed and played without cessation,-- +All a Southern day resembled! + + Therefore was his life a journey, +Towards the South in constant movement,-- +Through the mists of intuition, +From the darker to the brighter, +From the colder to the warmer,-- +On the bridge of ceaseless labor +Bearing over sea and mountain! + + Oh, the time with wife beside him +And his bonny playmate-sisters +(Gladsome children, winsome daughters), +When he stood, where evening sunshine +Glowed on Capitol and Forum,-- +Stood where from the great world-city, +As from history's very fountain, +Knowledge wells in streams of fullness;-- +Where a clearness large and cloudless +Falls upon the bygone ages +That have laid them down to rest here;-- +Where to him, the Northern searcher, +It would seem, he had been straying +Too long lost in history's fogland, +Rowing round the deep fjords' surface;-- +Stood where dead men burst the earth-clods +And themselves come forth for witness +In their heavy marble togas;-- +Where the goddesses of Delos +In the frescoed halls are dancing, +As two thousand years before now;-- +Pantheon and Coliseum +In their spacious fate have sheltered +All the world's swift evolution;-- +Where a Hermes from that corner +Saw the footsteps firm of Cato, +Pontifex in the procession,-- +Saw then Nero as Apollo +Lifted up take sacrifices, +Saw then Gregory, the wrathful, +Riding forth to rule in spirit +Over all the known world's kingdoms,-- +Saw then Cola di Rienzi +Homage pay to freedom's goddess +'Mid the Roman people's paeans,-- +Saw Pope Leo and his princes +Choose instead of the Lord Jesus +Aristotle dead and Plato;- +Saw again how stouter epochs +Raised the Church of Papal power, +Till the Frenchman overthrew it +And exalted Nature's Godhead; +Saw anew then wonted custom +In its pious, still processions +With a Lamb the great world's ruler!-- +All this saw the little Hermes +On the corner near the temple, +And the wise man from the Northland +Saw that Hermes and his visions. + + Yes, when over Rome he stood there +In that high, historic clearness, +And his eye the mountain-ridges +Followed toward the red of evening,-- +Then all beams of longing focused +In a blessed intuition, +And -- he saw a church before him +Greater far than that of nature, +And he felt a peace descending, +Larger far than all the present. + + When the second time he came there, +After days and nights of labor, +Hard as were it for redemption,-- +Then the Lord Himself gave welcome, +Led him gently thither, saying: +"Peace be with thee! Thou hast conquered!" + + But to us with sorrow stricken +Turned the Lord with comfort, saying: +"When _I_ call, who then dares murmur, +That the called man had not finished?" + + Whoso dies, he here had finished! +Spite our sorrow we believe it, +Hold that He, who unrest giveth +(The discoverer's disquiet, +That drove Newton, drove Columbus), +Also knows when rest is needed. + + But we question, while reviewing +All that mighty thought-armada +Now disbanded, home-returning: +Who again shall reunite it? + + For when _he_ cut his war-arrow, +Lords and liegemen soon were mustered, +And to aid from Sweden, Denmark, +England, France, swift-flying vessels +Coursed the sea-ways toward his standard. + + Royal was that fleet and mighty, +By our shore at anchor lying; +We were wont to see it near us +Or to hear the wondrous tidings +Of its cruises and its conquests. + + What it won we own forever; +But the fleet is sailing homeward. +Here we stand the last sail watching +As it sinks on the horizon. +Then we turn and breathe the question: +Who again shall reunite it? + + + +KING FREDERIK THE SEVENTH +(1863) +(See Note 21) + +Our King is bereft of a trusty friend! + And in dismay +We lower our banners and sad attend + On his burial day. +But Denmark, in sorrow most deep thou waitest, +For fallen the life that was warmest, greatest, + And fallen the tower + Of mightiest power. +Bewailing the death of their kingly chief, + Men voice their grief. + +For Denmark's salvation the man was born + Who now is dead. +When banished in youth from the court in scorn, + To his people he fled. +There throve he right well, there grew he together +With peasants and sailors in foul and fair weather, + While fullness of living + Its schooling was giving; +When ready for Denmark was laid the snare, + Then he was there! + +Now soon it was plain, he was peasant-skulled + For their tricks; and hence +The traitors' shrewd schemings were all annulled + By his bit of sense. +He knew but one thing;--what his people thought them, +And therefore in danger he freedom brought them. + The whole was his vision, + He would no scission; +His words were but few, and of these the key: + "It shall not be!" + +He stood by the helm like a sailor good, + In no storm remiss; +Of praise the tribute he never would, + But he shall have _this_! +The ship to the North he unswerving directed,-- +In storm or in fog, exposed or protected;-- + And fear allaying, + All folk were saying: +"He isn't so stupid as people tell, + For all goes well!" + +"On deck every man!" was his last command, + "There's storm again!" +When answered the cry from the mast-head: "Land!" + Oh, then, just then, +Were loosed from the helm the true hands that were steering, +In death he sank down, while the ship began veering-- + No, never veering! + To the course adhering! +Now, Denmark, united, with all thy force + Hold straight his course! + +He made it his honor, in line to stand, + No rank to know; +But shoulder to shoulder to lend a hand, + And pride forego. +They gather now fruit of his faithful training: +Well drilled, every man at his post is straining. + The course is steady, + For tried and ready +Is many a helmsman, and all their will + Is "Northward still!" + +Naught else can they do now, but with good cheer + Hold out they must, +Stand guard in the darkness and have no fear, + In God their trust. +It is sultry and silent, and yearning in sorrow +All breathless they listen and wait for the morrow,-- + 'T is time for waiting, + Till, night abating, +The eastern sky reddens and bright dawn speeds + The day of deeds! + + + +TO SWEDEN +(DECEMBER 28, 1863) +(See Note 22) + +Lift thou thine ancient yellow-blue! + Aloft the front must show it. +The German's slow to take the cue, + But seeing that he'll know it. + +He'll know that greater danger's near + Than ink on Bismarck's trousers; +That it will cost him doubly dear, + Men, horses, bovine browsers; + +That ten years' nonsense now is done, + The daily quarrel dirty +Will soon become a war with one + Who held his own for thirty; + +The Northland's stubborn folk allied + Their forces are uniting, +With glorious memories to guide, + The Northern heavens lighting; + +That great Gustavus once again + To battle glad is riding, +But now _against_ the Southern men + _With_ Christian Fourth is siding,-- + +With Haakon Earl the times of old + Round Palnatoki gather; +Near Charles the Twelfth stands Tordenskjold, + Placid, and smiling rather,-- + +That we, who have so well known how + To fight against each other, +Shall not exactly scorn earn now, + When brother stands with brother. + +But forward _thou_ the way must lead + With stirring drum-beats' rattle, +Thy marching-step we all must heed, + Thou 'rt known on fields of battle. + +That ancient Swedish melody, + Renowned in world-wide glory, +Not merely for the heart's deep plea + In Jenny's travel-story,-- + +But for the solemn earnestness + To Lützen's battle calling, +And for the daring strains no less, + That rang at Narwa's falling,-- + +The song thou sang'st the North t' inspire + With virtue and with power, +_The three must with united choir + Lift up this very hour!_ + +It now must bear aloft a hymn, + The call of God proclaiming; +Pictures of blood its lines shall limn, + Drawn bold in letters flaming,-- + +Its name shall be: "The Free North's Hymn!" + Of all the hymns thou voicest, +Whose glory time shall never dim, + It shall be first and choicest. + + + +OUR FOREFATHERS +(JANUARY 13, 1864) +(See Note 23) + +High memories with power + Shine through the wintry North +On every peak's white tower, + On Kattegat so swarth. +All is so still and spacious, ` + The Northern Lights flow free, +Creating bright and gracious + A day of memory. + +Each deed the North defending, + Each thought for greater might, +A star-like word is sending + Down through the frosty night! +To hope they call and boldness, + And call with double cheer +To him, defying coldness, + On guard the Eider near. + +No anxious shadows clouding, + No languid, lukewarm mist +Our heaven of mem'ries shrouding, + This eve of battle-tryst! +May, as of yore, while ringing + The bells unseen loud swelled, +Come leaders vict'ry bringing, + Whom th' army ne'er beheld. + + + +WHEN NORWAY WOULD NOT HELP +(EASTER EVE, 1864) +(See Note 24) +When Kattegat now or the Belt you sail, + No more will you sight +The Danish proud frigate, no more will you hail + The red and white; +No more will the ringing command be heard + In Wessel's tongue, +No rollicking music, no jocund word, + 'Neath Dannebrog sung. +No dance will you see, no laughter meet, + As the white sails shine, +From mast and from stern no garland you greet, + Of arts the sign. +But all that we owned of the treasures on board + The deeps now hold; +One sad winter night to the sea-waves were poured + Our memories old. + +It was that same night, when the frigate nigh + To Norway's land +Distress-guns was firing, the surf running high + With sea-weed and sand. +To help from the harbor men put out boats, + But they turn back, ... +The frigate toward Germany drifting floats, + A broken wrack! +What once had been ours overboard was strown, + Each kinship mark +Was quickly removed, to the sea it was thrown + With curses stark! +The Northern lion, that figure-head gray, + Now had to fall, +In pieces 'twas hewn, and the frigate lay + Like a shattered wall. + ... +Repaired and refitted, its canvas it spread + Near Germany's coast, +With black-yellow flag and an eagle dread + In the lion's post. +When sailing we Kattegat sweep with our eyes, + 'T is still evermore. +But a German admiral's frigate lies + Near Scania's shore. + + + +DANIEL SCHJÖTZ +(DIED OF OVER-EXERTION AS VOLUNTEER MILITARY-SURGEON, 1864) + +He gave heed to no Great Power + But the one that God we call. +Hastening on to death's high hour, + He before asked not the Gaul, +Nor the Briton, nor the others, + If he too had leave to die +In the battle of his brothers + Underneath the Danish sky. + First to act with ardor youthful, + First a strong, clear faith to show, + First to swear in spirit truthful, + First o'er death's dark bridge to go. + +Knowing not, in times so trying + None would come but he alone, +Thus he struggled, death defying, + For the sacred things we own. +He of thousands here remaining + Single would the name redeem, +Sank then with his zeal unwaning + Down beneath death's silent stream. +First of souls in hope believing, + Freedom's right 'gainst wrong to wield, +First warm drop, full-flowing, cleaving, + Of our blood on Denmark's shield. + + + +TO THE DANNEBROG +(WHEN DYBBÖL WAS CAPTURED) +(See Note 25) + +Dannebrog of old was seeming + _Snow-white, rosy red,_ +Through the mists of ages beaming, + Heaven's gift outspread, +Rich as fruits of Denmark's planting, +Grand as song of heroes chanting, +Spirit-winged to deeds of daring + O'er the wide world faring. + +Dannebrog, thou now art seeming + _Death-pale, bloody red,_ +Like a dying sea-gull gleaming + White with blood o'erspread. +Purple tides the wounds are showing +From thy faith in justice flowing; +Denmark, bear the cross, thy burden + Honor is thy guerdon! + +TOAST FOR THE MEN OF EIDSVOLD +(MAY 17, 1864) +(See Note 26) + +'Twas then this land of ours we drew +From centuries of ice and sorrow, +And let it of the sun's warmth borrow, +And law and plow brought order new; +We dug the wealth in mountain treasured, +Our stately ships the oceans measured, +And springtime thoughts were free to run +As round the Pole the midnight sun. + +And still with God we'll conquer, hold: +Each plot reclaimed for harvest-reaping, +Each ship our sea takes to its keeping, +Each child-soul we to manhood mold, +Each spark of thought our life illuming, +Each deed to fruit of increase blooming,-- +A province adds unto our land +And o'er our freedom guard shall stand. + + + +THE NORRÖNA-RACE +(NOVEMBER 4, 1864) + +Norröna-race's longing, + It was the sea's free wave, +And fight of heroes thronging, + And honor that it gave; +Their thoughts and deeds upspringing + From roots in Surtr's fire, +With branches topward swinging + To Yggdrasil aspire. + +His course alone each guided, + Oft brother-harm was done; +Our vict'ries were divided, + The honor gained was one. +Each heard his call time-fated, + First Norway, Denmark, came, +The Swede the longest waited, + But greatest grew his fame. + +In eastern, western regions + The Danish dragons shone, +To Norway's roving legions + Jerusalem was known. +From sparks the Swedish spirit + Struck forth in Poland's night, +Through Lützen must inherit + Full half the world its light. + +First Norseman, Dane, agreeing + In trying times were found, +But Saga's will far-seeing + By little men was bound; +Then Norseman, Swede, agreeing, + Time in its fullness found, +And Saga's will far-seeing + Shall nevermore be bound. + +There is prophetic power + In longing hearts of men, +Foretells our union's hour ' + For great deeds once again. +Each festival so glorious + To solemn vows us draws: +Forever be victorious + Our blood's, our race's cause! + + + +HYMN OF THE PURITANS +(FROM MARIA STUART) + +Arm me, Lord, my strength redouble, +Heaven open, heed my trouble! +God, if my cause Thine shall be, +Grant a day of victory! +Fell all Thy foes now! +Fell all Thy foes now! +Roll forth Thy thunders, Thy lightning affright them, +Into the pit, the bottomless, smite them, + Their seed uproot, + Tread under foot! +Send then Thy snowy white dove peace-bringing, +Unto Thy faithful Thy token winging, +Olive-branch fair of Thy summer's fruition +After the deluge of sin's punition! + + + +HUNTING SONG +(FROM MARIA STUART) + +Round us rolls the heather's sheen, + Heather's sheen, +'Neath the falcon of our queen, + Of our queen. + +Birch and cherry balm exhale, + Balm exhale, +Loud our horns the cliffs assail, + Cliffs assail. + +Light the air and clear the sky, + Clear the sky,-- +Hurrah! onward, she is nigh, + She is nigh. + +Hunt ye joy with every breath, + Every breath, +Hunt it to the stream of death, + Stream of death! + + + +TAYLOR'S SONG +(FROM MARIA STUART) + +For joys the hours of earth bestow + With sorrow thou must pay. +Though many follow close, yet know, + They're loaned but for a day. +With sighing in thy laughter's stead + Shall come a time of grief, +The load of usury bow thy head, + With loss of thy belief. + Mary Anne, Mary Anne, + Mary Anne, Mary Anne, +Hadst thou not smiled upon me, thou, +I were not weeping now. + +May God help him who never can + Give only half his soul; +The time comes surely for that man + To take the sorrow whole. +May God help him who was so glad, + That he cannot forget, +Help him who lost the all he had, + But not his reason yet. + Mary Anne, Mary Anne, + Mary Anne, Mary Anne, +The flowers that my life had grown, +Died out when thou went gone. + + + + +LECTOR THAASEN +(See Note 27) + +I read once of a flower that lonely grew, +Apart, with trembling stem and pale of hue; +The mountain-world of cold and strife + Gave little life + And less of color. + +A botanist the flower chanced to see +And glad exclaimed: Oh, this must sheltered be, +Must seed produce, renewing birth, + In sun-warmed earth + Become a thousand. + +But as he dug and drew it from the ground, +Strange glitterings upon his hands he found; +For to its roots clung dust of golden hue; + The flower grew + On golden treasure! + +And from the region wide came all the youth +To see the wonder; they divined the truth: +Here lay their country's future might; + A ray of light + From God that flower!-- + +This I recall now even while I mourn; +The Lord of life has lifted him and borne +From mountain-cold and wintry air + To fruitage fair + In warmth eternal. + +For where the roots were of that life replete, +What gleams and glitters! See, they ran to meet +The shafts of wisdom's goodly mines, + The gold that shines + In veins of God's thought. + +Now he is lifted up, to light are brought +The riches he to guard so faithful sought. +The treasures of our past are there, + And glintings rare + Of future riches. + +Come, Norway's youth! Unearth to use the hoard +That round this heaven-borne flower's roots was stored! +To you his message! Hear and heed! + Achieve in deed + His dream and longing! + + + + +DURING A JOURNEY IN SWEDEN +(See Note 28) + +My boyish heart in thee confided, + For to the great by thee 't was guided. +As man, my waiting is for thee,-- + _The Northern cause with thee, with thee!_ + +Rich lands and talents are thy dower, +But fallow lie thy wealth and power. +_Thou must the North in concord bind, +Or never shalt thy true self find._ + +There's longing in thy folk arisen, +Poetic hope--but yet in prison. +Though forces great within thee dwell, +Thou art not wholly sound and well. + +Too many things are undertaken, +Too oft the task is soon forsaken. +Though rich in promptings of the heart, +In faith and duty faint thou art. + +In danger only hast thou thriven, +When something great to guard was given. +When every breast with warmth shall glow +At Sweden's name, thy strength thou'lt know. + +What's thine alone lifts not thy feeling, +Till honor's cause the skies are pealing, +Thou hast no joy but daring deed +In fortune's favor or in need. + +For thy fair memories inspiring +Are far too great, much more requiring: +_The Northern cause! Lead thou the way! +'T will double glory thee repay!_ + +Of all thou canst, this is the greatest, +Thy duty earliest and latest. +Thy future rests in its embrace +With cure for ills that now abase. + +Thou land of heart-born fancies thronging, +Thou land of poetry and longing, +Fill now thy heart, thy spirit free! +_The Northern banner waits for thee!_ + + + +THE TRYST + + Silent I'm biding, + While softly gliding +Sink the still hours to eternity's sleep. + My fancies roaming + List in the gloaming:-- +Will she the trysting now keep? + + Winter is dreaming, + Bright stars are beaming, +Smiling their light through its cloud-veil they pour, + Summer foretelling + Sweet love compelling;-- +Dare she not meet me here more? + + 'Neath the ice lying, + Longing and sighing, +Ocean would wander and warmer lands woo. + Anchored ships swinging, + Sail-thoughts outflinging;-- +Come we together, we two! + + Whirling and fallings + Pictures enthralling, +Fairy-light made in the forest the snow; + Wood-folk are straying, + Shadows are playing;-- +Was it your footstep? Oh, no! + + Courage is failing, + Hoar frost assailing +Boughs of your longing surrounds with its spell. + But I dare enter, + Break to the center, +Where in dream-fetters you dwell. + + + + +SONG FOR THE STUDENTS' GLEE CLUB +(See Note 29) + +Now, brothers, sing out our song, +Whose train of light shall follow long! + With love are its measures beating + And victory's joyous greeting, +While round about it flower-seeds +In will of youth shall grow to deeds! + +Our song has gone far and. wide, +Bright mem'ries on our way abide, + In flags flying, friends that love us, + In wreaths from fair hands above us, +In feasts where youth's full spirits stream, +Our nation's past, our nation's dream. + +At _Hald_ on a sunny day +That shot-torn flag of many a fray + Was waving above our singing, + Soul-fire to our music bringing, +The ardor of that glorious band, +Who died as heroes for our land. + +To _Arendal_ our summer-way +"For might and fame!"--remember aye! + The fleet on the bay was riding, + Our singer-ship through it gliding. +Our merchant-ships shall rule the wave! +This joyous hoisting-song we gave. + +We gathered in _Bergen_ town +Of ancient and of new renown. + The horns of our fathers greet us, + King Sverre comes forth to meet us; +But fresh and full the present spoke +In heartfelt song from all its folk. + +_Upsala, Copenhagen, Lund,_ +In each our song its garland won, + Fair fetters of music winding, + Harmonious the Northland binding; +Our mighty choral theme shall be +_The Northern races' unity._ + +With courage, then, onward roam! +Where echo answers is our home. + Our past that we sing draws nearer, + Our future in song grows clearer, +E'en while we wander hand in hand +And summer sing into our land. + + + ++ +MRS. LOUISE BRUN +(JANUARY 30, 1866) +(See Note 30) + + CHORUS + _(Behind the scenes)_ + Farewell, farewell, +From friends, from all, from fatherland! +Your soul's calm power is from us riven, +Your words, your song, to spirit's praise +In art's glad temple given. + + CHORUS OF MEN +We thank you that with youthful fire +You came the doubting to inspire, +Who anxious stood with strength untried! + + + CHORUS OF WOMEN +We thank you that in morning-dawn +Your woman's tact and aid were drawn +Our boisterous youthful art to guide! + + ALL +Thanks for the spring of your life's year, +Thanks for the tones so sweet and clear, +Thanks for the tints of pearly hue, +That colored all you touched anew. +For all your noble life on earth, + Thanks, thanks! +And that you gave our calling worth, + Thanks, thanks! + + EPILOGUE + 'T is but a short time since we saw pass by +A picture drawn from life, austere and dark, +A soul in servitude to strong desires; +And all its life in prison-labor spent. +Although religion prays and sings its hymns, +And poetry and art their sunshine spread, +That soul in slavery toils, till white the hair. + + She, in whose memory we gather here, +Was early made to feel by hard conditions, +That clouded life and rudely barred her soul,-- +How men and women live as toiling slaves! +And she rebelled against this servitude; +Great powers have birth to longings for the light; +_Freedom she craved, that others she might free!_ +With restless spirit outward went her quest +To people, books; but thoughtful she became, +As one whose search was vain; reserved and shy, +As one whose courage fails;--until one day +_He_, who from fairy-tale and hero-legend +That wondrous bow received of magic might, +Stood up and to the vale and mountain played: +"Come forth, come from our nation's heart-deep forth, +Creative might, that in our nation's morning +Didst lift its image up to dread, to greatness, +In myths of Asas fair and giants grim! +As mountain-walls lean o'er their own reflection, +In that thought-ocean we our life could see, +With spring, with winter, and with spring again. +Thou gav'st our image oft in song and story, +In times of darkness and in times of light; +Our image meets us wheresoe'er we go,-- +But yet our nation sees it not, nor looks +Up from its toiling thoughts and dull routine!-- +Oh, wake it, lift it, _make it see itself!_ +Then shall it put to use the powers it owns!" + + And living echoes answered! Lo, there swarmed +Elves of the Stage about him, as he played! +They made the lamps to burn, and reared the grotto, +They brought and brushed the costumes Holberg knew, +And in them played their pranks 'neath powdered wigs,-- +Roamed on the mountains of a summer night +And stole the saeter-maiden while she slept, +And filled with mortal fear the aged wooer! +They danced the goblin-dance in dusk of winter, +Played hide-and-seek with their own shadows; +They snared the hypocrite in his own sighs, +In his own web the pettifogger bound; +They scattered wide the hoard a miser gathered, +They tripped and threw the petty parish-pope +They saved the tears of innocence seduced +And on the altar laid as lustrous pearls; +They melted hatred in the ice-hard breast, +It fell as rain upon the enemy's fields; +They bound the slanderer, Mazeppa-like, +Upon the back of his wild calumnies;-- +The crafty man of stealthy selfishness +They set afloat within an open boat;-- +But one who freely gave himself, his all, +They bore to heaven upon their joyous laughter. +They drew the magic ring round those who loved, +And to the altar led the blushing pair. +They brought heroic forms from barrows old +To tower in might among the teeming present. +--There was not one could longer rest in peace; +Himself, his folly, all our country's need, +Wholeness victorious, halfness doomed to fail, +The power of honest faith, the wreck of doubt,-- +All this our nation saw in its own image, +When strongly lighted on the Stage 't was set.-- + + And she was part of this! The first full tone +Thrilled her breast too and woke a thousand mem'ries +Of something that she ne'er before had known! +On that first evening, when the curtain rose, +With timid step one clad in white came forth +And begged for Norway's art, for our young drama +A home in Norway,--but with so great fear, +The gentle voice was trembling, dim the eyes; +Yet from the voice, the eyes, the form, the bearing +Was heard a promise in sweet modesty; +For she who spoke those first words on this Stage, +That maiden dark with eyes so deep and true, +Lo, it was she! + + And soon her art shone clear +And softly radiant through the evening hours.-- +With fairy lightness fell its magic gleams +On hidden longings, sorrows half-concealed,-- +But gently, tenderly. If joy she touched, +'T was always softly. But we all could feel +A stream of power so full, that if she had +In an unguarded hour let it flow free +With all its deep and swelling tide sincere, +It would have borne herself from earth away. + + In truth, the calmness of her course through life +Was never weakness, but was strength controlled; +Was never fear, but veneration deep +For those whose souls are great: a model she +For noble women as for forceful men,-- +This wreath we weave for her pure memory. + + But what she thus had early taught herself, +She taught to others. When upon the stage +She stood, depicting woman's painful conflict +With rudeness, violence, and wild desire, +Then,--though she wielded but a woman's weapons, +Her silent dignity, her subtle smile, +Her light derision, all-subduing laughter,-- +A spirit-dawn gleamed from their flashing play, +To usher in a day of victory. +She barriers raised around the woman weak +(Down-trodden in a half-built social order), +She stood forth here so many an evening-hour +And talked to thousands of a woman's worth. +though her call was not fully to free +All that a woman's heart may hope and dream, +She shielded it secure in all its beauty. + +This conflict made her reticent, severe;-- +But sometimes in a song her spirit could +Send forth glad tidings, messages of freedom, +Her large free soul revealing. _Then_ we heard +Such longing after full, unbroken peace, +Our thoughts were captive held by sad foreboding.-- + + 'T is now come true!--The crape of mourning droops +About her name, the tolling bell is still. +Her final summons gather us once more +Before her stage, and here our thanks we utter +For what she gave us. So as _she_ had given, +Has no one given. She gave of her sorrow, +With bleeding heart beneath her winsome smile. +She shared with us the tears her conflict brought, +The radiant glory of her victory. + + Thanks, prayer-borne thanks, you noble soul, +From all your brothers, from your sisters all! +From Norway's youthful art enduring thanks! +From women to their pure interpreter +Farewell and thanks!--From all those whom you lifted +On pinions of the spirit high to beauty +Once more a wreath is brought,--it is the last. + + _(Laying it before the bust)_ +Now God in His bright heaven makes you glad, +And we will make you glad with good remembrance. + + CHORUS + _(Behind the scenes, softly)_ + Farewell, farewell! + Now in your grave + No want is known; + But what you gave, + We ever own. + Your spirit's seed + Shall blossom here, + Bear fruit in deed, + And sad hearts cheer. + + + +TO JOHAN DAHL, BOOKDEALER +(ON HIS SIXTIETH BIRTHDAY) +(See Note 31) + +Our glasses we lift now and drink to our host! + "Hurrah!" +Give heed to our ditty, we sing you our toast! + "Aha!" +The first thing appearing is what he was nearing, +When uproar not fearing he came for a hearing + 'Fore skerry-bred eagle + And Wergeland regal. + Oh! Ha! + +He came like an innocent spring-lambkin ewe-born, + Oh, woe! +So neat and so fine in his guilelessness new-born + Like snow. +The flesh so delicious was chopped up to farce-meat, +And later by Wergeland found for a farce meet, + And gayly 't was swallowed, + And all the bones hollowed + And strown. + +But swift as Thor's he-goats to life again skipping, + He sprang +Whole skinned together, and gave them a whipping + That rang. +This made him seem worthy to join the gay party, +At once they received him in fellowship hearty! + And soon was no other + More loved as a brother + Than Dahl. + +The light from his shop spread afar and made brighter + Our day. +His drawing-room gathered so many a fighter + In play. +Our taste there was made and our critical passion, +The shop was a power, new Norway to fashion. + Though little, its story + Shall some time in glory + Be writ. + +For what you have kindled, endured, and aspired, + Our thanks! +For hearts you have gladdened and souls you have fired, + Our thanks! +For all your good faith in your fervor and ranting, +Yes, for your whole-heartedness free from all canting, + You whimsical, queer one, + Old fellow, you dear one, + Our thanks! + + + +TO SCULPTOR BORCH +(ON HIS FIFTIETH BIRTHDAY) +(See Note 32) + +With friends you stalwart stand and fair, +To-day of fifty years the heir; +The past your works rejoicing praise, +But forward goes your gaze. +Your childlike faith, your spirit true, +Your hand that never weary grew, +A home's sweet music, love of wife, +Make ever young your life. + +You dared believe with heart alive +That here in Norway art can thrive. +You forced the hardness of our stones +To harmony of tones. +You laid our wild world's secrets bare +And caught "The Hunter" near the lair. +Our nation's moods, of beauty born, +Your "Girl with Eggs" adorn. + +As o'er a slope's snow-covered brow +A youth came swiftly flying now, +You saw him, raised your hand, and lo! +He stood there, chiseled snow. +But your "Ski-runner's" courage good, +It was your own, when forth you stood +Art's champion by the world unawed, +And with your faith in God. + +You won your victory supreme +Through rock-like faith and will's full stream +While with unnumbered hours of rest +Your love has others blessed. +Were all now here from west and east +Whose hearts you own, oh, what a feast! +From Akershus the convicts e'en +Would bear a freeman's mien. + +Now we whose lives with good you filled +For you to-day a palace build, +On heights of heart's-ease lifting square +Its golden tower of prayer. +In peace you oft shall dwell in it, +Whene'er you need to rest a bit, +And feel through them who hold you dear +Yourself to heaven near. + +Long since our country to you gave +The meed of thanks that most you crave; +It gave a maid with golden hair, +Its springtime's image fair. +She came from where the fairies dwell, +With nixie's charm and wood-nymph's spell, +With peace all holy, sweet, and calm, +To sing of life the psalm. + +So may your life yet long endure +To light our gland, your home secure! +May all that from your heart you gave, +Still blossom on your grave! +May God's protecting mercy hold +Your spirit ever fresh and bold,-- +May He to genius oft impart +Just such a mind and heart! + + + +THE SPINNER + + Oh, what was it he meant +By his question as he went? + "I am making a loom, +'T will be up in April's bloom; + If you think it may be, + Spin for me!" + + Oh, what shall I believe? +Does he think himself to weave? + And the yarn that I spin, +Lo, he thinks to weave it in? + And so soon as the Spring + Flowers shall bring? + + And he laughed when he'd done; +Oh, he is so full of fun. + Dare I trust all my skein +To so young and wild a swain?-- + May God help to bind in + All I spin! + + + + +THE WHITE ROSE AND THE RED ROSE + +The white rose and the red rose, +So sisters two were named, yes, named. +The white one was so quiet, +The red one laughed and flamed. +But different was their doing, yes, +When came the time of wooing, yes. +The white one turned so red, so red, +The red one turned so white. + +For him the red one favored, +Him father would not bless, not bless. +But him the white one favored, +He got at once his "Yes." +The red one now was paling, yes, +With sorrow, psalms, and wailing, yes. +The white one turned so red, so red, +The red one turned so white. + +Then father grew so fearful +And had to give his "Yes," oh, yes! +With songs and music cheerful +The wedding rang, oh, yes! +And soon sprang children rosen, yes, +In shoes and little hosen, yes. +The red one's, they were white,--and oh, +The white one's, they were red. + + + +YOUTH + Mood of youth, + Mood of youth, +Eagle-like must seek the blue, +Dauntlessly its course pursue, +All the mountain-heights must view. + Blood of youth, + Blood of youth, +Steam-like puts full-speed to sea, +E'en though storm and ice there be, +Makes its way and romps in glee. + Dream of youth, + Dream of youth, +Rogue-like stealing sets its snare +In the maiden's morning-prayer; +All the springtime, fragrant, glowing, +In its airy waves is flowing. + Joy of youth, + Joy of youth, +Waterfall-like foams in truth, +Laughing, rainbow-gifts forth flashing, +Even while to death 't is dashing. + Joy of youth, + Dream of youth, + Blood of youth, + Mood of youth, +Clothe the world with colors golden, +Singing songs that never olden. + + + +THE BLONDE MAIDEN + +Though _she_ depart, a vision flitting, + If I these thoughts in words exhale: +I love you, you blonde maiden, sitting + Within your pure white beauty's veil. + I love you for your blue eyes dreaming, + Like moonlight moving over snow, + And 'mid the far-off forests beaming + On something hid I may not know. + +I love this forehead's fair perfection + Because it stands so starry-clear, +In flood of thought sees its reflection + And wonders at the image near. + I love these locks in riot risen + Against the hair-net's busy bands; + To free them from their pretty prison + Their sylphs entice my eyes and hands. + +I love this figure's supple swinging + In rhythm of its bridal song, +Of strength and life-joy daily singing + With youthful yearnings deep and long. + I love this foot so lightly bearing + The glory of sure victory + Through youth's domain of merry daring + To meet first-love that hers shall be. + +I love these hands, these lips enchanting, + With them the God of love's allied, +With them the apple-prize is granting, + But guards them, too, lest aught betide. + I love you and must say it ever, + Although you heed not what you've heard, + But flee and answer: maidens never + May put their trust in poet's word. + + + +THE FIRST MEETING +(FROM THE FISHER MAIDEN) + +The first fond meeting holy +Is like the woodbirds' trilling, +Is like a sea-song thrilling, +When red the sun sinks slowly,-- +Is like a horn on mountain, +That wakes time's sleep thereunder +And summons to life's fountain +To meet in nature's wonder. + + + +GOOD-MORNING +(FROM THE FISHER MAIDEN) + +Day's coming up now, joy's returned, +Sorrow's dark cloud-castles captured and burned; +Over the mountain-tops glowing +Light-king his armies is throwing. +"Up now, up now!" calls the bird, +"Up now, up now!" child-voice heard, +Up now my hope in sunshine. " + + + +MY FATHERLAND +(FROM THE FISHER MAIDEN) + + I will fight for my land, + I will work for my land, +Will it foster with love, in my faith, in my child. + I will eke every gain, + I will seek boot for bane, +From its easternmost bound to the western sea wild. + + Here is sunshine enough, + Here is seed-earth enough, +If by us, if by us all love's duty were done. + Here is will to create; + Though our burdens be great, +We can lift up our land, if we all lift as one. + + In the past we went wide + O'er the sea's surging tide, +And the Norman's high walls stand on many a shore. + But our flag flies its way + Ever farther to-day +And is red with life's vigor as never before. + + Great our future shall be; + For the Northern lands three +Shall unite once again and their true selves shall know. + Give your strength and your deed, + Where you nearest see need, +As a brook to the river that forward shall flow. + + Yes, this land where we dwell, + Oh, we love it so well, +All was, all it is, all it can be again. + As our love had its birth + In this homeland's dear earth, +Shall the seed of our love bring it increase again. + + + +CHOICE +(See Note 33) + +April for me I choose! +In it the old things tumble, +In it things new refresh us; +It makes a mighty rumble,-- +But peace is not so precious +As that his will man shows. + +April for me I choose, +Because it storms and scourges, +Because it smiles and blesses, +Because its power purges, +Because it strength possesses,-- +_In it the summer grows._ + + + + +NORWEGIAN SEAMEN'S SONG +(FOR THE STAVANGER REGATTA, 1868) +(See Note 34) + +Norwegian seamen are +A folk grown strong 'neath sail and spar; +Where boats can find a way, +The best men there are they. +On high seas or at home, +In calm or when the storm-waves comb, +To God their prayer they make, +Their lives they gladly stake. + +Incessant is their strife, +They wage with death a war for life, +And dear their souls they sell +In conflicts none can tell. +All that is commonplace +In history seldom leaves its trace, +And often none is there, +The tidings home to bear. + +But fishing-boats in need +Have shown so many a daring deed +Of courage fine and skill, +Though unrecorded still. +And many a seaman's head +A wreath of sea-weed wore when dead, +Whose name should shine in gold +Among great heroes bold. + +Saint Olaf's Cross's praise +Would on that pilot fitly blaze +Who saved a hundred men, +And hundred once again. +To many a boy so young, +Who riding home to boat's keel clung, +His father set on board, +We honor should accord. + +In Norway's mountain-coast +Our land's own mother-breast we boast, +With food for us and tears +For sons whom danger nears. +In it each deed has lot, +And there no brave son is forgot, +From Hafurfjord's great day +To the last castaway. + +This each one felt and found +Who homeward came and looked around; +This each one felt who went, +In the last look he sent. +They felt the ocean o'er: +Their ships our country's fortune bore; +Honor and power it sought,-- +And these the white sails brought. + +Hurrah for them to-day +Who the Norwegian flag display! +Hurrah for pilots true +Who forth to meet them flew! +Hurrah for them who ply +Their fishing-boats 'twixt sea and sky! +Hurrah for all our boast, +Our skerry-skirted coast! + + + +HALFDAN KJERULF (1868) +(See Note 35) + +Winter had sought his life's tree to o'erthrow, +Youthful and strong. But his blood's vernal flow +Saved it from death through the cold and the maiming; +Late in the summer bright flowers were flaming, +Late in the autumn they swelled to completeness,-- +Fruits that were few, but of fragrance and sweetness. + + Poets received them to endless seed-sowing, +Where for his folk endless summer is glowing,-- +While more and more, +Stricken he hung o'er the death-river's shore, +Fighting in weakness the winter abhorred, +Fighting for summer, the singer's reward, +Fighting while failing, with modesty rare, +Soon but in prayer. + + Summer received him! He now is victorious! +Now, while they harvest the yellowing corn, +Now, while the hills hear the notes of the horn, +_He_ enters glorious. + + Mirrored in him is true poetry's force, +Marked by our winter, in summer its source. +E'en as the air with its quivering sheen, +Leaves of the forests and red peaks serene, +Waters that wander 'mid meadows delaying +Sound with the music the sunshine is playing,-- +Poetry also shall leap with new life, +If it, though failing, is faithful in strife:-- +Leap from death's thronging:-- +_Soon comes the summer with summer's pure longing._ + + + +NORWEGIAN STUDENTS' GREETING WITH A PROCESSION + +TO PROFESSOR WELHAVEN +(See Note 36) + +Hear us, O age-laden singer! +Streams of your tones are returning, + Touching your heart! +Spirit of youth is their bringer, +Under your window with yearning + Called by your art. +Now our soul's echoes abounding + Soar in the blue, +In the sun-shimmering blue, +High where your silvery song-notes are sounding. + +Smile on your labor now lightened, +You who in winter perfected + Seeds to be sown! +All that your courage has brightened, +All that your pity protected, + Now it is grown; +Over your shoulders upswinging, + Folds round your frame, +Bringing in roses your name, +Joyous the sprite of your poetry bringing. + +Onward our life is now marching, +Banner-like high thoughts are flying, + Lifted to view. +One 'mid the foremost o'erarching +Leads where the pathway is lying,-- + It came from you! +Runes of our past with their warning + Carved on its shaft, +Show us the spring you have quaffed, +Leading our land to the light of the morning. + + + +FOR A CHARITY FAIR +(IN A COPY OF MINOR PIECES) + +Some poor man in need +To bless and to feed, +I bring at its worth, +This day of my birth, +A book,--from my youth I must own. +But Who in His power +Gave bud and gave flower, +To bread can transform +In want's winter-storm +Each leaf that my Springtime has grown. + + + +FORWARD +(See Note 37) + + "Forward! forward!" + Rang our fathers' battle-cry. + "Forward! forward!" + Norsemen, be our watchword high! +All that fires the spirit and makes the heart's faith bright, + For that we forward go with might + And faithful fight. + + "Forward! forward!" + Whoso loves a home that's free. + "Forward! forward!" + Freedom's course must ever be. +Though it shall be tested by doubt and by defeat, + Who will the losses' count repeat + When vict'ries greet? + + "Forward! forward!" + Whoso trusts in Norway's day. + "Forward! forward!" + Whoso goes our fathers' way. +Hid in Northern mountains are spirit-treasures true + They shall, when dawns the morning's blue, + Come forth anew. + + + +THE MEETING +(AT THE STUDENT MEETING OF 1869) +(See Note 38) + +Thoughts toward one another coursing + To their pole must run, +Hearts that meet, all bonds are forcing, + Like the springtime sun. +Though to-day too heavy sorrow + Dull the mind of youth, +Higher on the meeting's morrow + Roll the tides of truth. + +Though each man with courage fired + Hundreds forward bore, +Though a thousand died inspired, + There is need of more. +May a Northern Spring come blowing + Over wood and field, +Wake the hundred thousands, knowing + Meeting-hour revealed! + +Hail! A Northern day is written + In the brightening sky; +Darksome dread, that erst had smitten, + Flees, now dawn is nigh. +After Gjallar-horn blasts hollow, + Tears and shame and blood, +As so often, now shall follow + Full the spirit's flood. + +In our people's life deep-seated + This is felt each day: +Who grows stronger when defeated, + Victor stands for aye. +Our Spring-meeting's fullness swells now, + Bearing prophecy +Of the Spring whose hope upwells now: + Hail, the Northern three! + + + +NORSE NATURE +(IN RINGERIKE DURING THE STUDENT MEETING OF 1869) +(See Note 39) + +We wander and sing with glee +Of glorious Norway, fair to see. + Let sweetly the tones go twining + In colors so softly shining +On mountain, forest, fjord, and shore, +'Neath heaven's azure arching o'er. + +The warmth of the nation's heart, +The depth, the strength, its songs impart, + Here opens its eyes to greet you, + Rejoicing just now to meet you, +And giving, grateful for the chance, +In love a self-revealing glance. + +Here wakened our history first, +Here Halfdan dreamed of greatness erst, + In vision of hope beholding + The kingdom's future unfolding, +And _Nore_ stood and summons gave, +While forth to conquest called the wave. + +Here singing we must unroll +Of our dear land the pictured scroll! + Let calm turn to storm of wildness, + Bring might into bonds of mildness: +Then Norsemen mustering, each shall see +This is our land's whole history. + +To them first our way we wing, +The hundred harbors in the spring, + Where follow fond love and yearning, + When sea-ward the ships are turning. +For Norway's weal pure prayers exhale +From sixty thousand men that sail. + +See sloping the skerried coasts, +With gulls and whales and fishing-posts, + And vessels in shelter riding, + While boats o'er the sea are gliding, +And nets in fjord and seines in sound, +And white with spawn the ocean's ground. + +See Lofoten's tumult grand, +Where tow'ring cliffs in ocean stand, + Whose summits the fogs are cleaving, + Beneath them the surges heaving, +And all is darkness, mystery, dread, +But 'mid the tumult sails are spread. + +Here ships of the Arctic sea; +Through snow and gloom their course must be; + Commands from the masthead falling + The boats toward the ice are calling; +And shot on shot and seal on seal, +And souls and bodies strong as steel. + +On mountains we now shall guest, +When eventide to all brings rest, + In dairy on highland meadow, + On hay-field 'neath slanting shadow, +While to the alphorn's tender tone +Great Nature's voice responds alone. + +But quickly we must away, +If a11 the land we would survey,-- + The mines of our metal treasures, + The hills of our hunters' pleasures, +The foam-white river's rush and noise, +The timber-driver's foot-sure poise. + +Returning, we linger here, +These valleys broad to us are dear, + Whose men in their faithful living + To Norway are honor giving; +Their fathers, strong in brain and brawn, +Lent luster to our morning-dawn. + +We wander and sing with glee +Of glorious Norway fair to see. + Our present to labor binds us, + Each how of the past reminds us, +Our future shall be sure and bright, +As God we trust and do the right. + + + +I PASSED BY THE HOUSE +(See Note 40) + +I passed by the house one summer day, +Morning sunshine upon it lay; +Toward the windows that blood-red burned +Flaming my soul was turned, was turned. + There spring had found me + And captive bound me + To lissome hands and soft lips enthralling, + To smiles now stained by the teardrops falling. + +Till the view from my vision dies, +To it backward I send my eyes; +All that was becomes new and near, +The forgotten grows warm and dear; + Mem'ries wander, + While this I ponder, + And from the springtime all love's sweet dreaming + Forward and back in my soul is streaming. + +Joyous that time and joyous now, +Sorrow that time and .sorrow now. +Sun on meadows bedewed appears, +Soul in mem'ries of smiles and tears. + When they waking + Their bounds are breaking, + When streams their ebbing with sinking power, + The soul bears poetry's bud and flower. + + + +THOSE WITH ME +(See Note 41) + +As on I drive, in my heart joy dwells +Of Sabbath silence with sound of bells. +The sun lifts _all_ that is living, growing, +God's love itself in its symbol showing. +To church pass people from near and far, +Soon psalms ascend from the door ajar. +--Good cheer! Your greeting hailed more than me, +But that in hastening you failed to see. + +Here's goodly company with me riding, +Though oft they cunningly keep in hiding; +But when you saw me so Sunday-glad, +It was because of the mates I had. +And when you heard me so softly singing, +The tones attuned to their hearts were ringing. + +One soul is here of such priceless worth, +For me she offered her all on earth; +Yes, she who smiled in my boat storm-driven, +And blanched not, braving the waves wind-riven, +In whose white arms that in love caressed me +Full warmth of life and of faith possessed me. + +The snail in this I am like when faring,-- +My home I ever am with me bearing; +And who believes it is burdensome, +He ought to learn how it's good to come +And creep in under the roof thereafter, +Where she gives light amid children's laughter. + +No poet paints nor can thinker tell +So vast a vault or so deep a well, +As where the glory of God's own love +On cradle-mirror falls from above. +Your soul is brighter, your heart more tender, +When by the cradle your thanks you render. + +Who knows not love in the small and near, +The many in memory hold not dear. +Who cannot build him a house his own, +What towers he builds will be soon o'erthrown. +From Moscow victor to Carthagena, +He vanquished dies on his Saint Helena. + +When such a stronghold you've reared with labor, +It often safely protects your neighbor; +Though work of woman's and children's hands, +Your soul finds strength where that fortress stands, +You go hence braver to battle-dangers, +Can courage give unto countless strangers. + +One home bore often a whole land's fate, +And sent the hero who saved the state; +Thousands of _homes_, when the war was o'er, +The land delivered in safety bore. +So bear it onward in peace and beauty +The hearts of homes beating true to duty. + +Though foreign perfumes be fine and rare, +Still pure alone is the home's sweet air. +Naught meets you there but the childlike, truthful, +And sin is kissed from your forehead ruthful. +To heaven's home leads its door ajar, +For thence it came and it lies not far. + +Good cheer, to church on your way not staying! +For those we love we shall both be praying; +In prayer together the way we wander +That leads from this to the home up yonder. +You enter in; I must journey far, +While follow psalms from the door ajar. +Good cheer! Your greeting hailed more than me, +But that in hastening you failed to see. + + + +TO MY FATHER +(UPON HIS RETIREMENT) +(See Note 42) + +In all the land our race was once excelling. +In richer regions it e'en now possesses +Broad seats and fruitful; but by fate's hard stresses +_Our_ branch was bent and bowed to blows compelling. +Now toward the light again it lifts aloft +Its top, and fresh buds crown it, fair and soft. +The flowing fountain of _your_ faith has laved it, +To life's late evening thus your strength has saved it. + +As rests the race in time of chill and rigor, +And from the deeps that lie within its being +Draws to it what alone can nourish, freeing +Its powers to full prophecy of vigor,-- +So I divined the unseen stir in you +Of nature's might that you could not subdue; +It was so strong, from sire to son surviving, +In mystery mute descends this power's striving. + +Upon this poured its radiant warmth pervading +My mother's soul; of wedded joy the glory +Crowns not alone your aged heads and hoary; +But it shall death outlive in light unfading. +And if my people ever truly prize +The pictured home that in my writings lies, +Honor of love and faith serene, unbroken,-- +Of father, mother, both, shall praise be spoken. + +If men remember the Norwegian peasant, +As from the field of toil or saga fateful +I conjured him; to you they shall be grateful, +Father, in whom love let me find him present. +And if the woman whom I made them view +In sun-like splendid faith and spirit true, +By women is approved, it is the other +Who has their homage, my sweet-natured mother. + +And now you'll rest the evening long and cheery +From the day's work in fair or troubled weather, +And of the by-gone time you'll talk together, +Of many a mile you trod with footsteps weary,-- +Now will as sunlight on the winter's snow, +A warmth of thanks in through the window glow, +Harsh memories mellow with its golden shining, +Your life in faith complete find its refining. + +But none gives thanks as now that son in gladness, +For whom you lived in anxious fear unceasing, +Since forth he flew with strength of wing increasing, +For whom to God you prayed in joy and sadness. +Oh, know, when hot my blood burned over-much, +I felt your soothing hands my forehead touch, +And oft, my heart in mute repentance bleeding, +In thoughts of you I heard God's gentle pleading. + +And so I pray that I may have the power +(Since we again for life shall be united, +And hope 'mid mirthful mem'ries be relighted), +To brighten now their every evening-hour! +When children's children in their arms shall be, +Oh, let them morning in their evening see! +So shall they gladly lay, when death gives warning, +Their gray heads down to greet the dawning morning. + + + +TO ERIKA LIE +(See Note 43) + + When Norse nature's dower + Tones will paint with power, +There is more than mountain-heights that tower,-- + Plains spread wide-extending, + Whereon at their wending +Summer nights soft dews are sending. + + Forests great are growing, + And in long waves going +Glommen's valley fill to overflowing,-- + There are green slopes vernal, + Glad with joy fraternal, +Open to the light supernal. + + For revealing wholly + All things fine and holy-- +As in sunshine birds are soaring slowly, + Or, their spells transmitting, + Northern Lights are flitting,-- +None but maiden-hands are fitting. + + _Your_ hands came, and playing, + O'er their secrets straying +Picture after picture are portraying, + As the poet dreamed them, + In soul-travail teemed them, +Till your artist hands redeemed them. + + Now their light far-flinging + We see flashing, swinging, +Sparks as from your father's humor springing; + Now there meets us nigher, + Mirroring the higher, +Mother's eye of softer fire. + + Child-heart tones are holding + All our minds and molding, +So its faith the wide world is enfolding, + While your sweet sounds sally, + Truth to tell and rally, +Maiden blonde from Glommen's valley. + + + ++ +AT MICHAEL SARS'S GRAVE +(See Note 44) + + Ever he would roam + Toward th' eternal home; +From the least life deep in ocean +To each gleam of stars in motion, + Worth of all he weighed. + Now the Lord lends aid. + + Still he passed beyond, + Softly dreaming; fond +Nature met him as her lover. +God with strength his soul shall cover + 'Mid the starry throng + Through the spheres' pure song. + + Even here on earth + Harmony's sweet birth-- +When discovery new truth sunders, +When the small reveals its wonders-- + Filled his soul with song + For the ages long. + + Where his watch he kept, + Eyes a hundred swept. +Where millenniums sand assembled, +Where the tiniest life-pulse trembled, + There he sought the clue, + Silent, wise, and true. + + In a water glass + Searching he saw pass +All the ocean's life; his thinking +To unfathomed deeps was sinking; + Where lay riddles locked, + There he came and knocked. + + Fair our fatherland, + While such faith shall stand! +With an eye so true and tender, +With a sense so fine for splendor + In the small and still,-- + Great ends we fulfil! + + + +TO JOHAN SVERDRUP +(See Note 45) + +When now my song selects and praises +Your forceful name, think not it raises +The rallying-flag for battle near; +The street-fight shall not reach us here. + If sacred poetry's fair hill +Lies open to assassination,-- +Is _this_ the newer revelation, +Then I withdraw and hold me still. +Then I the words of Einar borrow, +When southern change of kings brought sorrow, +And Harald's hosts their ravage spread: +I follow rather Magnus dead +Than Harald living thus,--and then +I sail away with ships and men. +Nor therefore do I lift anew +The flag of song just now for you, +Because my spirit's deepest yearning +To you for new light now is turning. +No, where the _greatest_ questions started, +Just there it is our ways were parted-- +From where the deepest thought can reach, +To plan and goal of daily speech. +My childhood's faith unshaken stands, +And thence our equal rights deriving, +I for a people free am striving +And brotherhood in kindred lands. +Though both of us are _Christian_ men, +So wide a gulf between us lies; +Though both are true _Norwegian_ men, +We Norway see with different eyes. +If but to-day we victory gain, +We must to-morrow fight amain. + But now I honor you in singing, +Because what ought just now to be +With strongest will you clearly see, +And foremost to the fight are springing. +When sinks the land 'neath heavy fogs +And no fair prospect cheers the eye, +The thickening air our breathing clogs, +Yes, all things dull in torpor lie,-- +_Then_ mounts your mind with freest motion, +Its thunder-wings the mist-banks driving, +Its lightning-talons cloud-walls riving, +Till sunlight spreads o'er land and ocean. +_You_ are the freshening shower clean +Upon our sluggish day's routine. +You are the salt sea-current poured +Into each close and sultry fjord. +Your speech a mine-shaft is, deep-going +To where the veins of ore are showing. +And by your flashing eyes far-sighted +The past is for our future lighted. +So long as Sverre's sword you wield, +So long as you our hosts are heading, +We know we'll win on every field; +Foes flee, your battle trumpet dreading. +We see their struggling ranks soon rifted, +We see them set so many a snare: +Your head unharmed in thought's pure air +Above the waves of war is lifted. +We love you for this courage good, +That e'er _before_ the banner stood, +We love the strength you boldly stored +In your self-forged and tempered sword. +Your vigilance we love and prize, +That sickness, slander, loss defies, +We love you, that at duty's call +You gave your peace, your future, all, +We love you still--hate cannot cleave!-- +Because you dared in us believe. + How can they hope that backward here +Our land shall go? No, year by year, +Forward in freedom and in song, +Forward the truly Norse disclosing. +What might can now avail, opposing +The travail of the centuries long? +People and power no more divided; +In peace to save or war to kill, +Our freedom with _one_ guard provided, +_One_ nation only and _one_ will. + The spirit of our nation's morn, +The unity of free gods dreaming, +And all things great to be great deeming, +Forever must the spurious scorn. +The spirit that impelled the viking +'Gainst kingly power for freedom striking,-- +That, threatened, sailed to Iceland strong +With hero-fame and hero-song, +And further on through all the ages,-- +That spirit never dwells in cages. +The spirit that at Hjörung broke +For thousand years the foreign yoke, +By might of king ne'er made to cower, +Defying e'en the papal power,-- +The spirit that, to weakness worn, +Held free our soil with rights unshorn, +Held free, with tongue and hand combined, +'Gainst foreign host and foreign mind,-- +By which our Holberg's wit was whetted, +And Wessel's sword and Wessel's pen, +And to whose silent forge indebted +The thoughts that armed our Eidsvold-men,-- +The spirit that in faith so high +Through Odin could to God draw nigh, +As bridge the myth of Balder threw, +And almost found the free way new +To truth's fair home in radiant Gimle, +When this was closed and warded grimly +By monkish lies and papal speech,-- +That threw a second bridge to reach +On freedom's lightly soaring arches +To heights whereon the free soul marches,-- +So, when for Luther blood was shed, +The North but razed a fence instead, +--The spirit that, when men were deeming +True faith in all the world were dead, +Brun, Hauge, and their lineage spread, +From soul-springs in our nation streaming,-- +Though pietism's fog now thickens, +Still guards the altar lights and quickens;-- +Can _this_ they make the fashion better, +By modern bishop-synod's letter? +Is _this_ by politics provided, +When into "Chambers" 't is divided? +Can _this_ into a box be juggled +And o'er the boundary be smuggled? + + And that just now when beacons lighted +On all the mountain-tops are sighted, +And when our folk-high-school's young day +The Norse heart kindles with its ray, +Renewing mem'ries, courage bringing, +While they are hearing, trusting, singing;-- +Just when the deep in billows surges, +Responsive to the tempest's might, +And over it the Northern Light +Of Youth's refulgent hope emerges;-- +Just when the spirit everywhere, +While walls lie low as trumpets blare, +Is breaking from the ancient forms, +And will of youth the heights now storms. + + A battle-age,--and we are in it! +The greatest thing on earth: to be +Where powers that are bursting free, +Self-shaping seek their place and win it;-- +Our fusing passion all to give, +To cast the statue that shall live, +To press the mold of our own form +On what shall be the future's norm, +Into the age's soul thus breathed +The spirit God to us bequeathed. + + 'T was this that now I wished to say +To you, who late and early, aye +Within time's workshop great are going, +What is, what shall be, ever knowing;-- +To you, who all our people's might +Have roused for freedom new to fight;-- +To whom our people gave this power, +And sorrow, its eternal dower. + + + + +THE CHILD IN OUR SOUL + + Toward God in heaven spacious +With artless faith a boy looks free, + As toward his mother gracious, +And top of Christmas-tree. +But early in the storm of youth +There wounds him deep the serpent's tooth; + His childhood's faith is doubted + And flouted. + + Soon stands in radiant splendor +With bridal wreath his boyhood's dream; + Her loving eyes and tender +The light of heaven's faith stream. +As by his mother's knee of yore +God's name he stammers yet once more, + The rue of tears now paying + And praying. + + When now life's conflict stirring +Leads him along through doubtings wild, + Then upward points unerring +Close by his side his child. +With children he a child is still +And whatsoe'er his heart may chill, + Prayer for his son is warming, + Transforming. + + The greatest man in wonder +Must ward the child within his breast, + And list 'mid loudest thunder +Its whisperings unrepressed. +Where oft a hero fell with shame, +The child it was restored his name, + His better self revealing, + And healing. + + All great things thought created +In child-like joy sprang forth and grew; + All strength with goodness mated, +Obeyed the child's voice true. +When beauty in the soul held sway, +The child gave it in artless play;-- + All wisdom worldly-minded + Is blinded. + + Hail him, who forward presses +So far that he a home is worth + For there alone possesses +The child-life peace on earth. +Though worn we grieve and hardened grow, +What solace 't is our home to know + With children's laughter ringing + And singing. + + + ++ +OLE GABRIEL UELAND +(See Note 46) + +Of long toil 't is a matter + Through many a silent age, +Before such power can shatter + Time-hallowed custom's cage. +The soul-fruit of the peasant, + Though seldom seed was sown, +It is our honor present,-- + Our future sure foreknown. + +The fjords that earnest waited + 'Mid mountain-snows around +His childhood's thoughts created + And depth of life profound. +The highlands' sun that played there + On fjord and mountain snow +So wide a vision made there + As one could wish to know. + +When _he_ to Ting repairing + Would plead the peasant's right, +Each word a beam was bearing. + To make our young day bright. +It came like ancient story + Or long-lost song's refrain; +What crowned our past with glory + It made our present gain. + +Though in his boat a seaman, + A farmer in his field, +Ne'er finer thoughts did freeman + In royal council wield. +His years bear witness ready + That we shall yet achieve +Our people's self-rule steady, + He taught us to believe. + +When weary, worn, and aged, + His faith was ever strong; +The people's war he wagèd + For victory erelong. +Beneath the banner dying, + He would not yet give o'er, +And him Valkyries flying + Home to Valhalla bore. + +From wintry night and bitter + He was with stately tread +In Saga's hall a-glitter + Before the high-sear led. +Old heroes proud or merry + Rising to greet him went, +But first of all King Sverre, + From whom was his descent. + + + ++ +ANTON MARTIN SCHWEIGAARD +(IN THE CHURCH AFTER THE FUNERAL ORATION) +(See Note 47) + +Give us, God, to Thee now turning, +Fullness of joy, tears full and burning, +Of will the full refining fire! +Hear our prayer o'er his inurning: +His will was _one_, the whole discerning, +His whole soul would to it aspire. + Yes; give us yet again, + With power to lead, great men,-- +Power in counsel our folk to lead, + Our folk in deed, +Our folk in gladness and in need! + +Thou, O God, our want preventest; +To raise the temple _him_ Thou lentest, +A spirit bright and pure and great. +When Thou from time to call him meantest, +Her tender soul to him Thou sentest +Who went before to heaven's gate. + When Thou didst set him free, + An epoch ceased to be. +Men then marveled, the while they said: + "Living and dead, +O'er all our land he beauty spread." + +Help us, God, to wiser waring, +When to our land Thou light art bearing, +That we Thy dayspring then may know. +God, our future Thou'rt preparing, +Oh, give us longing, honor's daring, +That we the great may not forego! + Thou sentest many out,-- + Cease not, our God, nor doubt! +Let us follow Thy way, Thy call, + Men, words, and all! +Thy mercies shall our North enwall! + + + ++ +TO AASMUND OLAFSEN VINJE +(SUNG AT HIS WIFE'S GRAVE) +(See Note 48) + +Your house to guests has shelter lent, +While you with pen were seated. +In silent quest they came and went, +You saw them not, nor greeted. + But when now they + Were gone away, +Your babe without a mother lay, +And you had lost your helpmate. + +The home you built but yesterday +In death to-day is sinking, +And you stand sick and worn and gray +On ruins of your thinking. + Your way lay bare + Since child you were, +The shelter that you first could share +Was this that now is shattered. + +But know, the guests that to you came +In sorrow's waste will meet you; +Though shy you shrink, they still will claim +The right with love to treat you. + For where you go + To you they show +The world in radiant light aglow +Of great and wondrous visions. + +What once you saw, now passing o'er, +Will but be made the clearer; +It is the far eternal shore, +That on your way draws nearer. + Your poet-sight + Will see in light +All that the clouds have wrapped in night;-- +Great doubts will find an answer. + +And later when you leave again +The waste of woe thought-pregnant, +Whom you have met shall teach us then. +Your pen in power regnant. + From sorrow's weal + With purer zeal, +Inspiring light, and pain's appeal +Shall shine your wondrous visions. + + + +GOOD CHEER +(1870) +(See Note 49) + +So let these songs their story tell +To all who in the Northland dwell, + Since many friends request it. +(That Finland's folk with them belong +In the wide realm of Northern song, + I grateful must attest it.) + +I send these songs--and now I find +Most of them have riot what my mind + Has deepest borne and favored: +Some are too hasty, some too brief, +Some, long in stock, have come to grief, + Some with raw youth are flavored. + +I lived far more than e'er I sang; +Thought, ire, and mirth unceasing rang + Around me, where I guested; +To be where loud life's battles call +For me was well-nigh more than all + My pen on page arrested. + +What's true and strong has growing-room, +And will perhaps eternal bloom, + Without black ink's salvation, +And he will be, who least it planned, +But in life's surging dared to stand, + The best bard for his nation. + +I heard once of a Spanish feast: +Within the ring a rustic beast, + A horse, to fight was fated; +In came a tiger from his cage, +Who walked about, his foe to gauge, + And crouching down, then waited. + +The people clapped and laughed and cheered, +The tiger sprang, the horse upreared, + But none could see him bleeding; +The tiger tumbling shrinks and backs +Before the horse's rustic whacks, + Lies on his head naught heeding. + +Then men and women hooted, hissed, +With glaring eyes and clenchèd fist + Out o'er the balcony bending; +With shouts the tiger's heart they tease, +Their thirst for blood soon to appease, + To onset new him sending. + +The people clapped and laughed and cheered +The tiger sprang, the horse upreared; + No blood to see was given, +For fortune held the horse too dear, +To him the tiger could not near, + In flying curves hoof-driven. + +To say who won I will not try; +For lo, this rustic horse am I, + And on the conflict's going;-- +The city, though, where it occurs, +And where it cheers and laughter stirs, + Is known without my showing. + +I fight, but have no hate or spite, +From what I love draw gladness bright, + My right to wrath reserving. +It is my blood, my soul, that goes +In every line of all my blows, + And guides their course unswerving. + +But as I stand here now to-day, +Nor grudge nor vengeance can me sway, + To think that foes I'm facing. +So in return some friendship give +To one who for the _cause_ would live, + With love the North embracing! + +But first my poet-path shall be +With veneration unto _thee_, + Who fill'st the North with wonder; +In wrath thou dawn didst prophesy +Behind the North's dark morning-sky, + That lightnings shook and thunder. + +Then, milder, thou, by sea and slope, +The fount of saga, faith, and hope + Mad'st flow for every peasant;-- +Now from the snow-years' mountain-side +Thou seest with time's returning tide + Thine own high image present. + +To _thee_, then, in whose spring of song +Finland's "the thousand lakes" belong + And sound their thrilling sorrow:-- +Our Northern soul forever heard +Keeps watch and ward in poet's word + 'Gainst Eastern millions' morrow. + +But when I stand in our own home, +One greets me from the starry dome + With wealth of light and power. +There shines he: HENRIK WERGELAND, + Out over Norway's pallid strand + In memory's clear hour. + + + +OLD HELTBERG +(See Note 50) + +I went to a school that was little and proper, +Both for church and for state a conventional hopper, +Feeding rollers that ground out their grist unwaiting; +And though it was clear from the gears' frequent grating +They rarely with oil of the spirit were smeared, +Yet no other school in that region appeared. +We _had_ to go there till older;--though sorry, +I went there also,--but reveled in Snorre. + +The self-same books, the same so-called education, +That teacher after teacher, by decrees of power royal, +Into class after class pounds with self-negation, +And that only bring promotion to them that are loyal!-- +The self-same books, the same so-called education, +Quickly molding to one type all the men in the land, +An excellent fellow who on _one_ leg can stand, +And as runs an anchor-rope reel off his rote-narration!-- +The self-same books, the same so-called education +From Hammerfest to Mandal--('tis the state's creation +Of an everything-and-every-one-conserving dominion, +Wherein all the finer folk have but one opinion!)-- +The self-same books, the same so-called education +My comrades devoured; but my appetite failed me, +And that fare I refused, till, to cure what had ailed me, +Home leaving I leaped o'er those bars of vexation. +What I met on the journey, what I thought in each case, +What arose in my soul in the new-chosen place, +Where the future was lying,--this to tell is refractory, +But I'll give you a picture of the "student factory." + +Full-bearded fellows of thirty near died of +Their hunger for lore, as they slaved by the side of +Rejected aspirants with faces hairless, +Like sparrows in spring, scatter-brained and careless. +--Vigorous seamen whose adventurous mind +First drove them from school that real life they might find-- +But now to cruise wide on the sea they were craving, +Where the flag of free thought o'er all life wide is waving. +--Bankrupted merchants who their books had wooed +In their silent stores, till their creditors sued +And took from them their goods. Now they studied "on credit." +Beside them dawdling dandies. Near in scorn have I said it! +--"Non-Latin" law-students, young and ambitious, +"Prelims," theologs, with their preaching officious; +--Cadets that in arm or in leg had a hurt; +--Peasants late in learning but now in for a spurt:-- +_Here_ they all wished through their Latin to drive +In _one_ year or in two,--not in eight or in five. +They hung over benches, 'gainst the walls they were lying, +In each window sat two, one the edge was just trying +Of his new-sharpened knife on an ink-spattered desk. +Through two large open rooms what a spectacle grotesque! + +At one end, half in dreams, Aasmund Olavsen Vinje's +Long figure and spare, a contemplative genius; +Thin and intense, with the color of gypsum, +And a coal-black, preposterous beard, Henrik Ibsen. +I, the youngest of the lot, had to wait for company +Till a new litter came in, after Yule Jonas Lie. + +But the "boss" who ruled there with his logical rod, +"Old Heltberg" himself, was of all the most odd! +In his jacket of dog's skin and fur-boots stout +He waged a hard war with his asthma and gout. +No fur-cap could hide from us his forehead imperious, +His classical features, his eye's power mysterious. +Now erect in his might and now bowed by his pain, +Strong thoughts he threw out, and he threw not in vain. +If the suffering grew keener and again it was faced +By the will in his soul, and his body he braced +Against onset after onset, then his eyes were flaming +And his hands were clenched hard, as if deep were his shaming +That he seemed to have yielded! Oh, then we were sharing +Amazed all the grandeur of conflict, and bearing +Home with us a symbol of the storms of that age, +When "Wergeland's wild hunt" o'er our country could rage! +There was power in the men who took part in that play, +There was will in the power that then broke its way. +Now alone he was left, forgotten in his corner:-- +But in deeds was a hero,--let none dare to be his scorner! +He freed thought from the fetters that the schools inherit, +Independent in teaching, he led by the spirit; +Personality unique: for with manner anarchic +He carved up the text; and absolute-monarchic +Was his wrath at mistakes; but soon it subsided, +Or, controlled, into noblest pathos was guided, +Which oft turned in recoil into self-irony +And a downpour of wit letting no one go free.-- +So he governed his "horde," so we went through the country, +The fair land of the classics, that we harried with effront'ry! +How Cicero, Sallust, and Virgil stood in fear +On the forum, in the temple, when we ravaging drew near! +'T was again. the Goths' invasion to the ruin of Rome, +It was Thor's and Odin's spirit over Jupiter's home, +--And the old man's "grammar" was a dwarf-forged hammer, +When he swung it and smote with sparks, flames, and clamor. +The herd of "barbarians" he thus headed on their way +Had no purpose to settle and just there to stay. +"Non-Latins" they remained, by no alien thought enslaved, +And found their true selves, as the foreign foes they braved. + +In conquering the language we learned the laws of thought, +And following him, his fine longing we caught +For wanderings and wonders, all the conqueror's zeal, +To win unknown lands and their mysteries reveal. +Each lesson seemed a vision that henceforth was ours, +Inspiring each youth's individual powers. +His pictures made pregnant our creative desire, +His wit was our testing in an ordeal of fire, +His wisdom was our balance, to weigh things great and small, +His pathos told of passions, burning, but held in thrall, + +Oft the stricken hero scarce his tedious toil could brook, +He wished to go and write, though it were but a single book, +To show a _little_ what he was, and show it to the world: +He loosed his cable daily, but ne'er his sails unfurled. + +His "grammar" was not printed! And he passed from mortal ken +To where the laws of thought are not written with a pen. +His "grammar" was not printed! But the life that it had, +In ink's prolonging power did not need to be clad. +It lived in his soul, so mighty, so warm, +That a thousand books' life seems but poor empty form. +It lives in a host of independent men, +To whose thought he gave life and who give it again +In the school, at the bar, in the church, and Storting's hall, +In poetry and art,--whose deeds and lifework all +Have proved to be the freer and the broader in their might, +Because Heltberg had given their youth higher flight. + + + +FOR THE WOUNDED +(1871) +(See Note 51) + +A still procession goes +Amid the battle's booming, +Its arm the red cross shows; +It prays in many forms of speech, +And, bending o'er the fallen, +Brings peace and home to each. + +Not only is it found +Where bleed the wounds of battle, +But all the world around. +It is the love the whole world feels +In noble hearts and tender, +While gentle pity kneels;-- + +It is all labor's dread +Of war's mad waste and murder, +Praying that peace may spread; +It is all sufferers who heed +The sighing of a brother, +And know his sorrow's need;-- + +It is each groan of pain +Heard from the sick and wounded, +'T is Christian prayer humane; +It is their cry who lonely grope, +'T is the oppressed man's moaning, +The dying breath of hope;-- + +This rainbow-bridge of prayers +Up through the world's wild tempest +In light of Christ's faith bears: +That love and loving deeds +May conquer strife and passion; +For thus His promise reads. + + + +LANDFALL +(See Note 52) + +And that was Olaf Trygvason, +Going o'er the North Sea grim, +Straight for his home and kingdom steering, +Where none awaited him. +Now the first mountains tower; +Are they walls, on the ocean that lower? + +And that was Olaf Trygvason, +Fast the land seemed locked at first, +All of his youthful, kingly longings +Doomed on the cliffs to burst,-- +Until a skald discovered +Shining domes in the cloud-mists, that hovered. + +And that was Olaf Trygvason, +Seemed to see before his eyes +Mottled and gray some timeless temple +Lifting white domes to the skies. +Sorely he longed to win it, +Stand and hallow his young faith within it. + + + +TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN +(AT A SUMMER-FÊTE FOR HIM IN CHRISTIANIA, 1871) +(See Note 53) + +We welcome you this wondrous summer-day, +When childhood's dreams on earth are streaming, +To bloom and sing, to brighten and to pale; + A fairy-tale, +A fairy-tale, our Northland all is seeming, +And holds you in its arms a festal space +With grateful glee and whisperings face to face. + Th' angelic noise, + Sweet strains of children's joys, +Bears you a moment to that home +Whence all our dreams, whence all our dreams have come. + +We welcome you! Our nation all is young, +Still in that age of dreams enthralling, +When greatest things in fairy-tales are nursed, + And he is first, +And he is first, who hears his Lord's high calling. +Of childhood's longings you the meaning know, +And to the North a goal of greatness show. + Your fantasy + Has just that path made free, +Where, past the small things that you hate, +We yet shall find, we yet shall find the great. + + + +TO STANG +(1871) +(See Note 54) + +May Seventeenth in Eidsvold's church united, +To hallow after fifty years the day +When they who there our charter free indited, +Together for our land were met to pray,-- +We both were there with thanks to those great men, +With thanks to God, who to our people then +In days of danger courage gave unbounded. + +And when so mighty through the church now sounded +"Praise ye the Lord!" lifting our pallid prayer +To fellowship with all her sons, our brothers, +I saw you, child-like, weep in secret there +Upon the breast we love, our common mother's. + + Then I remembered that from boyhood's hour +With all your strength to serve her you have striven, +Your youthful fire, your counsel cool have given, +And till it waned, your manhood's wealth of power. +With blessing then and praise of you I thought +In thankful prayer, as one of those who fought +To shield our land from storms of fate's hard weather, +Till 'neath the roof in peace we sat together. + + Of you I thought;--but so think few and fewer. +Your manhood's fame ere you yourself has crumbled, +And you, alas, will not find justice truer, +Till you and yours one day have fallen, humbled. + + For see, the roads you drew o'er hill and plain +For all our people's onward-pressing longing, +You dare not travel with the joyous train, +That greater grows while towards its future thronging. +You knew not what it was your labor wrought, +When steam and powder, bursting every barrier, +Gave new-born cravings each its speedy carrier +And to the people's spirit power brought. +The new day's work, as 't were the tempest's welter, +In din about you seemed a dream, a fable, +And with your like you built in fear a shelter +From soul-unrest, a looming tower of Babel. + + While now you wait for the impending fight, +With gentle eye and stately head all hoary, +And o'er the mountains gleams the morning's glory,-- +Your foes half hid amid the mists of night,-- +As from an outpost in the wooded wild, +These words I send, of peace a token mild. + + You fear the people? 'Tis your own that rally, +And like the fog arisen from the valley. +You think them rebels, void of sense and oneness? +Yes, spring's full floods obey no rule precise; +Storm-squalls and slush render the roads less nice, +The snow's pure white is partly soiled to dunness. +But spring is born! The man of genius free, +Prophetic, heeds its holy harmony; +For genius shares the soul of what shall be. +This you have not and never had an hour, +And so you shrink before the people's power. + + You were a foreman with the gift of leading, +When pioneers cleared up a pathless tract; +Your lucid thinking and your gracious tact +Oft helped them over obstacles impeding. +But what new growths the ancient fields have filled, +From western seed to feed our land's wants tilled, +And what new light shines through your window-pane, +Longing for truth beneath religion's reign, +And what new things but whispering we say,-- +And what foretells the dawning reckoning-day,-- +You fail to understand and find but madness +In our young nation's fairest growth and gladness. + + You answer: Poet's deeming is but dreaming, +And in the statesman's art most unbeseeming. +I answer: None has might men's life to sway, +If impotent the worth of dreams to weigh. +From cravings, powers that seek their form, ascending, +They fill the air; their right to be defending, +Till all men wakened to one goal are tending. +His nation's dreams are all the statesman's life, +Create his might, direct his aim in strife, +And if he this forgets, the next dreams blooming +Bring forth another, unto death him dooming. + + The tempest-clouds that mount afresh and thicken +Cannot so dense before the morn's light hover +That we may not through cloud-rifts clear discover +Great thoughts that new-born victories shall quicken. + + Such thoughts are radiant over me to-day, +And to my heart the warmer blood is streaming, +And all we live for, all that we are dreaming, +Its summons sends and strengthens for the fray. + + The war-horns soon beneath the woods shall bray, +Through dewy night th' assailing columns dash, +Amid the sudden gleams of shot and slash +The fog dissolve before our new-born day. + + Soon, though you threaten, will the heights be taken +For future ages, and our nation's soul +Can thence o'erlook the land in might unshaken, +With even hand and right to rule the whole. +It soon shall roll war's billows on to battle, +While from the clouds the fathers' weapons rattle! +O aged man, look round you where you stand, +For soon you have against you all our land. + + But when you fall defeated on the field, +Then shall we say by your inverted shield: +He stood against us, since he knew not better, +A noble knight and never honor's debtor. + + + +ON A WIFE'S DEATH +(See Note 55) +With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this, +When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss, +And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed, +It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread; +It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier: +More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere. +So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb, +She said with sorrow stricken: « I knew that it would come!" +She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go, +Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe; +And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife, +Would ward her gallant consort,--and gave for him her life. + + She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she braved; +Her sacrifice was given, her heart's proud hero saved. +Our love and admiration lifted a starry dome +Of happiness above her in life's last hour of gloam, +And snow-white pure she passed then to her eternal home. +Such tender love and holy to heaven's bounds can bear +The souls that it embraces in sacrifice and prayer. + + + +THE BIER OF PRECENTOR A. REITAN +(1872) +(See Note 56) + +With smiles his soft eyes ever gleamed, + When God and country thinking; +With endless joy, his soul, it seemed, + Faith, fatherland, was linking. + His word, his song, + Like springs flowed strong; +They fruitful made the valley long, + And quickened all there drinking. + +Poor people and poor homes among + In wintry region saddest, +In Sunday's choir he always sung, + Of all the world the gladdest: + "The axis stout + It turns about, +Falls not the poorest home without, + For thus, O God, Thou badest." + +With sickness came a heavy year + And put to proof his singing, +While helpless children standing near + His trust to test were bringing. + But glad the more, + As soft notes soar +When winds o'er hidden harp-strings pour, +His song his soul was winging. + +His life foretold us that erelong + With faith in God unshaken +Shall all our nation stand in song, + And church, home, school, awaken, + In Norway's song, + In gladness' song, +In glory of the Lord's own song, +From life's low squalor taken. + +Fair fatherland, do not forget, + The children of his bower! +He, poor as is the rosebush, yet + Gave gladness till death's hour-- + With failure's smart + Let not depart +From this thy soil so glad a heart,-- +His garden, let it flower! + + + +SONG + +Song brings us light with the power of lending + Glory to brighten the work that we find; +Song brings us warmth with the power of rending + Rigor and frost in the swift-melting mind. +Song is eternal with power of blending + Time that is gone and to come in the soul, +Fills it with yearnings that flow without ending, + Seeking that sea where the light-surges roll. + +Song brings us union, while gently beguiling + Discord and doubt on its radiant way; +Song brings us union and leads, reconciling + Battle-glad passions by harmony's sway, +Unto the beautiful, valiant, and holy + --Some can pass over its long bridge of light +Higher and higher to visions that solely + Faith can reveal to the spirit's pure sight. + +Songs from the past of the past's longings telling, + Pensive and sad cast a sunset's red glow; +Present time's longings in sweet music dwelling, + Grateful the soul of the future shall know. +Youth of all ages in song here are meeting, + Sounding in tone and in word their desire; + --More than we think, from the dead bringing greeting, + Gather to-night in our festival choir. + + + +ON THE DEATH OF N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG +(1872) +(See Note 57) + +E'en as the Sibyl in Northland-dawn drew +Forth from the myth-billows gliding, +Told all the past, all the future so true, +Sank with the lands' last subsiding,-- +Prophecies leaving, eternally new, + Still abiding + +Thus goes his spirit the Northland before,-- +Though, that he sank, we have tiding,-- +Visions unfolding like sun-clouds, when o'er +Sea-circled lands they are riding, +Northern lands' future, till time is no more, + Ever guiding. + + + +FROM THE CANTATA FOR +N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG +(1872) + +His day was the greatest the Northland has seen, +It one was with the midnight-sun's wonders serene: +The light wherein he sat was the light of God's true peace, +And that has never morning, nor night when it must cease. + +In light of God's peace shone the _history_ he gave, +The spirit's course on earth that shall conquer the grave. +Might of God's pure peace thus our _fathers'_ mighty way +Before us for example and warning open lay. + +In light of God's peace he beheld with watchful eye +The people at their work and the spirit's strivings high. +In light of God's pure peace he would have all learning glow, +And where his word is honored the "Folk-High-Schools" must grow. + +In light of God's peace stood 'mid sorrow and care +For Denmark's folk his comfort, a castle strong and fair; +In light of God's pure peace there shall once again be won +And thousand-fold increased, what seems lost now and undone. + +In light of God's peace stands his patriarch-worth, +The sum and the amen of a manful life on earth. +In light of God's pure peace how his face shone, lifted up, +When white-haired at the altar he held th' atoning cup. + +In light of God's peace came his word o'er the wave, +In light of God's pure peace sound the sweet psalms he gave. +In light of God's pure peace, as its sunbeam curtains fall +To hide him from us, stands now his memory for all. + + + +AT A BANQUET FOR +PROFESSOR LUDV. KR. DAA +(See Note 58) + +Youthful friends here a circle form, + Elder foes now surrender. +Feel among us in safety, warm, + Toward you our hearts are tender. +Once again on a hard-fought day +Hero-like you have led the way, + Smiting all that before you stood;-- + But now be good! + +With no hubbub, without champagne, + Dress-suit, and party-collar, +We would honor o'er viands plain + Grateful our "grand old scholar"! +When all quiet are wind and wave, +Seldom we see this pilot brave;-- + When storm-surges our ship might whelm, + He takes the helm! + +--Takes the helm and through thick and thin + (Clear are his old eyes burning), +Steers the course with his trusty "grin," + Straight, where the others are turning! +Thanks gave to him I know not who, +For he scolded the skipper, too!-- + Back he went to his home right soon: + We had the boon. + +He has felt what it is to go + Hated, till truth gains the battle; +He has felt what it is to know + Blows that from both sides rattle. +He has felt what the cost is, so +Forward the present its path to show: + He, whose strength had such heights attained, + Stood all disdained. + +Would that Norway soon grew so great + That it with justice rewarded +Heroes who its true weal create, + Who are no laggards sordid. +Shall we always so slowly crawl, +Split forever in factions small, + Idly counting each ill that ails?-- + No! Set the sails! + +Set the sails for the larger life, + Whereto our nation has power! +Daily life is with death but rife, + If there's not growth every hour. +Rally to war for the cause of right, +Sing 'neath the standard of honor bright, + Sail with faith in our God secure, + And strong endure + + + +OH, WHEN WILL YOU STAND FORTH? +(See Note 59) + +Oh, when will you stand forth, who with strength can bring aid, +To strike down the injustice and lies +That my house have beset, and with malice blockade +Every pathway I out for my powers have laid, +And would hidden means find +With deceit and with hate +To set watch on my mind +And defile every plate +In my beautiful home where defenseless we wait? + +Oh, when will you stand forth? This detraction through years +For my people has made me an oaf, +Hides my poetry's fount in the fog of its fleers, +So it merely a pool of self-worship appears; +Like a clumsy troll I +Am contemned with affront, +Whom all "cultured" folk fly, +Or yet gather to hunt, +That their hunger of hate at a feast they may blunt. + +When I publish a book: "It is half like himself;" +If I speak, 't is for vanity's sake. +What I build in the stage-world of fancy's free elf +Is but formed from my fatuous self. +When for faith I contend +And our land's ancient ways, +When the bridge I defend +From our fathers' great days, +'Tis because my poor breast no king's "Order" displays. + +Oh, when will you stand forth, who shall sunder in twain +All this slander so stifling and foul, +And shall sink in the sea all the terror insane +That they have of heart-passion and will-wielding brain,-- +And with love shall enfold +A soul's faith wide and deep, +That in want and in cold +Would its morning-watch keep +Undismayed, till the light all the host shall ensweep? + +Come, thou Spirit of Norway, God-given of yore +In the stout giant-conquering Thor! +While the lightning thou ridest, thy answer's loud roar +Drowns the din that the dwarfs in defiance outpour; +Thou canst waken with might +All our longings to soar, +Thou canst strengthen in right +What united we swore, +When at Hafur thy standard in honor we bore. + +Hail, thou Spirit of Norway! To think but of thee +Makes so small all the small things I felt. +To thy coming I hallow me, wholly to thee, +And I humbly look up to thy face, unto thee, +And I pray for a song +With thy tongue's stirring sound, +That I true may and strong +In the crisis be found, +To rouse heroes for thee on our forefathers' ground. + + + +AT HANSTEEN'S BIER +(1873) +(See Note 60) + +God, we thank Thee for the dower +Thou gavest Norway in his power, + Whom in the grave we now shall lay! +Starlit paths of thoughts that awe us +His spirit found; his deeds now draw us + To deeds, as mighty magnets play. + He was the first to stand + A light in our free land; + Of our present the first fair crown, + The first renown, + At Norway's feet he laid it down. + +We his shining honors sharing, +And humble now his body bearing, + Shall sing with all the world our praise. +God, who ever guides our nation, +Hath called us to a high vocation + And shown where He our goal doth raise. + People of Norway, glad + Go on, as God us bade! +God has roused you; He knows whereto, + Though we are few. +With Him our future we shall view. + + + +RALLYING SONG FOR FREEDOM IN THE NORTH +TO "THE UNITED LEFT" +(Tirol, 1874) +(See Note 61) + +Dishonored by the higher, but loved by all the low,-- +Say, is it not the pathway that the new has to go? +By those who ought to guard it betrayed, oh yes, betrayed,-- +Say, is it not thus truth ever progress has made? + +Some summer day beginning, a murmur in the grain, +It grows to be a roaring through the forests amain, +Until the sea shall bear it with thunder-trumpets' tone, +Where nothing, nothing's heard but it alone, it alone. + +With Northern allies warring we take the Northern +For God and for our freedom--is the watchword we bring. +That God, who gave us country and language, and all, +We find Him in our doing, if we hear and heed His call. + +That doing we will forward, we many, although weak, +'Gainst all in fearless fighting, who the truth will not seek:-- +Some summer day beginning, a murmur in the grain, +It goes now as a roaring through the forests amain. + +'T will grow to be a storm ere men think that this can be, +With voice of thunder sweeping o'er the infinite sea. +What nation God's call follows, earth's greatest power shall show, +And carry all before it, though it high stand or low. + + + +AT A BANQUET +GIVEN TO THE DEPUTATION OF THE SWEDISH RIKSDAG +TO THE CORONATION, IN TRONDHJEM, JULY 17, 1873 +(See Note 62) + +You chosen men we welcome here + From brothers near. +We welcome you to Olaf's town +That Norway's greatest mem'ries crown, +Where ancient prowess looking down + With searching gaze, +The question puts to sea and strand: +Are men now in the Northern land + Like yesterday's? + +'T is well, if on the battlefield + Our "Yes" is sealed! +'T is well, if now our strength is steeled +To grasp our fathers' sword and shield +And in life's warfare lift and wield + For God and home! +For us they fought; 't is now our call +To raise for them a temple-hall, + Fair freedom's dome. + +List to the Northern spirit o'er + Our sea and shore! +Here once high thoughts in word were freed, +In homely song, in homely deed; +And ever shall the selfsame need + That spirit sing: +Heed not things trivial, foreign, new; +Alone th' eternal, Northern, true + Can harvest bring. + +O brother-band, this faith so dear + Has brought us here? +The spirit of the North to free, +Our common toil and prayer shall be, +Those greater days again to see,-- + As once before, +Of home and trust a message strong +To send the warring world we long + Forevermore. + + + +OPEN WATER! + +Open water, open water! +All the weary winter's yearning +Bursts in restless passion burning. +Scarce is seen the blue of ocean, +And the hours seem months in motion. + +Open water, open water! +Smiles the sun on ice defiant, +Eats it like a shameless giant: +Soon as mouth of sun forsakes it, +Swift the freezing night remakes it. + +Open water, open water! +Storm shall be the overcomer +Sweeping on from others' summer +Billows free all foes to swallow,-- +Crash and fall and sinking follow. + +Open water, open water! +Mirrored mountains are appearing, +Boats with steam and sail are nearing, +Inward come the wide world's surges, +Outward joy of combat urges. + +Open water, open water! +Fiery sun and cooling shower +Quicken earth to speak with power. +Soul responds, the wonder viewing: +Strength is here for life's renewing. + + + +SONG OF FREEDOM +TO "THE UNITED LEFT" +(1877) +(See Note 63) + +Freedom's father--power strong, +Freedom's mother--wrath and song. +Giant-stout, a youth self-taught, +Soon a giant's work he wrought. +Ever he, full of glee, +Thought and wit and melody, +Mighty, merry, made his way,-- +Labor's toil or battle-fray. + +Enemies whom none could tell +Lay in wait this foe to fell, +Found him waking all too stark, +Sought his sleeping hours to mark, +Tried their skill, bound him still; +When he wakened, they fared ill. +Glad he forward strode firm-paced, +Full of power, full of haste. + +Bare fields blossom 'neath his feet, +Commerce swells about his seat, +From his fire gleam thought-rays bright,-- +All things doubled are in might! +For the land law he planned, +Keeps it, guards with head and hand, +Of all rue and error quit, +Crushing him who injures it. + +Freedom's God is God of light, +Not the bondsman's god of fright,-- +God of love and brotherhood, +Springtime's hope and will for good. +To earth's ends _peace_ He sends! +Heed the words His law commends: +"One your Lord, and I am He, +Have no other gods but Me!" + + + +TO MOLDE +(See Note 64) + + Molde, Molde, + True as a song, +Billowy rhythms whose thoughts fill with love me, +Follow thy form in bright colors above me, + Bear thy beauty along. +Naught is so black as thy fjord, when storm-lashes +Sea-salted scourge it and inward it dashes, +Naught is so mild as thy strand, as thine islands, + Ah, as thine islands! +Naught is so strong as thy mountain-linked ring, +Naught is so sweet as thy summer-nights bring. + Molde, Molde, + True as a song, + Murm'ring memories throng. + + Molde, Molde, + Flower-o'ergrown, +Houses and gardens where good friends wander! +Hundreds of miles away,--but I'm yonder + 'Mid the roses full-blown. +Strong shines the sun on that mountain-rimmed beauty, +Fast is the fight, let each man do his duty. +Friends, who your favor would never begrudge me, + Gently now judge me!-- +Only with life ends the fight for the right. +Thought flees to you for a refuge in light. + Molde, Molde, + Flower-o'ergrown, + Childhood's memories' throne. + + Oh, may at last + In thine embrace, life's fleeting + Conflict past, + Glad thine evening-glory greeting, + --Where life let thought awaken,-- + My thought by death be taken! + + + + ++ +PER BO +(1878) + +Once I knew a noble peasant +From a line of men large-hearted. +Light and strength were in his mind, +Lifted like a peak clear-lined +O'er the valley in spring sunshine, +First to feel the morning's beam, +First refreshed by cloud-born stream. + +Wide the springtime spread its banner, +Waving in his will illumined, +Bright with promise, color-sound; +Heritage of toil its ground. +Round that mountain music floated, +Songsters sweet of faith and hope +Nestled on its tree-clad slope. + +Sometime, sometime all the valley +Like him shall with light be flooded; +Sometime all his faith and truth +Sunward grow in dewy youth, +And the dreams he dreamt too early +Live and make him leader be +For a race as true as he. + + + +HAMAR-MADE MATCHES +(1877) +(See Note 65) + +"Here your Hamar-made matches!"-- + Of them these verses I sang; +A thought to which humor attaches, + But yet to my heart sparks sprang. + +Sparks from the box-side flying + Sank deep in my memory, +Till in a light undying + Two eyes cast their spell on me,-- + +Light on the fire that's present, + When faith blazes forth in deed. +Know, that to every peasant + Those eyes sent a light in need. + +Sent to souls without measure + The flame of love's message broad, +Gathering in one treasure + Fatherland, home, and God. + +For it was Herman Anker + Took of his fathers' gold, +Loaned it as wisdom's banker, + Spread riches of thought untold, + +Scattered it wide as living + Seed for the soil to enwrap; +Flowers spring from his giving + Over all Norway's lap. + +Flowers spring forth, though stony + The ground where it fell, and cold. +Never did patrimony + Bear fruitage so many fold. + +Heed this, Norwegian peasant, + Heed it, you townsman, too! +That fruit of love's seed may be present, + Our thanks must fall fresh as dew. + +"Here your Hamar-made matches!" + My thanks kindle fast. And oh! +This song at your heart-strings catches, + That kindling your thanks may glow. + +The matches hold them in hiding,-- + Scratching one you will find +The light with a warmth abiding + Carries them to his mind. + +"Here your Hamar-made matches!" + Only to strike one here, +Our thanks far-away dispatches, + With peace his fair home to cheer. + +His matches in thousands of houses, + In great and in small as well!-- +The light that thanksgiving arouses + Shall scatter the darkness fell. + +His matches in thousands of houses!-- + Some eve from his factory +He'll see how thanksgiving arouses + The land, and its love flames free. + +He'll see in the eyes so tender, + Through gleams that his matches woke, +The thanks that his nation would render, + His glistening wreath of oak,-- + +He'll feel that Norway with double + The warmth of other lands glows; +The harvest must more be than trouble, + When faith in its future grows. + +"Here your Hamar-made matches!" + No phosphorus-poison more! +The bearer of light up-catches + The work of the school before:-- + +From home all the poison taking, + Hastening the light's advance, +Longings to warm light waking, + That lay there and had no chance. + + + + +THEY HAVE FOUND EACH OTHER +(FROM THE DRAMA THE KING, THIRD INTERLUDE) + + Mute they wander, + Meeting yonder, +In the wondrous Spring new-born, +That though old as Time's first morn, +Brings fresh youth to all the living, +Now held fast, now far retreating, +But through hearts in oneness beating +Ever fullest bloom is giving. + Mute they wander. E'en the eye +Speaks no thought. For from on high +To their souls sweet strains have spoken +From the wide world's harmony, +Born of light, the darkness broken, +In the dawn of things to be. + Power crowned-- + Earth around +Like a sun-song rolled the sound. + Mute they wander. Sweet strains ending-- +Eye nor tongue dares yet the lending +Speech to thought. + But lo! quick blending, +All things speak! They sound and shimmer, +Bloom in fragrance, ring and glimmer, +Tint and tone combining, nearer, +Meet as one-with all their thinking +In one beauty, higher, clearer,-- +Heaven itself to earth is sinking. + +But in this great hour of trysting +Life is opened, its course brightened, +Growth eternal calls, enlisting +Every spirit-power heightened. + + + +THE PURE NORWEGIAN FLAG +(Note: That is, without the mark of union with Sweden.) +(See Note 66) + + I +Tri-colored flag, and pure, +Thou art our hard-fought cause secure; +Thor's hammer-mark of might +Thou bearest blue in Christian white, +And all our hearts' red blood +To thee streams its full flood. + +Thou liftest us high when life's sternest, +Exultant, thou oceanward turnest; +Thy colors of freedom are earnest +That spirit and body shall never know dearth.-- +Fare forth o'er the earth! + + II +"The pure flag is but pure folly," + You "wise" men maintain for true. +But the flag is the truth poetic, + The folly is found in you. +In poetry upward soaring, + The nation's immortal soul +With hands invisible carries + The flag toward the future goal. +That soul's every toil and trial, + That soul's every triumph sublime, +Are sounding in songs immortal,-- + To their music the flag beats time. +We bear it along surrounded + By mem'ry's melodious choir, +By mild and whispering voices, + By will and stormy desire. +It gives not to others guidance, + Can not a Swedish word say; +It never can flaunt allurement:-- + Clear the foreign colors away! + + III +The sins and deceits of our nation + Possess in the flag no right; +The flag is the high ideal + In honor's immortal light. +The best of our past achievements, + The best of our present prayers, +It takes in its folds from the fathers + And bears to the sons and heirs; +Bears it all pure and artless, + By tokens that tempt us unmarred, +Is for our will's young manhood + Leader as well as guard. + + IV +They say: "As by rings of betrothal + We are by the flag affied!" +But Norway is _not_ betrothèd, + She _is_ no one's promised bride. +She shares her abode with no one, + Her bed and her board to none yields, +Her will is her worthy bridegroom, + Herself rules her sea, her fields. +Our brother to eastward honors + This independence of youth. +_He_ knows well that by it only + Our wreath can be won in truth. +When we from the flag are taking + His colors, _he_ knows 't is no whim, +But merely because we are holding + Our honor higher than him. +And none who himself has honor + Will seek him a different friend; +Our life we can for him offer, + But naught of our flag can lend. + + V + TO SWEDEN + Respectful I seek a hearing, + With trust in your temper sane, + And plead now our cause before you + In words that are calm and plain: + +If, Sweden, _you_ were the smaller, + Were young your freedom's renown, +Had _your_ flag a mark of union + That pressed you still farther down +By saying that you, as little, + Were set at the greater's board +(For this is the mark's real meaning, + By no one on earth ignored), +Yes, if it were you,--and your freedom + Not hallowed by age, but young, +And a century's want and weakness + Still heavy in memory hung, +The soul of your nation harrowed + By old injustice and need, +By luckless labor and longing, + --And did you its meaning heed; +Yes, if it were you, whose duty + To teach your people were tried, +To honor their new-born freedom, + To find in their flag their guide: +Would longer you suffer it sundered, + Leave foreign a single field? +Would you not claim it unplundered, + Your independence to shield? +Would not to yourself you say then: + "If one has high lineage long, +If greater his colors' glory, + The more alluring his song. +Oh, tempt not him who from trouble + Is rising with new found might; +With pure marks direct him, rather, + To honor's exalted height." + +Thus _you_ would speak, elder hero, + If _you_ in _our_ home abode; +Your wont is the way of honor, + You fare on the forward road. +From eighteen hundred and fourteen, + And down to the latest day, +So oft for our independence + We stood like the stag at bay, +Brave men have risen among you, + And scorning the strife that swelled +Have talked for our cause high-minded, + Like Torgny to them of eld. + + VI +ANSWER TO THE AGED RIDDERSTAD + +You say, it is "knightly duty," + The fight for the flag to share,-- +I hold you full high in honor, + But--_that_ is our own affair! +For just because we encounter + The storm-blasts of slander stark, +It's "knightly duty" to free now + The flag from the marring mark. +The "parity" that mark preaches + Flies false over all the seas; +A pan-Scandinavian Sweden + Can never our nation please. +From "knightly duty" the smaller + Must say: I am not a part; +The mark of my freedom and honor + Is whole for my mind and heart. +From "knightly duty" the greater + Must say: A falsehood's fair sign +Can give me no special honor, + No longer shall it be mine. +For both it is "knightly duty," + With flags that are pure, to be +A warring world's bright example + Of peoples at peace, proud and free. + + + +TO MISSIONARY SKREFSRUD IN SANTALISTAN +(See Note 67) + +I honor you, who, though refused, affronted, + Have heard the voice, and victory have won; +I honor you, who still by malice hunted, + Show miracles of faith and power done. + +I honor you, God-thirsting soul so driven, + 'Mid scorn and need the spirit's war to wage; +I honor you, by Gudbrand's valley given, + And of her sons the foremost in this age. + +I do not share your faith, your daring dreaming; + This parts us not, the spirit's paths are broad. +For, all things great and noble round us streaming, + I worship them, because I worship God. + + + +POST FESTUM +(See Note 68) + +A man in coat of ice arrayed + Stood up once by the Arctic Ocean; + The whole earth shook with proud emotion +And honor to the giant paid. + +A king came, to him climbing up, + An Order in his one hand bearing: + "Who great become, this sign are wearing." +--The growling giant said but "Stop!" + +The frightened king fell down again, + Began to weep with features ashen: + "My Order is in this rude fashion +Refused by just the greatest men. + +"My dear man, take it, 't is but fit, + Of your king's honor be the warder; + On your breast greater grows the Order, +And we who bear it, too, by it."-- + +The Arctic giant was too good,-- + A foible oft ascribed to giants, + Who foolish trust in little clients,-- +He took it,--while we mocking stood. + +But all the kings crept to him then, + And each his Order brought, to know it + Thereby renewed and greater, so it +Gave rank to needy noblemen. + +_Honi soit_ ... and all the rest; + Soon Orders covered all his breast. + But oh! they greater grew no tittle, +And he grew so confounded little. + + + +ROMSDAL +(See Note 69) + +Come up on deck! The morning is clear,-- +Memory wakes, as the landmarks appear. + How many the islands, green and cheery, +The salt-licking skerries, weed-wound, smeary! + On this side, on that side, they frolic before us, +Good friends, but wild,--in frightened chorus +Sea-fowl shriek round us, a flying legion. + We are in a region +Of storms historic, unique for aye. + +We fare the fishermen's venturesome way! +Far out the bank and the big fish shoaling, +The captain narrates; and just now unrolling +Sails run to shore a swift racing match;-- +Good is the catch. + +Yes, yes,--I recognize them again, +Romsdal's boats' weather-beaten men. +They _know_ how to sail, when need's at hand. + +But I'm forgetting to look towards land! +-- -- -- It whelms the sight +Like lightning bright,-- +In memory graven, but not so great. + +Wherever I suffer my eyes to wander, +Stand mountain-giants, both here and yonder, +The loin of one by the other's shoulder, +Naught else to where earth and sky are blending. +The dread of a world's din daunts the beholder; +The silence vastens the vision unending. + +Some are in white and others in blue, +With pointed tops that emulous tower; +Some mass their power, +In marching columns their purpose pursue. +Away, you small folk!--In there "The Preacher" +In high assembly the service intoning +Of magnates primeval, their patriarch owning! +Of what does he preach, my childhood's teacher? +So often, so often to him I listened, +In eager worship, devout and lowly; +My songs were christened +In light that fell from his whiteness holy. + +-- How great it is! I can finish never. +Great thoughts that in life and legend we treasure +Stream towards the scene in persistent endeavor, +The mighty impression to grasp and measure,-- +Dame's hell, India's myth-panorama, +Shakespeare's earth-overarching drama, +Aeschylus' thunders that purge and free, +Beethoven's powerful symphony,-- +They widen and heighten, they cloud and brighten +--Like small ants scrambling and soft-cooing doves, +They tumble backward and flee affrighted;-- +As if a dandy in dress-coat and gloves +The mountains approached and to dance invited. +No, tempt them not! Their retainer be! +You'll learn then later, +How life with the great must make you greater. + +If you are humble, they'll say it themselves, +That something is greater than e'en their greatest. +Look how the little river that delves +High in the notch within limits straitest, +Through ice first burrowed and stone, a brook, +Slowly the giants asunder wearing! +Unmoved before, their face now and bearing +They had to change 'mid the spring-flood's laughter; +Millions of years have followed thereafter, +Millions of years it also took. +In stamps the fjord now to look on their party, +Lifts his sou'-wester, gives greeting to them. +Whoever at times in their fog could view them +Has seen him near to their very noses;-- +The fjord's not famed for his well-bred poses. + +Towards him hurry, all white-foam-faced, +Brooks and rivers in whirling haste, +All of his family, frolicsome, naughty. +If ever the mountains the fjord would immure, +Their narrows press nigher, a prison sure;-- +His water-hands then with a gesture haughty +Seize the whole saucy pass like a shell; +Set to his mouth, he begins to blow it +With western-gale-lungs,--and then you may know it, +Loud is the noise, and the swift currents swell. + +Forcing the coast, a big fjord, black and gray, +Breaks us our way; +Waterfalls rushing on both sides rumble. +Sponge-wet and slow, +Cloud-masses over the mountain-flanks fumble; +The sun and mist, lo, +Symbol of struggle eternal show. + +This is my Romsdal's unruly land! +Home-love rejoices. + +All things I see, have eyes and have voices. +The people? I know them, each man understand, +Though never I saw him nor with him have spoken; +I know this folk, for the fjord is their token. + +_One_ is the fjord in the storm's battle-fray, +_Another_ is he when the sunbeams play +In midsummer's splendor, +And radiant, happy his heart is tender. +Whatever has form, +He bears on his breast with affection warm, +Mirrors it, fondles it,-- +Be it so bare as the mossy gray rubble, +Be it so brief as a brook's fleeting bubble. + +Oh, what a brightness! Beauty, soul-ravishing, +Shines from his prayer, that now he be shriven +Of all the past! And penitence lavishing, +All he confesses; with glad homage given +Mirrors and masses +Deep the mountains' high peaks and passes. + +The old giants think now: He's not really bad; +In greater degree he's wrathful and glad +Than others perchance; is false not at all, +But reckless, capricious,--true son of Romsdal. + +Right are the mountains! This race-type keeping, +_They_ saw men creeping +Over the ridges, scant fodder reaping. +_They_ saw men eager +Toil on the sea, though their take was meager, +Plow the steep slope and trench the bog-valley, +To bouts with the rock the brown nag rally. +Saw their faults flaunted,-- +Buck-like they bicker, +Love well their liquor,-- +But know not defeat,--hoist the sail undaunted! + +Different the districts; but all in all: +Spirits vivacious, with longings that spur them, +Depths full of song, with billows that stir them, +Folk of the fjord and the sudden squall. + +Viking-abode, I hail you with wonder! +High-built the wall, broad sea-floor thereunder, +Hall lit by sun-bows on waterfall vapors, +Hangings of green,--your dwellers the drapers. +Viking-born race,--'t is you I exalt! + +It costs in under so high a vault +A struggle long unto lordship stable; +Not all who have tried to succeed, were able. +It costs to recover the wealth of the fjord +From wanton waste and in power to hoard. +It costs;--but who conquers is made a man. +I know there are that can. + + + +HOLGER DRACHMANN +(See Note 70) + +Spring's herald, hail! You've rent the forest's quiet? +Your hair is wet, and you are leaf-strewn, dusty ... +With your powers lusty +Have you raised a riot? +What noise about you of the flood set free, +That follows at your heels,--turn back and see: +It spurts upon you! --Was it that you fought for? +You were in there where stumps and trunks are rotting +Where long the winter-graybeards have been plotting +To prison safe that which a lock they wrought for. +But power gave you Pan, the ancient god! +They cried aloud and cursed your future lot? +Your gallant feat they held a robber's fraud? +--Each spring it happens; but is soon forgot. + + You cast you down beside the salt sea's wave. +It too is free; dances with joy to find you. +You know the music well; for Pan resigned you +His art one evening by a viking's grave. + + But while on nature's loving lap you lie, +The tramp of battle on the land you hear, +You see the steamers as they northward steer +With freedom's flag;--of your name comes a cry. + + And so is torn between the two your breast:-- +Freedom's bold fighters, who now proudly rally, +In nature's life and legend dreamy rest; +The former chide, the latter lures to dally. + + Your songs sound, some as were a war-horn braying, +Some softly purl like streams on reedy strand. +Half nature-sprite and half as man you stand, +The two not yet one law of life obeying. + + But as you seem and as yourself you are +(The faun's love that the viking's longing tinges), +We welcome you, no lock is left nor bar,-- +You bring along the door and both the hinges. + + Just this it is that we are needing now: +The spring, the spring! These stifling fumes we bear +Of royal incense and of monkish snuff, +Of corpses in romantic cloak and ruff, +Are bad for morals and for lungs: Fresh air! + + Rather a draught of Songs Venetian, cheerful, +With southern wantonness and color-wonders,-- +Rather "Two Shots" (although they make us fearful) +Against our shallow breeding and its blunders. + + Spring's herald, hail! come from the forest's choir, +From ocean's roar, from armèd hosts and grim! +Though sometimes carelessly you struck the lyre,-- +Where rich growth is, one can the rank shoots trim. +The small trolls jeer the gestures of a giant, +I love you _so_,--unique and self-reliant. + + + ++ +A MEETING +(See Note 71) + +... O'er uplands fresh swift sped my sleigh ... +A light snow fell; along the way + Stood firs and birches slender. +The former pondered deep, alone, +The latter laughed, their white boughs shone;-- + All brings a picture tender. + +So light and free is now the air; +Of all its burdens stripped it bare + The snow with playful sally. +I glimpse behind its veil so thin +A landscape gay, and high within + A snow-peak o'er the valley. + +But from the border white and brown, +Where'er I look, there's peeping down + A face ... but whose, whose is it? +I bore my gaze 'neath cap and brim +And see the snowflakes swarm and swim;-- + Will some one here me visit? + +A star fell on my glove ... right here ... +And here again ... its unlike peer; ... + They will with riddles pose me. +And smiles that in the air abound +From eyes so good ... I look around ... + 'T is memory besnows me. + +The stars spin fine their filigree, +Can hidden spirits in it be? + There haunts me something awing ... +You finer birch, you snow unstained, +You purer air,--a soul you've gained? + Who is it here now drawing + +His features dear in nature's face, +In all this fascinating grace, + In falling stars that cheat me,-- +In these white gleams that finely glance, +In all this silent rhythmic dance? ... + Hans Brecke!--comes to meet me. + + + +THE POET +(See Note 72) + +The poet does the prophet's deeds; +In times of need with new life pregnant, +When strife and suffering are regnant, +His faith with light ideal leads. +The past its heroes round him posts, +He rallies now the present's hosts, + The future opes + Before his eyes, + Its pictured hopes + He prophesies. + Ever his people's forces vernal + The poet frees,--by right eternal. + +He turns the people's trust to doubt +Of heathendom and Moloch-terror; +'Neath thought of God, cold-gray with error, +He sees grow green each fresh, new sprout. +Set free, these spread abroad, above, +Bear fruit of power and of love + In each man's soul, + And make it warm + And make it whole, + In wrath transform, + Till light and courage fill the nation: + In _life_ is God's best revelation. + +Away the kingly cloak he tears +And on the people's shoulder places, +So it no more need make grimaces +To borrowed clothes some highness wears, +But be itself its majesty +In right of spirit-dynasty, + In saga's light + On heart and brain, + In men of might + From its loins ta'en, + In will unbiased and unbroken, + In manly deed and bold word spoken. + +His songs the nation's sins chastise, +He hates a lie, as truth's high teacher +(No Sunday-, but a weekday-preacher, +Who, suffering, still the wrong defies). +Against false peace he plies his lance, +'Gainst cowardice and ignorance,-- + No bribe he knows + From nation's hand + Nor king's command; + But _his_ way goes. + And when he wavers, sorrow scourges + His heart and free of passion purges. + +He is a brother of the small, +Of women, as of all who suffer, +The new and weak, when waves grow rougher, +He steers, till fairer breezes fall. +Greater he grows without his will +By deeds his calling to fulfil, + And near the tomb + To God he sighs, + That soon may rise + A richer bloom + To deck his people's soul with flowers + Of beauty far beyond his powers. + + + + +PSALMS + + + I + I seem to be + Sundered from Thee, +Thou Harmony of all creation. + Am I disowned + For talents loaned +And useless hid in vain probation? + Now powerless, + In weariness, +Now in despair a beggar humble + For help, for cheer, + A voice, an ear, +To hear and guide, while on I stumble. + God, let me be. + Of use to Thee! +If vain my purpose and my powers, + Then sinks from sight + My star,--and night +Henceforth my steps enfolding lowers. + Then break and bind + My ravaged mind +The terrors dread of doubt and anguish. + I know the pack, + I drove them back;-- +Only to-day does courage languish. + Oh, come now, peace! + Come faith's increase, +That life's strong chain shall ever bind me! + That not in vain + I strive and strain +Myself to seek until I find me! + + + II +Honor the springtide life ever adorning, + That all things has made! +Things smallest have some resurrectional morning, + The forms alone fade. + Life begets life, +Potencies higher surprise. + Kind begets kind, +Heedless of time as it flies. +Worlds pass away and arise. + +Nothing so small but there's something still smaller, + No one can see. +Nothing so great but there's something still greater + Beyond it can be. + Worms in the earth-- +Mountains to make they essay. + Dust without worth, +Sands with which sea-billows play,-- +Founders of kingdoms were they. + +Infinite all, where the smallest and greatest + Oneness unfold. +No one has seen what was first,--and the latest + None shall behold. + Laws underlie, +Order the all they maintain. + Need and supply +Bring one another; our bane +Boots to the general gain. + +Eternity's offspring and germ are we all now. + Thoughts have their true +Roots in our race's first morning; they fall now, + Query and clue, + Freighted with seed +Into eternity's soil; + Joy be your meed, +That your brief life's fleeting toil +Fruit for eternity bears. + +Join in the joy of all life, every being, + Brief bloom of its spring! +Honor th' eternal, our human lot freeing + From fetters that cling! + Adding your mite, +With the eternal unite! + Though you decay, +Breathe as a moment you may, +Air of eternity's day! + + + III + + CHORUS + +Who art _Thou_, whom a thousand names trace +Through all times that are gone and each tongue? +Thou wert infinite yearning's embrace, +Thou wert hope when the yoke heavy hung, +Thou wert darkening death-terror's guest, +Thou wert sun that with life-gladness blessed. +Still Thine image we changefully fashion, +And each form we would call revelation; +Each man holds his for true with deep passion,-- +Till it crumbles in poignant negation. + + + SOLO + + Who Thou art, none can tell. + But I know Thou dost dwell +As the limitless search in my soul--it is Thou!-- + After justice and light, + After victory's right +For the new that's revealed, it is Thou, it is Thou! + Every law that we see + Or believe there may be, +Though we never can knowledge attain, it is Thou!-- + As my armor and aid + Round my life they are laid, +And with joy I avow, it is Thou, it is Thou! + + + CHORUS + +Since we never Thine essence can know, +We have thought mediators of Thee;-- +But the ages their impotence show, +We stand still, while no way we can see. +If in sickness for succor we thirst, +Is there balm in the dreams that have burst? +Stars of hope and of longing eternal, +That we saw o'er life's sorrows arisen, +Shall they sink in death's terrors nocturnal, +Only turn into worms in our prison? + + + SOLO + He that liveth in me, + Needeth no one to be +Mediator; I own Him indeed: it is Thou! + Is eternal hope prized + As from Him; is baptized +By His spirit my own,--is it Thou, is it Thou --: + Shall not I, who am dust, + His eternity trust? +I take humbly my law; for I know, it is Thou! + Was I worth Thy word: Live! + Let Thy life power give, +When Thou wilt, as Thou wilt,--it is Thou, it is Thou! + + + + +QUESTION AND ANSWER + + + THE CHILD + +Father! Within the forest's bound +No bird I found, +No sound of song the woods around. + + + THE FATHER + +The bird that glad his song us gave, +Flies o'er the wave; +Perhaps he there will find his grave. + + + THE CHILD + +But why does he not wait till later? + + + THE FATHER + +He goes where light and warmth are greater + + + THE CHILD + +Father! It selfish seems to me, +Far off to flee, +When all we others here must be. + + + THE FATHER + +With new-born spring comes new-born song; +By instinct strong +The better new he'll bring erelong. + + + THE CHILD + +But if in death the cold waves swallow--? + + + THE FATHER + +Others will come; his kin will follow. + + + + +SUNG FOR NORWAY'S RIFLEMEN +(1881) +(See Note 73) + +Fly the banner, fly the banner! +For our freedom fight! +'Neath the banner, 'neath the banner, +Riflemen unite! +Graybeard in the Storting +Gives his vote for right and truth, +Rifle-voice supporting +Of our armèd youth. + Music runeful + Ring out tuneful +Bullets sent point-blank, + Fiery coursing, + Freedom forcing +Way to royal rank; +They from silent valleys +To the Storting's rallies +Bring the clear "Rah! Rah!" +And there clamors o'er us +Loud the rifle chorus, +Piercing and repeated: "Rah! Rah! +Rah-rah, rah-rah, rah-rah, rah-rah." + +As the lingering echo rattles, +Listens sure our Mother Norway, +That her sons can go the war-way, +Fight her freedom's future battles. + + + +WORKMEN'S MARCH +(See Note 74) + +Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken! +Keeping time is power's token. +That makes _one_ of many, many, +That makes bold, if fear daunts any, +That makes small the load and lighter, +That makes near the goal and brighter, +Till it greets us gained with laughter, +And we seek the next one after. + +Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken! +Keeping time is power's token. +Marching, marching of few hundreds, +No one heeds it, never one dreads; +Marching, marching of few thousands, +Here and there wakes some to hearing; +Marching, marching hundred thousands,-- +All will mark that thunder nearing. + +Left foot! Right foot! Lines unbroken! +Keeping time is power's token. +Let us march all, never weaken +Time from Vardö down to Viken, +Vinger up to Bergen's region,-- +Let us make _one_ marching legion, +Then we'll rout some wrong from Norway, +Open wide to right the doorway. + + + + +THE LAND THAT SHALL BE +(DEDICATED TO HERMAN ANKER AND M. ANKER ON THE +OCCASION OF THEIR SILVER-WEDDING, SEPTEMBER 15, 1888) +(See Note 75) + + Land that shall be +Thither, when thwarted our longings, we sail,-- +Sighs to the clouds, that we breathe when we fail, +Form a mirage of rich valley and mead + Over our need,-- +Visions revealing the future until + Faith shall fulfil,-- + The land that shall be. + + Land that shall be! +All of our labor to sow seeds of gain +Grows in the ages when _our_ names shall wane, +Gathered with others', 't is stored in the true + Will to renew. +This then shall carry our labor within, + Safely within + The land that shall be. + + Land that shall be! +Tears that are shed over evil's foul blight, +Blood-sweat in conflict to win higher right, +Hallow the will unto victory's cost. + Let us be lost, +Rooting out wrong, that the good we may sow, + Soon overgrow + The land that shall be. + + Land that shall be! +Looming in beauty of colors and song, +Golden in sunlight that glad makes and strong, +Present in children's eyes, looking to-day + Down when you pray. +Winning good victories gives us the power + To own a brief hour + The land that shall be. + + + + +YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN, STRONG AND SOUND + +Young men and women, strong and sound, +Adorn with beautiful excess +Of play and song and flower-dress +Our fatherland's ancestral ground. +They dream great deeds of ages older, +They long to lead to battles bolder. + +Young men and women, strong and sound, +Our nation's honor are, in whom +Our whole life has its better bloom, +Rebirth upon our fathers' ground +Of them of yore. Anew there flower +The old in young folks' summer-power. + +Young men and women, strong and sound, +Can doubly do our deeds and fill +With higher hope for all we will,-- +Are growth in character's deep ground, +To larger life drawn by the spirit +They from our forefathers inherit. + + + + +NORWAY, NORWAY +(See Note 76) + + Norway, Norway, +Rising in blue from the sea's gray and green, +Islands around like fledglings tender, +Fjord-tongues with slender, +Tapering tips in the silence seen. + Rivers, valleys, +Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope +Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten, +Lake and plain brighten +Hallow a temple of peace and hope. + Norway, Norway, +Houses and huts, not castles grand, + Gentle or hard, + Thee we guard, thee we guard, +Thee, our future's fair land. + + Norway, Norway, +Glistening heights where skis swiftly go, +Harbors with fishermen, salts, and craftsmen, +Rivers and raftsmen, +Herdsmen and horns and the glacier-glow. + Moors and meadows, +Runes in the woodlands, and wide-mown swaths, +Cities like flowers, streams that run dashing +Out to the flashing +White of the sea, where the fish-school froths. + Norway, Norway, +Houses and huts, not castles grand, + Gentle or hard, + Thee we guard, thee we guard, +Thee, our future's fair land. + + + + +MASTER OR SLAVE + +Lo, this land that lifts around it +Threatening peaks, while stern seas bound it, +With cold winters, summers bleak, +Curtly smiling, never meek, +'Tis the giant we must master, +Till he work our will the faster. +He shall carry, though he clamor, +He shall haul and saw and hammer, +Turn to light the tumbling torrent,-- +All his din and rage abhorrent +Shall, if we but do our duty, +Win for us a realm of beauty. + + + + +IN THE FOREST + +List to the forest-voice murmuring low: +All that it saw when alone with its laughter, +All that it suffered in times that came after, +Mournful it tells, that the wind may know. + + + + +WHEN COMES THE MORNING? +(FROM IN GOD'S WAY) +(See Note 77) + +_When_ comes the real morning? +When golden, the sun's rays hover +Over the earth's snow-cover, +And where the shadows nestle, +Wrestle, +Lifting lightward the root enringèd +Till it shall seem an angel wingèd, +Then it is morning, +Real, real morning. + But if the weather is bad + And my spirit sad, + Never morning I know. + No. + +Truly, it's real morning, +When blossom the buds winter-beaten, +The birds having drunk and eaten +Are glad as they sing, divining +Shining +Great new crowns to the tree-tops given, +Cheering the brooks to the broad ocean riven. +Then it is morning, +Real, real morning. + But if the weather is bad + And my spirit sad, + Never morning I know. + No. + +_When_ comes the real morning? +When power to conquer parries +Sorrow and storm, and carries +Sun to the soul, whose burning +Yearning +Opens in love and calls to others: +Good to be unto all as brothers. +_Then_ it is morning, +Real, real morning. + Greatest power you know + --And most dangerous, lo!-- + Will you _this_ then possess? + Yes. + + + + +MAY SEVENTEENTH +(1883) +(See Note 78) + +Wergeland's statue on May seventeenth +Saw the procession. And as its rear-guard, +Slow marching masses, +Strong men, and women with flower-decked presence; +Come now the peasants, come now the peasants. + +Österdal's forest's magnificent chieftain +Bore the old banner. Soon as we see it +Blood-red uplifted, +Greet it the thousands in thought of its story: +That is our glory, that is our glory! + +Never that lion bore crown that was foreign, +Never that cloth was by Dannebrog cloven. +I saw the _future_, +When with that banner by Wergeland's column +Peasants stood solemn, peasants stood solemn. + +Most of our loss in the times that have vanished, +Most of our victories, most of our longing, +Most that is vital: +Deeds of the past and the future's bold daring +Peasants are bearing, peasants are bearing. + +Sorely they suffered for sins once committed, +But they arise now. Here in the Storting +Stalwart they prove it, +All, as they come from our land's every region, +Peasants Norwegian, peasants Norwegian. + +Hold what they won, with a will to go farther; +Whole we must have independence and honor! +All of us know it: +Wergeland's summer bears soon its best flower,-- +Power in peasants, peasants in power. + + + + +FREDERIK HEGEL +(See Note 79) + + I + DEDICATION + +You never came here; but I go +Here often and am met by you. +Each room and road here must renew +The thought of you and your form show +Standing with helpful hand extended, +As when long since in trust and deed +My home you from my foes defended. + + ... + +So often, while I wrote this book, +The light shone from your genial eye; +Then we were one, both you and I +And what in silence being took; +So here and there the book possesses +Your spirit and your heart's fresh faith, +And therefore now your name it blesses. + +I love the air, when growing colder + It, clear and high, + The purer sky +Broadens with sense of freedom bolder. + +I find in forests joy the keenest + In autumn days + When fancy plays, +And not when they are young and greenest. + +I knew a man: in autumn clearness + His even course,-- + His heart's fine force +Like autumn sky in soft-hued sheerness. + +His memory is, as--when a-swarming + The cold blasts first + Of winter burst-- +The gentle flame my room first warming. + +When all our outward longings falter, + And summer's mind + Within we find, +Is friendship's feast round autumn's altar. + + + + +OUR LANGUAGE +(1900) +(See Note 80) + +Thou, who sailest Norse mountain-air, +And Denmark's songs by the cradle singest, +Who badest in Hald the war-flames flare, +And, heard in our children's joy, gently ringest,-- + Thou treasure of treasures, + Our mother-tongue, + In pains as in pleasures + Our home and our tower, + With God our power,-- + We hallow thee! + +Whispering secrets that Holberg stored, +Thou borest him home to a brighter morning, +Didst serve him with armor and whet his sword +For satire's assaults and for laughter's warning. + Thou spirit all knowing, + Our mother-tongue, + The ages foregoing, + The future now growing, + The present glowing,-- + We hallow thee! + +Kierkegaard thou to the deeps didst bring, +Where life's full currents in God he sounded. +For Wergeland wert thou the eagle's wing, +That lifted him sunward to heights unbounded. + Thou treasure of treasures, + Our mother-tongue, + In pain as in pleasures + Our home and our tower, + With God our power,-- + We hallow thee! + +Radiant warmth of a May-day +Thou to the spring of our freedom gavest. +In thy clearness our Norse flags aye +With song and honor afar thou wavest. + Thou spirit all knowing, + Our mother-tongue, + The ages foregoing, + The future now growing, + The present glowing,-- + We hallow thee! + +O'er the ocean unrollest thou +Thy carpet of flowers, a bridge that nigher +Can bring dear friends to meet even now,-- +While faith grows greater and heaven higher. + Thou treasure of treasures, + Our mother-tongue, + In pain as in pleasures + Our home and our tower, + With God our power,-- + We hallow thee! + +Best of friends that I found wert thou; +Thou waitedst for me in the eyes of mother. +And leave me last of them all wilt thou, +Who knewest me better than any other. + Thou spirit all knowing, + Our mother-tongue, + The ages foregoing, + The future now growing, + The present glowing,-- + We hallow thee! + + + +NOTES + +PREFATORY + +Björnstjerne Björnson was born in 1832 and died in 1909. The last +edition of his Poems and Songs in his lifetime is the fourth, dated +1903. It is a volume of two hundred pages, containing one hundred +and forty-one pieces, arranged in nearly chronological order from +1857, or just before, to 1900. Of these almost two-thirds appeared +in the first edition (1870), ending with Good Cheer and including +ten pieces omitted in the other editions, eight poems and two +lyrical passages from the drama King Sverre; the second edition +(1880) added the contents in order through Question and Answer and +inserted earlier The Angels of Sleep; the third (1900) extended the +additions to include Frederik Hegel. + +This translation presents in the same order the contents of the +fourth edition, with the exception of the following ten pieces: + +Bryllupsvise Nr. I. +Bryllupsvise Nr. II. +Bryllupsvise Nr. III. +Bryllupsvise Nr. IV. +Bryllupsvise Nr. V. +De norske studenter til fru Louise Heiberg. +De norske studenters hilsen med fakkeltog til deres kgl. höiheder + kronprins Frederik og kronprinsesse Louise. +Til sorenskriver Mejdells sölvbryllup. +Nytaarsrim til rektor Steen. +Til maleren Hans Gudes og frues guldbryllup. + +Nine of these are occasional longs in the narrowest sense, with +little or no general interest, and showing hardly any of the +author's better qualities: five Wedding Songs, a Betrothal Song, a +Silver-Wedding Song, a Golden-Wedding Song, and a Students' Song of +Greeting to Mrs. Louise Heiberg. The tenth, a characteristic, rather +long poem of vigor and value, New Year's Epistle in Rhyme to Rector +Steen, is extremely difficult to render into English verse. + +The translator has thought it best not to include any of Björnson's +lyric productions not contained in the collection published with his +sanction during his life, the other lyrics in his tales, dramas. and +novels, many occasional short poems in periodicals and newspapers +which were abandoned by their author to their fugitive fate, two +noble lyrical cantatas, and a few fine poems written after the year +1900. + +The translation aims to reproduce as exactly as possible the +verse-form, meter, and rhyme of the original. This has been +judged desirable because music has been composed for so many +of these songs and poems, and each of them is, as it were, one +with its musical setting. But such reproduction seems also, on the +whole, to be most faithful and satisfactory, when the translator is +not endowed with poetic genius equal to that of the author. The very +numerous double (dissyllabic) rhymes of the Norwegian are not easy +to render in English. Recourse to the English present participle has +been avoided as much as possible. If it still seems to be too +frequent, the translator asks some measure of indulgence in view of +the fact that the use here of the English present participle is +formally not so unlike that of the inflectional endings and of the +post-positive article Norwegian. + +The purpose of the Notes is to assist the better understanding and +appreciation of the contents of the book, by furnishing the +necessary historical and biographical information. Of the persons +referred to it is essential to know their dates, life-work, +character, influence, and relation to Björnson. The Notes have been +drawn from the accessible encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, +bibliographies, and histories. The notes of Julius Elias to his +edition of German translations of Björnson's poems made by various +writers and published in 1908 have been freely and gratefully used. + +The Introduction is designed not so much to offer new and original +criticism as to present the opinions generally held in Scandinavia, +and, of course, chiefly in Norway. The lyric poetry of Björnson has +been excellently discussed by Christian Collin in Björnstjerne +Björnson. Hans Barndom og Ungdom by Henrik Jaeger in Illustreret +norsk literaturhistorie, and by various authors, including Swedes +and Danes, in articles of Björnstjerne Björnson. Festskrift I +anledning af hans 70 aars födelsdag. To all of these special +indebtedness is here acknowledged. + +New Haven, Connecticut, June, 1915 + + + +Note 1 +NILS FINN. "There has hardly been written later so excellent a +continuation of the old Norwegian humorous ballad as this poem (from +the winter of 1856-57),written originally in the Romsdal dialect +with which Björnson wished 'to astonish the Danes.'" (Collin, ii, +147.) + +Note 2. +VENEVIL. Midsummer Day=sanktehans=Saint John's (Feast), on June 24, +next to Christmas the chief popular festival in Norway; the time +when nature and human life have fullest light and power. + +Note 3. +OVER THE LOFTY MOUNTAINS. "Really Björnson's first patriotic song. +... Describes one of the main motive forces in all the history of +the Norwegian people, the inner impulse to expansion and the + adventurous longing for what is great and distant. ... Written in +the narrow, hemmed-in Eikis valley." (Collin, ii, 308, 309) + +Note 4. +OUR COUNTRY. Written for the celebration of the Seventeenth of May +in Bergen in the year 1859. This is Norway's Constitution Day, +corresponding to our Fourth of July, the anniversary of the day in +1814 when at Eidsvold (see Note 5) a representative convention +declared the country's independence and adopted a Constitution. The +celebration day was instituted as a result of King Karl Johan's +proposals for changes in the Constitution during the years 1821 to +1824, especially in favor of an absolute veto. It was taken up in +Christiania in 1824, and spread rapidly to all the cities in the +land, was opposed by the King and omitted in 1828, taken up by the +students of the University in 1829, and soon after 1830 made by +Henrik Wergeland (see Note 78) the chief of Norwegian patriotic +festivals. In 1870 Björnson conceived and put into practice the +"barnetog" or children's procession on this day, when the children +march also, each carrying a flag. Bauta, prehistoric, uncut, +narrow, tall, memorial stone, from the bronze age. + Hows, burial mounds, barrows. + +Note 5. +SONG FOR NORWAY. Written in the summer of 1859 in connection +with the tale Arne, but not included in that book. The people of +Norway have adopted this poem as their national hymn, because +it is vigorous, picturesque summary of the glorious history of the +country in whose every line patriotic love vibrates. + +Stanza 2. Harald Fairhair (860-933) was the first to unite all +Norway in one kingdom as a sort of feudal state. His success in his +struggles with the petty kings who opposed him was made complete by his victory over viking forces in the battle on the waters of +Hafursfjord, 872. Many of the rebels emigrated, a movement which led +to the settlement of Iceland front 874 on. Haakon the Good (935- +961) was the youngest son of Harald Fairhair, born in the latter's +old age. He was reared in England with King Ethelstane, who had him +taught Christianity and baptized. When he was well settled on the +throne in Norway, he tried to introduce Christianity, but without +success. He improved the laws and organized the war forces of the +land. + Eyvind Finnsson, uncle of Haakon, was a great skald, who sang his +deeds and Norway's sorrow over his death. + Olaf the Saint (1015-1030) was a man of force and daring, as shown +by his going on viking expeditions when only twelve years old. He +became a Christian in Normandy. Returning to Norway in 1015, he +established himself as King and spread his authority as a stern +ruler. With more or less violence he Christianized the whole land. +This and his sternness led to an uprising, which was supported by +the Danish King, Knut the Great. Olaf died a hero's death in the +battle of Stiklestad, and not long after became Norway's patron +saint, to whose grave pilgrimages were made from all the North. His +son, Magnus the Good, (see Note 6), was chosen King in 1035. + Sverre (1182-1202) was a man of unusual physical and mental +powers,calm and dignified, and wonderfully eloquent. Yet he was a +war king, and the civil conflicts of his time were a misfortune for +Norway, although he bravely defended the royal prerogatives and the +land against the usurpation of temporal power by the Church of Rome, +and put an end to ecclesiastical rule in Norway. + +Stanza 3. About five centuries of less renown for Norway are passed +over, and this and the following stanza refer to the time of the +Great Northern War, 1700-21, and the danger arising from Charles XII +of Sweden. From 1319 to 1523 Norway was in union with Denmark and +Sweden; from 1523 with Denmark only. In this war, waged by Denmark- +Norway, Russia, and Saxony-Poland against Charles XII, in order to +lessen the might which Sweden had gained by the Thirty Years' War, +Norwegian peasants, men and women, took up arms against the Swedes. + Peasant is in this volume the usual rendering of the word "bonde" +in the original; for its fuller significance see Note 78. + Tordenskjold, Peter (1691-1720), a great Norwegian naval hero, +whose original name was Wessel, and who was born in Trondhjem. He +received the name Tordenskjold when he was ennobled. By his +remarkable achievements he contributed much to the favorable issue +of the Great Northern War; he often had occasion to ravage the coast +of Sweden and to protect that of Norway. + +Stanza 4. Fredrikshald. Here, on September 11, 1718, Charles XII met +his death on his second invasion of Norway. The citizens had +earlier burned the City, so that it might not afford shelter to the +Swedes against the cannon of the fortress Fredriksten. + +Stanzas 5 and 6. Again a rather long period of peace is passed over. +In 1807 Denmark was induced by Napoleon to join the continental +system. England bombarded Copenhagen and captured it and the Danish +fleet. The war lasted seven years for Norway also, which was +blockaded by the English fleet and suffered sorely for lack of the necessaries of life. But the nations sense of independence grew, +and when the Peace of Kiel in January, 1814, separated Norway from +Denmark, Norway refused to be absorbed by Sweden, and through a +representative assembly at Eidsvold declared its independence, +adopted a Constitution on May 17, 1814, and chose as King, Prince +Christian Frederik, the later King Christian VIII of Denmark. The +Swedish Crown Prince Karl Johan led an invasion of Norway in July, +and there was fighting until the Convention of Moss, August 14, in +which he approved the Norwegian Constitution in return for the +abdication of Christian Frederik. Negotiations then led to the +federation of Norway as an independent kingdom with Sweden in a +union. This was formally concluded on November 4, 1815, by the +adoption of the Act of Union, and the election of the Swedish King +Karl XIII as King of Norway. + The last four lines of stanza 6 refer to "Scandinavism," i.e., a +movement beginning some time before 1848 to bring about a close +federation or alliance of the three Northern kingdoms (see Note 21). + +Note 6. +ANSWER FROM NORWAY. First printed in a newspaper, April 7, 1860, +with the title "Song for the Common People," this poem refers to a +stage of the long conflict over the question of a viceroy in Norway, +so important in the history of the union of Sweden and Norway. The +Norwegian Constitution gave to the King power to send a viceroy to +reside in Norway, and to name as such either a Swede or a Norwegian. +Until about 1830 the viceroy had always been a Swede, thereafter always a Norwegian. On December 9, 1859, the Norwegian Storting +voted to abolish this article in a proposed revision of the +Constitution. The matter was discussed in Sweden with vehemence and +passion. The storm of feeling raged most violently in March, 1860, +when on the 17th, in Stockholm, this revision was rejected. +However, no viceroy was appointed alter 1859, and in 1873 the +question was amicably settled as Norwegians desired. + While the situation was tense, an unfounded rumor had spread, that +on one occasion the Norwegian flag had been raised over the +residence of the Swedish-Norwegian Minister in Vienna. This caused +loud complaints in Sweden, that "the Norwegian colors had displaced +the Swedish," while in the House of Nobles a member declared that +Norway ought to be "an accessory" to Sweden; that "young, +inexperienced" Norway's demand of equality with Sweden was like a +commoner's importunity for equality with a nobleman. He went on to +say that the Swedish nation must crave again its (pure) flag: "For +in our ancient blue-yellow Swedish flag, that waved over Lützen's +blood-drenched battlefield, are our honor, our memories, and +thousand-fold deaths." + The (pure, i.e., without the mark of union) Swedish flag consists +of a yellow cross on a blue ground, the (pure) Norwegian flag of a +blue cross within a white border on a red ground; in each the cross +extends to the four margins. At the date of this poem each flag +showed a mark of union, a diagonal combination of the colors of +both, in the upper field nearest the staff. (For a brief history of +the flag of Norway, see Note 66.) + +Stanza 2. Magnus the Good, son of Olaf the Saint, reigned from 1035 +till his death in 1047. He was victorious in conflict with the +Danish King Knut the Hard, and by agreement received Denmark after +his death. Magnus died in Denmark on one of several successful +expeditions against the rebellious Svein Jarl. + Fredrikshald, see Note 5. + Ad(e)ler, Kort Sivertsen (1622-1675), was a distinguished admiral, +born in Norway. He reorganized the Danish-Norwegian fleet, which +late in the seventeenth century several times defeated the Swedish. + +Stanza 3. Lützen. In the battle of Lützen, November 16, 1632, +Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden was killed. + Grandsire's ancient seat, symbol of Norway's ancient power and +glory. In one of the Swedish speeches were these words: "If Norway +had had a Gustavus Adolphus, a Torstenson, a Charles the Twelfth, if +its name like ours had gone forth victorious in history, no Swede +would deny its right to stand before us. This, however, is not the +case. ..." + +Stanza 4. Sverre Priest, see Note 5. When young he was a priest. + +Stanzas 5 and 6. Christie, Y. F. K. (1779-1849), was a vice- +president of the convention of Eidsvold, April 10-May 20, 1814, and +president of the first extraordinary Storting after the convention +of Moss, August, 1814. To him more than any other man was due the +securing of Norway's independence and welfare in the framing and +adoption of the Constitution and the Act of Union. In a sense he +was the real founder of Norway's liberty (see Note 5). + +Stanza 7. Wessel=Tordenskjold, see Note 5. + +Stanza 8. Torgny. At the Ting in Upsala, February, 1018, when the +Swedish King Olaf refused peace and his daughter's hand to the +Norwegian King, Olaf the Saint, the aged and revered peasant lawman, +Torgny, the wisest and most influential man in the land, rebuked the +King, declaring that the peasants wished peace with Norway, and +concluding thus: "If you will not do what we say, we shall attack +and kill you and not suffer from you breach of peace and law." The +King yielded, and made a promise which he afterwards broke. + +Note 7. +JOHAN LUDVIG HEIBERG (December 14, 1791-August 25, 1860), the +leading Danish dramatist and critic of his time, an esthetic genius, +with, however, the stamp of the man of the world always on his life +and works. He early studied mathematics and natural science, +medicine and philology, Danish and foreign literature, and was also +very musical. He was uncertain whether to become a poet and esthetic +critic, a physician, or a natural scientist, or a surveyor, or -- a +diplomat. From about 1824 he studied and adopted the Hegelian +philosophy, on which based his esthetics, and for which he was the +first spokesman in Denmark. In the years 1825 to 1836 he founded the +Danish vaudeville, in which his aim was to recreate the national +drama. His vaudeville was a lighter musical-dramatic genre, +a situation-play with loosely-sketched characters and the addition +of music to concentrate the mood. In it he sought a union with the national comedy, and like Holberg to treat subjects from his own age +and land. From 1830 to 1836 Heiberg was professor of logic, +esthetics, and Danish literature in the Military School. From 1839 on, censor of the Royal Theater, of which he was director from 1849 +to 1856, without great success because of circumstances beyond his +control. In the year 1840 he began to deeply interested in the study +of acoustics, optics, and astronomy, and soon fitted up a small +astronomical observatory at his residence; he published an +astronomical manual, 1844-46. In 1831 Heiberg married Johanne Louise +Pätges (1812-1890). The daughter of poor parents, she became a pupil +of the dancing-school of the Royal Theater in 1820, but went over to +the drama in 1826. Wonderfully gifted, she developed rapidly and +became Denmark's greatest actress. Her last appearance on the +stage was in 1864. She favored the performance of Björnson's and +Ibsen's earlier dramas on the stage in Copenhagen, with management +of which she had official connection from 1867 to 1874. + "New Year" ringing o'er the Northland. Shortly before Christmas, +1816, Heiberg published his polemical romantic comedy Yule Jests and +New Year's Jokes, a brilliant revelation of his superiority as a wit +and a satirist. Attacking the excessive sentimentality of Danish +literature and taste at that time, it made a sensation and led to +the improvement of both. + +Note 8. +THE OCEAN. Arnljot Gelline, a man of prowess, from Tiundaland, the +Region about Upsala. When Olaf the Saint went from Sweden to Norway +in 1030, Arnljot Gelline was present in his army at Stiklestad, and +after baptism was assigned to a place nearest in front of the royal +standard. He fought stoutly, but fell early in the battle. + Vikar, a brother of Arnljot Gelline, who sailed with Olaf +Trygvason on the Long Serpent, and died fighting in his post of +honor on the prow. (See notes below.) + +Note 9. +ALONE AND REPENTANT. This poem was first printed in 1865, but was +probably written in 1861 or 1862 in Germany or Italy. The friend +was Ivar Bye, whom Björnson had saved from distress and social +ostracism in Christiania before 1857, when Bye went as an actor with +Björnson to the theater in Bergen. He was no great actor but an +unusual man, for whom Björnson had deep respect and warm sympathy. +Björnson described his character and life-experience in the study +"Ivar Bye," first published in 1894, in which he said: "Our +literature possesses a memorial of his way of receiving what was +confided to him. It lies in the poem: 'A friend I possess.' I +wrote it far away from him,--not that he might have it, his name is +not mentioned, and he never had it, but because at that time things +were hard for me." + +Note 10. +OLAF TRYGVASON. Grandson of Harald Fairhair, and King from 995 to +1000. On one of his viking expeditions to England he was converted +to Christianity. Returning to Norway to win back his ancestral +inheritance from Haakon Jarl (see Note 14), he had fortune with +him; for as he steered into the Trondhjem Fjord, he received the +tidings of the successful uprising of the peasants against Haakon. +He founded Nidaros, the present city of Trondhjem, established +Christianity in a large part of the country, and soon became dearer +to the people than any other Norwegian King. But he had powerful +enemies outside of the land: the Danish King, Svein Forkbeard, +the Swedish King, Olaf, and Erik, son of Haakon Jarl. By a large +sea-force under these he was attacked off the island Svolder (near +the island of Ringen), and there lost his life. Erling Skjalgsson, +a great chieftain, holding large fiefs from Olaf and married to his +sister, lived at Sole in southwestern Norway. With a large number of +the smaller ships of Olaf Trygvason he had been allowed to sail away +in advance and did not know of the battle at Svolder. + Long Serpent was the name of the large fighting ship that Olaf had +built for this expedition. It held six hundred men. + +Note 11. +BERGLIOT. Einar Tambarskelve was one of the most powerful men in +Norway during the first half of the eleventh century. His mastery of +the bow gave him the epithet Tambarskelve, "bow-string-shaker." He +fought, when eighteen years old, on the Long Serpent at Svolder. +After Erik and Svein were established in power as a result of that +battle, Einar became reconciled and married their sister Bergliot. +In 1023 he went to King Knut the Great in England, who was also King +of Denmark, and urged him to conquer Norway. Knut did so in 1028 and +made his son Svein King of Norway. Einar opposed this, and Magnus +the Good (see Note 6) was called to rule, whose most faithful +vassal Einar became. He followed King Magnus and his co-regent +Harold Hardruler to Denmark, where Magnus died. Here and in Norway +Einar, as the champion of all that was good, opposed many of the +illegal and unrighteous deeds and plans of Harald, and incurred the +latter's bitter enmity. In the year 1055, under the pretext of +reconciliation, Harold lured Einar with his wife and son Eindride +(pronounced as three syllables) to Nidaros (Trondhjem), where +the murder was committed within the hall of the royal residence, as +related in the poem. + Haakon Ivarson was a man of force and influence. + Harald Hardruler was a half brother of Olaf the Saint. Late in the +reign of Magnus the Good, after adventurous wanderings in Russia and +the Orient, he returned to Norway and demanded a share in the +kingdom. By agreement they divided the royal power and their +wealth. Before his death Magnus determined that Harald should be +King of Norway, but Svein Estridson King of Denmark. Harald, +however, tried unsuccessfully to conquer Denmark. He died in +England, being slain at the battle of Stanford Bridge in 1066. His +harshness as King secured him his epithet. The murder of Einar +brought him much hate. + Ting-peace. The spelling "ting" is adopted in place of "thing." + Peasants, for this word see Note 78. + Gimle, the heaven of the new Christian faith. + Heath of Lyrskog, in Jutland. Magnus the Good, at the time also +King of Denmark, won a decisive victory here in 1043 over a much +larger invading army of Wends. (See also Note 23.) + Trönder, one from the region about Trondhjem. + Haakon from Hjörungavaag. Haakon Jarl (970-995) was the last +pagan King in Norway. His defeat in 986 of the Jomsborg vikings, +allies of King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, in a naval engagement at +Hjörungavaag, a bay in western Norway, was the greatest naval battle +ever fought in that country. + Valhall, the hall where those slain in battle dwell after death. + +Note 12. +TO MY WIFE. Written in Rome in 1861 or 1862, first printed in 1865. +Björnson's wife was Karoline Reimers, born December 1, 1835. They +were married on September 11, 1858; she is still living (June, +1915). At the celebration of their golden wedding Björnson +addressed touching words of gratitude to her, saying at the close: +"I know that you will live longer than I. It will be your lot to +cover the sheet over me. There is much in a man that needs to be +covered over. Of our life, Karoline, you shall have the honor. See +also the poem Those with Me, and notes thereto. + +Note 13. +IN A HEAVY HOUR. Written in Italy rather late in 1861, after +Björnson received tidings of the sharp criticism of his drama King +Sverre and of its lack of success on the stage in Christiania, where +it was first performed on October 9. In a letter from Hans +Christian Andersen Björnson wrote on December 10, 1861: "At a time +when I was in a mood to write the following verses, which perhaps +tell so much that I need not tell more [the poem is quoted],--at a +time when I, the man, nay, the product of friendship, was in a mood +to write this, it came just like a Christmas hymn among strangers, to hear that you had dedicated to me your last four Tales. You ..., +you had a heart to remember me, when many friends from tested times +did not." + +Note 14. +KAARE'S SONG. Helga was the daughter of Maddad, a prominent and +wealthy man at Katanes. She came to Orkney, where the ruler, Haakon +Earl, fell in love with her and made her his mistress. She bore him +a son, Harald, and lived at Orkney sixteen years in spite of the +hate and disdain showed her by so many, especially by the Earl's +lawful wife. She and her sister Frakark exerted an evil influence +over Haakon Earl, inciting him among other things to murder his co- +ruler and kinsman Magnus Erlendson. It was believed that Haakon +Earl became crazy when he first saw Helga. This song, which Kaare, +one of the Earl's men, sings, describes this first meeting and was +commonly sung by Helga's enemies. + +Note 15. +IVAR INGEMUNDSON'S LAY. In the first half of the twelfth century an +Icelandic skald of this name lived and sang at the court of King +Eystein in Norway. He loved a young Icelandic girl, but had not +declared his love. When his brother was going home to Iceland, Ivar +asked him to tell her of his love and beg her to wait for him. But +on his later coming to Iceland, she met him as that brother's wife. +Ivar returned Norway and was thereafter always melancholy and +thoughtful. When Harald Gille became King, Ivar lived at his court, +but sympathized warmly with the able and bold Sigurd Slembe, who +claimed to be Magnus Barefoot's son and Harald Gille's half-brother. +After many years of hardship Sigurd came to Harald Gille and asked +him to recognize him. Harald was a good-natured, but weak and +ignorant man, entirely controlled by his chieftains, who persuaded +him to have Sigurd imprisoned, with the intention of killing him. +Sigurd, however, escaped and fled. + +Note 16. +MAGNUS THE BLIND. Magnus was born in 1115, and became King in 1130. +He had Harald Gille as co-regent. Their agreement was that Harald +could not demand a larger share in the kingdom as long as Magnus +lived. But Magnus made himself hated by his own deeds, and in 1131 +a breach resulted between the Kings. The chieftains were on Harald's +side. He seized Magnus in 1135, had him blinded and castrated, and +sent him into the monastery at Nidarholm. Sigurd Slembe, who made +war on Harald and conquered him, freed Magnus from the monastery +and caused him to fight in his army. He died in the sea-battle of +Holmengraa. + +Note 17. +SIN, DEATH. Written during the latter half of 1862 in Munich, and +possibly, according to an oral statement of Björnson's, under +impressions received from German ecclesiastical art: "It is only +natural that in Munich symbolical poems should present themselves." + +Note 18. +FRIDA. This poem was first printed March 24, 1863, soon after the +death, at the age of twenty-two, of her whom it commemorates. She +was a younger sister of the leading Danish literary critic, Clemens +Petersen, born 1834. He became Björnson's friend in 1856 and aided +greatly in opening the way for him in Denmark. Until 1868 Petersen +had much influence on public opinion. Soon after that he came to +America, and did not return to Copenhagen until 1904. He was a +follower of Heiberg, but more liberal. + +Note 19. +BERGEN. Written in 1863 for a musical festival in which Björnson and +Ibsen took part. Bergen's unusually favorable situation made it for +a long time Norway's first city in commerce; it has only recently +fallen behind Christiania. It has ever had a large local fleet and +great traffic in its harbor. Founded about 1070 by King Olaf the +Quiet, Bergen was very important in the older history of the land, +as the residence of the Kings, until about 1350, when Hanseatic +control began, continuing until late in the sixteenth century. In +the seventeenth century Bergen was incomparably the first commercial +city in the Danish-Norwegian monarchy; in the eighteenth it was +surpassed by Copenhagen. The people of Bergen have always been +distinctly liberal in thought and feeling. + Holberg, Ludvig (1684-1754), was born in Bergen, but resided in +most of his life in Denmark. His comedies, which founded modern +Danish-Norwegian literature, are indeed immortal. + Dahl, John Christian Clausen (1788-1857), a Norwegian landscape +painter, who, though born in Bergen, went in 1811 to Copenhagen and +from 1818 resided in Dresden. As subjects he preferred water, rock, +and strand, and showed a realistic tendency in his light-effects. + Welhaven, see Note 36. + Ole Bull (1810-1880), a violinist of world-wide renown. In his +later life he passed most of his time in the United States, but +every year he returned to the home which he maintained near Bergen, +at a distance of about two hours by steamer. Carrying out a plan +conceived in 1848, he established in Bergen with his own means the +first Norwegian National Theater, which was opened January 2, 1850. + Collin says that the last line of the poem sums up Björnson's view +of Norway's historical memories as motive power for new achievement. +This seems realized in Bergen's recent development,--it now had the +largest steam-fleet of all the cities in Norway. + +Note 20. +P. A. MUNCH. Peter Andreas Munch (born in Christiania, December 15, +1810; died in Rome, May 25, 1863) became professor of history in +1841 and Keeper of the Archives in 1861. He was not only one of the +greatest historians of Norway, but also a philologist, an +ethnographer, an archaeologist, a geographer, and a publicist. His +chief field was the prehistoric age and the medieval period. +He traveled much in the Scandinavian lands and elsewhere in Europe, +made several long stays in Rome, and was buried there. His main and +best known work is the History of the Norwegian People, in eight +large volumes, published from 1851 to 1863. This and his other +writings greatly strengthened the national self-consciousness and +sense of independence. Munch had a phenomenal memory, marked talent +for music and drawing, playful humor, incredible capacity for work, +rare intuition for epoch-making discoveries. In a speech in 1892 +Björnson placed Munch by the side of Wergeland (see Note 78) as a +fosterer of national self-consciousness and faith in the future: "We +can remember when we were young, how P. A. Munch's History came out +in parts, and how he fought with the Danish professors, to get +Norway brought home again from Danish captivity in history also, +--we can remember how eventful it was for us, and how it had its +share in molding us. ... He had his large share in what our +generation has done. I put his work in this way by the side of +Wergeland's." + Through provincial Asian forests, etc. These lines refer to the +so-called "immigration-theory" advanced by Rudolf Keyser and +elaborated by Munch, which maintained that the remote ancestors of +the Swedes and the Norwegians migrated from the northeast into the +Scandinavian peninsula about 300 B.C.: the Swedes from Finland and +the Northmen through Lapland. These scholars also held that Old +Norse literature, as being the product of Norway and Iceland, was +distinctly Norse, and not "Northern" or joint-Scandinavian. + When I call, paraphrase of Isaiah xlviii, 13 + Who again shall reunite fit? Munch left no peer in international +reputation. Coursed the sea-ways toward his standard. Not only was +Munch honored throughout Europe, but he was the first to secure for +Norwegian history its rightful place in European history. + +Note 21. +KING FREDERIK THE SEVENTH. His death occurred November 15, 1863, +just before the crisis with Prussia and Austria. He was born +October 6, 1808, the son of Prince Christian Frederik, later King +Christian VIII of Denmark, and his first wife. The early divorce of +his parents resulted in his education being neglected; he was left +for several years in the hands of relatives and strangers; had +unsympathetic teachers and almost no trace of parental guidance. +All his life he had less than average attainments in knowledge, +except in a practical way in Scandinavian archaeology. He had +natural dignity, but a broad, undisciplined nature, and shunned +court etiquette and constraint. In 1834, he was in effect +banished to Jaegerspris, a royal estate near Frederikssund, and +later was sent on a cruise to Iceland. Afterwards he resided in +disfavor in Fredericia, where his tendencies to plain, direct +intercourse with people of all classes were further developed. When +Christian VIII ascended the throne, Frederik's position was somewhat +improved, and his free association with officials and commoners made +him very popular. It was found that he could show at times +surprisingly clear and sure insight into practical conditions. His +interest continued active in archaeological investigations, sea- +voyaging, and fishing. During the increasing national and political +difficulties Frederik, because of his pronounced Danish feeling and +sympathy with the common people, was disposed to take a stand more +national and constitutionally liberal than could please the +government circles. This became known among the people +and made him a still greater favorite. In 1847 he submitted a +proposal for the introduction of a joint Constitution for the entire +monarchy, but King Christian died before action could be taken. +Frederik VII ascended the throne January 20, 1848. The change of +ministry which he made in March as a result of the Schleswig revolt, +his opposition to the division of Schleswig, and his establishment +of really constitutional government made his popularity forever +secure, although he was not a sure and purposeful ruler. Frederik's +character played an important part in the relations of Denmark with +Sweden and Norway. The personal friendship between the two +Kings united the countries more closely and lifted political +"Scandinavism" to the height it reached shortly before the war of +1864 with Prussia and Austria over Schleswig-Holstein. + This "Scandinavism" is referred to in the poem by the words "to +the North," "his course," and similar expressions. It was the name +given to the sense of kinship of the three Northern peoples and the +desire of closer union, whether in spiritual or material or +political relations. It was evoked first by poets and scholars, and +gathered strength from 1843 on in meetings of university students. +In 1848 there was warm sympathy in both Sweden and Norway with the +cause of Denmark; the assistance of volunteers and even of Swedish- +Norwegian troops was given. Towards 1864 the three countries came +more closely together politically, promises of help to Denmark were +made by Sweden and Norway, and there was even talk of a treaty of +alliance. But the end of the war of 1864, and Germany's victory over +France in 1870-71, destroyed the hopes of political Scandinavism, +and thereafter it became rather cultural and practical, at least +until 1905, when Norway's full independence of Sweden led to +emphasis on individual nationality. The war of 1914-15 may bring +about a revival of political Scandinavism. (See also Note 38.) + +Note 22. +TO SWEDEN. This poem and several following breathe the spirit of +Scandinavism described above. + Yellow-blue. The flag of Sweden shows a yellow cross on a blue +ground. + Christian Fourth, King of Denmark and Norway, 1588-1648. + Haakon Earl, see Note 14. + Palnatoki, the legendary leader of the Jomsborg vikings. Ancient +enemies are now allies, and so also Tordenskjold (see Note 5) +fights by the side of, not against, Charles XII. + Jenny=the famous singer, Jenny Lind, 1820-1887. + Lützen. Gustavus Adolphus prayed and his troops sang hymns before +the battle. + Narwa, where Charles XII, in November, 1700, was victorious over +the Russians under Peter the Great. + +Note 23. +OUR FOREFATHERS. A festival, memorial poem, written just before the +outbreak of the Danish-German war. Danish troops were stationed +along the river Eider, which the Germans crossed on February 1, +1864. The last lines of the poem refer to what is told in the saga +of Magnus the Good about the battle of Lyrskog Heath (see Note 11): +"The night before the battle Magnus was wakeful and prayed to God +for victory. Towards morning he fell asleep and dreamed that his +father, King Olaf the Saint, came to him and said: 'You are now very +sick at heart and full of fear, because the Wends are coming against +you with a great army; but you must not be afraid of the heathen +host, though they be many together. I shall follow you into this +battle and join in the fight, when you hear my horn.' At dawn the +King wakened, and then all heard up in the air the ringing of +a bell, and those of the King's men who had been in Nidaros +[Trondhjem] recognized by its sound the bell which King Olaf had +given to the church of St. Clement. Then Magnus had the signal for +battle blown, and his men made such a furious onset on the Wends, +that fifteen thousand fell and the rest fled." + +Note 24. +WHEN NORWAY WOULD NOT HELP. Written upon the adjournment of +the extraordinary meeting of the Norwegian Storting, called in +March, 1864. The action of the Storting providing for Norway's +participation with Denmark in the war coupled this with conditions +which made it equivalent to a refusal to help. + Wessel, see Note 5. + Dannebrog, see next note. + +Note 25. +TO THE DANNEBROG. The original title was "The 19th of April, 1864." + Dybböl [Düppel]. This strongly fortified Danish place in +Schleswig was taken by the Germans on April 18, 1864. + Dannebrog, the traditional name of the Danish flag, consisting of +a red ground whereon is a broad white cross, extending to all four +margins. According to an old legend the original Dannebrog ("broge" +is an old Danish word, meaning a piece of colored cloth) soared down +from Heaven during the battle of Reval in 1219 and brought victory +to the Danes, while a voice was heard promising the Danes a complete +victory as often as they raised this banner against their enemies. + +Note 26. +TOAST FOR THE MEN OF EIDSVOLD. First called "Toast for the 17th of +May;" written for the fiftieth anniversary of the adoption of the +Constitution (see Note 5). + +Note 26. +THE NORRÖNA-RACE. Written for the fiftieth anniversary of the +adoption of the Act of Union with Sweden. + Norröna= Northern. + Surtr. According to Norse mythology there were in the beginning +two worlds, the first of which, called Muspell, was filled with +fire, light, and warmth; over this Surtr ruled, sitting with a sword +of flame at its border. The other world was Niflheim, cold and +dark. + Yggdrasil. The tree Yggdrasil is a symbol of the present world. + Dragons, warships with carved dragons as figure-heads. + Poland's night. For Gustavus Adolphus the Polish War, which he +waged before he took part actively in the Thirty Years' War in +Germany, was also undertaken for the defense of Protestantism. + Saga, here=History. + +Note 27. +LECTOR THAASEN. Johan Edvard Thaasen (born in 1825; died February +17, 1865) was a classical philologist and a man of broad culture, +well versed in Old Norse and in modern French and German literature. +From 1852 he was teacher in the Cathedral School in Christiania, and +from 1860 lecturer in Greek at the University, where he treated +chiefly the Greek poets and archaeology. He came from a poor family +and passed his early life under hard conditions. During the last few +years he was sickly, and he died of consumption. In 1858 he was +president of the Students' Union, and spokesman for the Norwegians +at the Student Meeting in Copenhagen in 1862. + +Note 28. +DURING A JOURNEY IN SWEDEN. Written in the summer of 1866, +Björnson's speeches then made a sensation by reason of the warmth +of his feeling for Sweden. Ellen Key has written with approval of +his characterization of the Swedes here, which agrees with that of +Schück in his History of Swedish Literature, i, 325, 326. + +Note 29. +SONG FOR THE STUDENTS' GLEE CLUB. Written in 1863 for the journey +of the Club to Bergen (see Note 19). + Hald, Fredrikshald, see Note 5. + Arendal. This city is an important shipping center. + Sverre, see Note 5. + +Note 30. +MRS. LOUISE BRUN. Louise Gulbrandsen was born in Bergen, December +16, 1831, and died in Christiania, January 21, 1866. In childhood +she knew the narrowness and darkness of poverty. Made her first +appearance as an actress at the opening performance of Ole Bull's +theater in Bergen, January 2, 1850, when she also recited the +Prologue. An attractive personality, a voice clear and flexible both +in speech and song, and unusual mentality made her the most talented +actress of her time in Norway. Her power was comprehensive; she +began with romantic parts and always liked these best, though later +she was distinguished in conversation-plays. In 1851 she married +Johannes Brun, Norway's most gifted comedian. They came to +Christiania in April, 1857. A picture drawn from life, etc., refers +to the romantic drama, The Sisters at Kinnekullen, of the Dane, +Carsten Hauch (1790-1872). It was his most frequently performed +play, dealing with the mysterious power of gold over the human mind, +as something demonic in the servitude it imposes. It had recently +been played with Mrs. Brun in the part of Ulrika. + He, who from fairy-tale, etc. Ole Bull, see Note 19. Thus is +introduced here a poetical history and eulogy of Ole Bull's +Norwegian Theater. + +Note 31. +TO JOHAN DAHL, BOOKDEALER. Johan Fjeldsted Dahl was born in +Copenhagen, January 1, 1807, and died in Christiania, March 16, +1877. He came to Christiania in 1829, and established in 1832 a +business of his own, both publishing and selling. In the mercantile, +social, literary, and artistic life of the city he came to have an +important place and influence. Dahl had published Norway's Dawn, by +Welhaven, and in the time of the Wergeland-Welhaven conflict (see +Note 36, and as to Wergeland, Note 78) a violent personal quarrel +developed between Wergeland and Dahl about an entirely unimportant +matter. Dahl had provided his porter with a green livery having red +borders. Wergeland, who regarded Dahl as the leading representative +of the "Copenhagenism" (Danish, anti-Norwegian tendencies) he was +contending against, had an epigram printed, The Servant in Livery, +and insulted the porter on the street. This led to a slashing +newspaper feud between Wergeland and Dahl. After everybody's +feelings had grown calmer, Wergeland wrote about the burlesque +occurrence in a farce entitled The Parrot, and Dahl had humor +enough, himself to publish this satirical skit. + The light from his shop. Wergeland derisively styled Dahl's store +"the first slander-shop of the city;" it was, in face, the meeting- +place of the "party of intelligence," those interested in European +culture and esthetic criticism, i.e., it was the resort of those +opposed to Wergeland. + +Note 32. +TO SCULPTOR BORCH. Christopher Borch (1817-1896) was a lifelong +friend, of whom in 1857 Björnson wrote in letter: "The most +childlike, natural man I know, with his even, light walk, and his +fine, small hands," and "there is poetry in that man. Oh, how you +have misunderstood him!" It was this friend who, about the same +time as these letters were written, helped Björnson open his spirit +to the influence of Grundtvig (see Note 57). Borch for many years +gave free instruction to convicts in the Akershus prison in drawing +and other subjects, and so helped them to a future when they came +out. + +Note 33. +CHOICE. A Danish publisher issued a calendar with poems on the +months by different Scandinavian poets. When Björnson was invited to +contribute, all the other months were already written up or +assigned, and only April was left. + +Note 34. +NORWEGIAN SEAMEN'S SONG. +Saint Olaf's Cross. Of the insignia of the Royal Norwegian Order of +St. Olaf, founded in 1847 by King Oskar I; the characteristic +feature is a white cross. + Hafursfjord's great day (see Note 5), near Stavanger. + +Note 35. +HALFDAN KJERULF was born September 15, 1815, and died August 11, +1868. He early showed talent for music, and though he had to study +law from 1834 on, he yet studied and wrote music with a crushing +sense of lack of knowledge and opportunity. He was dangerously ill +in 1839, and always weak physically. His father died in 1840, and +Kjerulf then began to earn his living by music. A stipend received +in 1850 enabled him to go to Leipzig for a year. In 1851 he settled +in Christiania as a teacher of music, where for the rest of his life +his influence as a composer was most important. His compositions +are all of the lesser forms; his best work was done from 1860 to +1865. He was in general a pioneer of modern Norwegian music, and one +of the first to draw from the inexhaustible fountain of folk-music. +He wrote exquisite music for many songs of Welhaven, Wergeland, Moe, +Björnson, and others. + +Note 36. +NORWEGIAN STUDENTS' GREETING TO PROFESSOR WELHAVEN. Johan Sebastian +Cammermeyer Welhaven was born December 22, 1807, lived from 1828 in +Christiania, was lector from 1840 to 1846, and from 1846 to 1868 +professor of philosophy in the University; he died October 21, 1873. +His poetical works were: Norway's Dawn, 1834; Poems, 1839; New +Poems, 1845; Half a Hundred Poems, 1848; Pictures of Travel and +Poems, 1851; A Collection of Poems, 1860. A polemical writer, gifted +with wit and fine taste, and a social-political author, Welhaven +represented in his earlier period the "party of intelligence"" over +against the chauvinism of the radical Peasant party of Wergeland +(see Note 78). He was an adherent of Danish culture and of the +esthetic view of art and life, who hated all national exclusiveness +and showed a love of his country no less true and intense +than Wergeland's by chastising the Norwegians of his time for their +big, empty words and their crass materialism. For this he was +rewarded with abuse, and called "traitor to his country" and +"matricide." In reality Welhaven was a dreamer, a worshiper of +nature, a man of tender feeling. His subjective lyric poetry is not +surpassed in richness of content and beauty of form by that of any +other Norwegian. Outside of his ordinary University duties Welhaven +was also active; he was a favorite speaker at student festivities +and musical festivals, notably at the Student Meetings in Upsala, +1856, and in Copenhagen, 1862. But early in 1864 his health failed +and he was unable thereafter to lecture regularly. In August, 1868, +he requested to be retired; on September 24, the University +Authorities granted his request and a pension at the highest rate; +but the Storting, on November 12, reduced this to two-thirds of the +amount proposed. The same day the students brought to Professor +Welhaven their farewell greeting, marching with flags to his +residence, where this poem of homage was sung. + +Note 37. +FORWARD. The composer Grieg and his wife spent Christmas Eve, 1868, +with Björnson's family in Christiania. Grieg, who then gave to +Björnson a copy of the first part of his Lyriske Smaastykker, has +written the following account of the origin of this poem: "Among +these was one with the title 'Fatherland's Song.' I played this for +Björnson, who liked it so well that he said he wanted to write words +for it. That made me glad, although afterwards I said to myself: It +probably will remain a want, he has other things to think of. But +the very next day I met him in full creative joy: 'It's going +excellently. It shall be a song for all the youth of Norway. But +there is something at the beginning that I haven't yet got hold of +-- a certain wording. I feel that the melody demands it, and I +shall not give it up. It must come.' Then we parted. The next +forenoon, as I was giving a piano lesson to a young lady, I heard a +ring at the entry-door, as if the whole bell apparatus would rattle +down; then a noise as of wild hordes breaking in and a roar; +'Forward! Forward! Now I have it! Forward!' My pupil trembled like +an aspen leaf. My wife in the next room was frightened out of her +wits. But when the door flew open and Björnson stood there, +glad and shining like a sun, there was a general jubilee, and we +were the first to hear the beautiful new poem." + +Note 38. +THE MEETING. The Student Meetings, i.e., conventions of university +students in the three countries, were originally an important part +of "Scandinavism" (see Note 21). The first was held in 1843; that of +1862 was the last to have a distinctly political character. +After 1864 the chief aim of these gatherings was to improve the +position and strengthen the influence of the student in the +community. In 1869 Christiania invited the Danish students to meet +there with their Swedish and Norwegian comrades, in the interest of +culture, better acquaintance with one another, people, and land, and +cooperation in general for the future of the kingdoms. + Gjallar-horn, Heimdall's horn, to be blown especially at the +beginning of Ragnarok, symbolical here of the painful passing of the +old order, which ushers in a new world. + +Note 39. +NORSE NATURE. See note to the preceding poem. + King Halfdan the Black (died 860) was the father of Harald +Fairhair. It was said of him that he once dreamed he had the most +beautiful hair one could see, luxuriant locks of various lengths and +colors, but one of them larger, brighter, and fairer than all the +others. This was interpreted to mean that King Halfdan would have +many descendants, and they would rule Norway with great honor; but +one of them would surpass the others, and later this was said to be +Olaf the Saint. + Nore, the largest mountain of Ringerike. + +Note 40. +I PASSED BY THE HOUSE. Written in 1869. The translator has not been +able to verify the statement that the poem refers to a cousin, to +whom Björnson was devoted from his student days. + +Note 41. +THOSE WITH ME. This poem of tender homage to his wife (see Note 12) +and home was written during the summer of 1869, while Björnson was +on a lecture tour, which took him to northernmost Norway. His +fourth child, and first daughter, Bergliot, was born June 16, 1869, +in Christiania. When their golden wedding was celebrated in 1908, +Björnson said to his wife: "You knew me and knew how ungovernable I +was, but you loved me, and there was a holy joy in that. To you +always came back from much wildness and many wanderings. And with +all my heart I give you the honor. To you I wrote the poem: 'As on +I drive, in my heart joy dwells'. It was not poetical and not +sentimental, but just plain and direct. I wrote it to glorify my +home and you. And I believe that no more beautiful and deep poem in +praise of home has been written. For there is life's wisdom in it. +It is yours, Karoline, and your honor." + +Note 42. +TO MY FATHER. Written in 1869. Peder Björnson was settled as a +pastor at Kvikne in Österdal at the time of the poet's birth. +Originally he was an independent farmer, like his father and +grandfather, on the large farm Skei on the Randsfjord, where he was +born in 1797. He completed his theological training in 1829, came +to Kvikne in 1831, to Nes in Romsdal in 1837, and to Sogne in 1852. +On retiring in 1869 he moved to Christiania, where he died, August +25, 1871. His large frame and great physical strength were +hereditary in his father's family. Our race. Allusion to the +tradition of the descent of the Björnsons from ancient kings through +the poet's great-grandmother, Marie Öistad. + The Norwegian peasant, see Note 78. + +Note 43. +TO ERIKA LIE (-NISSEN) (1847-1903). One of the great pianists in +Norway, she was born in Kongsvinger on the river Glommen, where her +parents resided also when this poem was written in 1869. She gained +European fame by her concerts from 1866 on, married the physician +Oskar Nissen in 1874, and after 1876 resided in Norway. She was +distinguished for the poetic quality of her playing, for warmth and +fullness of tone, and for faultless technique. + +Note 44. +AT MICHAEL SARS'S GRAVE. He was born in Bergen, August 30, 1805, +and died in Christiania, October 22, 1869. In 1823 he became a +student of the University in Christiania, where for a time he +devoted himself to natural science, continuing his boyhood's lively +interest. But the necessity for self-support turned him to +theology. In 1830 he was appointed pastor at Kinn in the Söndfjord, +married in 1831 a sister of Welhaven, and in 1839 was transferred to +Manger, near Bergen. Both the places mentioned were very convenient +for zoölogical study, which Sars resumed at once and continued +unbrokenly. His earliest published work appeared in 1829; it was of +first-rate importance, and his reputation was soon established +everywhere in the world of learning. In 1853 he sought retirement +from the Church, and in 1854 was professor of zoölogy in the +University, where he continued his remarkable researches until his +death. He was a pioneer in his special field, the lower marine +fauna, and his aim from the beginning was not merely to discover new +species, but to trace the physiological processes and the +development of these lower, minuter forms of life,--ovology, +embryology, organology. It was his work that led to the deep-sea +expeditions of The Challenger and other similar voyages. + +Note 45. +TO JOHAN SVERDRUP. Written in November, 1869. Johan Sverdrup +(1816-1892) was the greatest political leader and statesman of +Norway in the nineteenth century, and left the deepest traces in all its recent history. He settled in Laurvik in 1844 as a lawyer, was +soon active in municipal politics, laboring for the interests of the +working-class, was elected to the Storting in 1851. Reëlected in +1854, and regularly thereafter till 1885, his authority in the +Storting and his power in public life steadily increased. From 1871 +on he was President of the Storting, except in 1881 for reasons +of health; from 1884 to 1889 he was Prime Minister. A consistent +democrat, he created and led the party of the Left, or "Peasant- +Left," and contended all his active life for the establishment of +real government by the people, i.e., a constitutional democracy with +parliamentary rule. This, the fulfillment of his famous saying, "All +power ought to be gathered in this hall [i.e., in the Storting]," +was consummated in June, 1884. Few men in Norway have been so +bitterly assailed by political opponents, and few so idolized by +followers. He was a masterful orator, inferior only to Björnson. + Assassination. An allusion to Ibsen's The Young Men's Union, first +performed in Christiania on September 30, 1869. Björnson regarded +the drama as directed against himself and his political friends. In +1881 he wrote: "With the word assassination I did not mean that +conditions and well-known men were aimed at. What I meant was, that +The Young Men's Union tried to make our young liberal party into a +band of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism could be carried off +with their phraseology, and especially that prominent men were first +made recognizable, and that then false hearts and base characters +were fictitiously given them and spurious alliances pasted on them." + The words of Einar. For Einar Tambarskelve, see Note 11, and for +Magnus the Good, Note 6. Immediately after the death of Magnus +in Denmark, Harald proposed to make himself King over all Denmark, +but Einar arose and spoke, ending with the words: "It seems to me +better to follow King Magnus dead, than any other King living." +Nearly all the Norwegians joined Einar, and Harald was left with too +small a force to carry out his plan. + My childhood's faith unshaken stands. Björnson was at the time +With full conviction an orthodox Christian; Sverdrup was for himself +a free thinker in religion. + Brotherhood in all three lands. Sverdrup was always opposed to any +close federation of the three countries, and to Scandinavism, see +Note 21. + What ought just now to be. The whole political programme of the +Left, as it was gradually wrought out during the next two decades. + Sverre, see Note 5. + _One_ nation only and _one_ will, Sverdrup's ideal, as outlined +above. + That impelled the viking, see note on Harald Fairhair, Note 5. + At Hjörung, see Note 11. + Wesssel's sword, seeTordenskjold, Note 5. + Wesssel's pen. Johan Herman Wessel (1742-1785) was a grand-nephew +of Peder Wessel Tordenskjold. He was the leader and most popular +member of the "Norwegian Society" in Copenhagen, in spirit and style +the most Norwegian of the writers born in Norway in the eighteenth +century. + That in faith so high, etc., refers to the teaching of Grundtvig +(see Note 57), who looked upon the Edda-gods as representing a +religion originally akin to Christianity. + Brun. Johan Nordal Brun (1745-1816) became bishop in 1804. A +popular poet, he was the creator of the older national hymn and +other patriotic songs; an ardent lover of his country, opposed to +Danish influences in politics and culture; strictly orthodox and a +powerful orator. + Hauge. Hans Nilsen Hauge (1771-1824), a peasant lay-preacher, of +whom a biographer has said: "Since the Reformation no single man has +had so profound an influence on ecclesiastical and Christian life in +Norway." The "Haugian revival" of the emotional religious life is +proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by +his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual +enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after +1830 among his followers. This explains Björnson's great sympathy +with Hauge and his school. + Modern bishop-synod's letter, the dogmatic literalism of the State +Church, seeking to impose itself on free popular religions faith. + Chambers, reference to proposals to revise the Act of Union with +Sweden, in particular to the plan of a Union-Parliament, all of +which were rejected by Norway. + Folk-high-school's, see Note 65. + +Note 46. +OLE GABRIEL UELAND (born October 28, 1799; died January 9, 1870) +was the son of a farmer. He was self-taught, reading all the books +he could find in the region about his home; became a school teacher +in 1817. His marriage in 1827 brought to him the farm Ueland, whose +name he took. He early became foremost in his district, and from +1833 to 1869 was member of the Storting for Stavanger. He organized +and led the Peasant party. In his time one of Norway's most +remarkable men, the most talented peasant and most powerful member +of the Storting, belonging to the generation before Sverdrup, he +prepared the way for the latter, with whom he then coöperated. +Sverdrup once said: "All of us who are engaged in practical politics +are Ueland's pupils." + +Note 47. +ANTON MARTIN SCHWEIGAARD, jurist and statesman, was born in +Kragerö, April 11, 1808, and died in Christiania, February 1, 1870. +After five years as lecturer in the University he was, in 1840, made +professor of law, political economy, and statistics. Regarded as the +most representative Norwegian of his age and its aspirations, he was +called by his countrymen "Norway's best son." Though interested in the reform of education and the introduction of European culture, +and hence favorable to Danish literature, standing with Welhaven and +against Wergeland, it was in economics that his influence was +greatest, and indeed greater than that of any other one man in all +Scandinavia. He was the soul of the organizing labor that +accompanied and conditioned Norway's surprisingly rapid material +advance in the decades before and after the middle of the nineteenth +century. A friend of Scandinavism, in politics a liberal +conservative, but never a party man, he was member of the Storting +for Christiania from 1842 to 1869. Schweigaard's personality +contributed most to the high esteem in which he was universally +held; his character was open and direct, actively unselfish, loftily +ideal. His wife died on January 28, 1870. On a walk the next day he +suddenly was seized with intense pains, had to go home and to bed, +and died on February 1. An autopsy showed that his heart had +ruptured. Their joint funeral was held on February 5. + +Note 48. +TO AASMUND OLAFSEN VINJE. Vinje, the son of a poor cottager, was +born on a farm in Telemarken, April 6, 1818, and died July 30, 1870. +Poverty and his peculiar personality made life hard for him from +first to last. Bent on testing all things for himself, he came into +conflict with the authorities. He was discharged from a school in +Mandal in 1848 because of his scoffing criticism of a religious +schoolbook. He went then to Heltberg's School (see Note 50) in +Christiania, soon after became a student in the University, and +passed the state examination in law in 1856. But his life was +devoted to literary pursuits, and he was most gifted as a lyric +poet. In 1858 Vinje went over completely to the Landsmaal +(see Note 80), and in this form of dialect found his natural medium +of expression. In October of the same year he began his weekly +paper, Dölen, in which he treated all the current interests. +Although one of the most advanced thinkers and keenest combatants in +his country's spiritual conflicts, he stood very much alone, a great +skeptic and satirist, who practiced irony with the highest art. +Vinje had no home of his own until after his marriage on June 20, +1869. His wife died immediately after the birth of a son, on April +12, 1870. At her burial on April 16 Björnson was present, and +taking Vinje's hand ended an estrangement which had existed for some +years because of Vinje's unjustly harsh criticism of Björnson's +early peasant tales, and other rather personal attacks. + Guests, the angel of life and the angel of death. + You stand sick, with the incurable disease which caused his death +a few months later. + Great and wondrous visions, probably (cf. also the following +stanza) of the truth of the orthodox faith, which Björnson at the +time still firmly held. + +Note 49. +GOOD CHEER. This poem stood last in the first edition, with the +title "Last Song." It is a vigorous, partly humorous, beautiful, +true self-characterization of Björnson's position in the life of +Christiania and Norway just prior to 1870, and a statement of his +ideals and models in the three Scandinavian countries, Grundtvig, +Runeberg, and Wergeland. From the beginning of 1865 to the middle +of 1867 he had been director of the Theater, and since March, 1866, +as editor no less than as author, active in polemics, political and +literary. His election early in December, 1869, as president of the +Students' Union, was a demonstration in his favor, shortly after +which this poem was written. Compare also the poem, Oh, When Will +You Stand Forth?, and note thereto. + The twelfth and thirteenth stanzas refer to Grundtvig, for whom see Note 57. + The fourteenth stanza refers to the Finnish Swedish poet, Johan Ludvig +Runeberg (1804-1877), whose lyric, ballad, and epic genius was of national +importance for Sweden. He was a champion of true freedom and naturalness +in literature and life. + Wergeland, see Note 78. + +Note 50. +OLD HELTBERG. Henrik Anton Schjött Heltberg was born February 4, +1806, and died March 2, 1873. In early life he was an active member +of Wergeland's Party in the attack on Danish influence, and this +spirit ever controlled him, a "power-genius" of independent +originality, grotesque appearance, and odd manners. From 1838 he was +teacher in various schools, until in his later years he founded in +Christiania a Latin School, continued until after 1870, with a +course of two years formature pupils, whose ages ranged between +sixteen and thirty-five years, the so-called "Student Factory," a +higher cramming-school, chiefly preparing for entrance into the +University. It was, however, attended also by those who for other +reasons wished to learn Latin and Greek. He was a powerful teacher, +a uniquely rousing and educating force. + I went to a school, etc. When ten years old Björnson was sent to +Molde and entered the "Middel-og Real-skole" there, which had only +two classes and, when he left it, twenty-eight pupils. In 1850, +seventeen years old, he went to Christiania and the "Factory." + Prelims, those who had passed only an examination preliminary to +the "Norwegian" (not Latin) official examination. + Vinje, see Note 48. + Jonas Lie, born November 6, 1833; died July 5, 1908; the +noted author of novels and tales. + Grammar. Heltberg's method was a grammatical short-cut system, to +cram Latin and Greek in the shortest time possible. For twenty years +he talked about publishing it, and received a grant from the +Storting for this purpose. But it was always to be improved, and +nothing was published except a fragment after his death. + +Note 51. +FOR THE WOUNDED. This song was written in 1871, and sung at bazaars +which were held in all the cities of Norway in order to raise funds +for sending nurses, bandages, and money to the French wounded. + +Note 52. +LANDFALL. Written in 1872 for a musical festival in Trondhjem, the +profits of which were given to aid in the restoration of the +Cathedral there. + Olaf Trygvason, see Note 10. + +Note 53. +TO HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN. Although Hans Christian Andersen +(1805-1875) traveled frequently and far in the earlier years, he +made after 1863 only one journey out of Denmark. This was to +Norway, to receive the homage of the brother-nation. Björnson had +been quite intimate with him, both personally in Copenhagen and +especially in Rome, and by correspondence. Andersen's genius was +misjudged and condemned by the Danish critic Heiberg (see Note 7), +but his very lack of the then prevailing Danish qualities made +Björnson admire and sympathize with him. + A fairy-tale. Andersen's chief work, Tales told for Children, +appeared in 1835; his New Tales and Stories in 1858-61. + +Note 54. +To STANG. Fredrik Stang (born March 4, 1808; died June 8, 1884) was +an active and successful lawyer from 1834 to 1845. In the latter +year he became Secretary of the then established Department of the +Interior, beginning a most meritorious career and opening a new era +in Norway's internal development. By him industry and trade were +made freer, the sea-fisheries and agriculture fostered, roads built, +the postal service was improved, the flrst telegraph line +and the first railroad were instituted. He retired because of +illness in 1854. But after the great minister-crisis of December, +1861, he presided over the Norwegian government until the summer of +1873, when, after the abolition of the viceroyship, he was made +Prime Minister and continued as such until 1880. He was a thorough +conservative, a member of the Right, and so opposed to the political +ideals cherished by Sverdrup (see Note 45) and Björnson. + For the opening lines compare the poem Toast for the Men of +Eidsvold, and notes thereto. + +Note 55. +ON A WIFE's DEATH. In memory of Queen Louisa (1828-1871), consort of +King Karl XV of Sweden and Norway. A princess of the Netherlands, +whose mother was the sister of Emperor William I, she was married in +1850o, and died March 30, 1871. She bore a son on December 4, 1852, +who died March 13, 1854. In November, 1870, she was called to her +dying mother in The Hague. Karl XV died in September, 1872, after +several years of precarious health. Queen Louisa was an unassuming, +truly noble woman of deeply religious feeling and large benevolence. + +Note 56. +AT THE BIER OF PRECENTOR A. REITAN. Anders Jörgensen Reitan, a +peasant, was born July 26, 1826, and died August 30, 1872. After +attending the Teachers' Seminary, he took up this calling, and in +1853 became precentor (and teacher) in Kvikne, Björnson's +birthplace. He remained in this position the rest of his life, +making himself, by his influence at meetings, through lectures, and +in visits from farm to farm, a pioneer in popular enlightenment, an +important bearer of culture. He was a member of the Storting for the +term 1871-73, but was seriously ill a large part of the session of +1871, and in April, 1872, received leave of absence. He died in +Christiania. + +Note 57. +ON THE DEATH OF N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG. Few men have so influenced the +spiritual development of Denmark, and indeed that of all +Scandinavia, as Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig, the noted Danish +theologian, historian, and poet (born September 8, 1783; died +September 2, 1872). He made a name for himself early by historical, +mythological, religious, and poetical writings. He successfully +opposed the rationalistic thought of the earlier nineteenth century +with his simple exposition of Christianity according to the pure +teachings of Jesus. His effort was to present to Scandinavia +Christianity in a popular form, closely connected with the national +thought of the time. There gathered about him a host of able and +enthusiastic followers, through whom his religious and political +influence extended over all the North. His characteristic religious +views were, as a system, called Grundtvigianism. For the Church his +ideal was a church of the people with wholly independent +congregations. For the nations his ideal was a free, vigorous civic +life. As member of the Danish parliament for many years he showed +his intense patriotism by his liberal activity and by his +participation in the struggle with Germany for Schleswig-Holstein. +He rendered great service also in the reform of education, in +particular as founder of the uniquely valuable "folk-high-schools" +(see Note 65). Björnson was a Grundtvigian until 1877, having +heard Gruntvig speak in Christiania in 1851, and having come under +his personal influence in Copenhagen during the winter of 1856-57 +and the following spring. It was Grundtvig's writings on history +and mythology that led Björnson to deeper study of the Old Norse +sagas and poetry. It was Gruntvigianism that, especially through +its faith in the power of renewal and in the resurrection of what +must first die away, vitalized Björnson's religious faith and +practical philosophy of life. Björnson once said: "Grundtvig and +Goethe are my two poles," and in a speech in 1902: "There is a poet +who has exerted the greatest influence on my development--old +Grundtvig." + Sibyl. In The Sibyl's Prophecy, a poem of the Elder Edda, she +(according to one reading of the text) sinks from sight after +foretelling the passing away of this world and the coming of a new +and better one. + +Note 58. +AT A BANQUET FOR PROFESSOR LUDV. KR. DAA. The historian, +geographer, ethnologist, publicist, editor, and political leader, +Ludvig Kristensen Daa, was born August 19, 1809, and died June 12, +1877. As a friend of Wergeland he was a liberal of the old stamp, +later an ardent supporter of the Sverdrup-Björnson policies, and +elected three times to the Storting. He was early a leader of the +National party among the students. Too independent ever to submit +wholly to party control, he was always more or less in opposition. +In the flourishing times of Scandinavism he was prominent and of +excellent influence. Because of his political opposition to the +Conservative government of Stang, he did not receive the merited +University professorship of history until 1863. Although feared as a +caustic writer by all, he was warm-hearted and in reality a noble +personality, one of the most original and best figures in the modern +history of Norway. This poem must have been written soon after +1870. + +Note 59. +OH, WHEN WILL YOU STAND FORTH? Written early (in February?) in +1872. For the mood of this poem compare the poem Good Cheer, and +notes thereto, and some of the notes to the poem To Johan Sverdrup. +The years just before and after 1870 were a time of intense +conflicts, in all of which Björnson had a large part. His +personality was fanatically admired by many adherents, but was +also bitterly attacked even with misrepresentation and slander, by +those who supported the party of the Right. He was almost persecuted +by the leading Conservative newspaper in Christiania, whose editor +was in large measure the model for the title-hero of Björnson's +drama, The Editor, written soon after. + Hafur, see Note 5. + +Note 60. +AT HANSTEEN'S BIER. The astronomer and physicist, Christopher +Hansteen, was born September 26, 1784, and died April 15, 1873; he +was buried April 21. Made lecturer in 1814, he was professor of +astronomy and applied mathematics in the University until his +retirement in 1861. He was the leader of the world's study of +magnetism, and made Christiania the clearing-house of the labors in +this field of science. The earliest Norwegian scientist of world- +wide fame, he was a member of many learned societies and the +recipient of many Orders. + +Note 61. +RALLYING SONG FOR FREEDOM IN THE NORTH. "The United Left' is here +the liberal, democratic party of the Lower House (Folketing) of the +Danish Parliament. As earlier, 1868-69, in Norway, a constitutional +conflict had now begun in Denmark, which continued with acute crises +at intervals until the compromise of 1894 and the accession of the +Left to control of the government in 1901. The theme of the poem is +the parallel between the political movements in the two countries, +the union of the peasant opposition with that of the town-people in +favor of a liberal policy. The power of truth to prevail is also set +forth by Björnson in his later drama, The New System. + +Note 62. +AT A BANQUET. The coronation was that of Oskar II, as King of Norway. + Olaf, Olaf Trygvason, see Note 10. + +Note 63. +SONG OF FREEDOM. See the poem, Rallying Song, etc., and notes +thereto. + +Note 64. +TO MOLDE. This poem, begun in 1878, was finished the next year in +Copenhagen. Björnson attended a school in Molde from his eleventh +to his eighteenth year. The varied beauty, not too grand and not +too somber, of the scenery about Molde left on him indelible +impressions. + +Note 65. +HAMAR-MADE MATCHES. To this poem Björnson appended a note: "The +founder of Norway's first folk-high-school, Herman Anker, built +later in Hamar a match factory [the first large one in the country], +the product of which was quickly distributed in Norway and offered +for sale on the street with the cry: 'Here your Hamar-made matches!' +The poem is a sort of allegorical comparison of these two 'works of +enlightenment' from the hand of the same man." Herman Anker +(1839-96) studied theology, and after the death of his father, a +wholesale merchant, inherited a very comsiderably fortune, which he +applied mostly to cultural purposes. With O. Arvesen he founded in +1864 the first Norwegian folk-high-school at Sagatun, near Hamar. + Folk-high-schools are schools for adult men and women, where the +instruction aims directly at making good citizens. The method of +instruction is "historical," but the teacher's personality is all- +important in relation to the pupil's individuality. The subjects +are the country's language and history, history of the world, +mathematics and physics, besides the elementary subjects; physical +exercise is also made important. The home of these schools is +Denmark, whence they spread to Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the +Danes in North America. Originated by N. F. S. Grundtvig (see Note +57), who began to plan them early in the nineteenth century as part +of the national restoration of Denmark after 1813-14, the first was +opened in 1844 at Rödding in Jutland. Since 1861 these schools have +received women during the summer, May to August, and men from +November to April. Many were established after 1864, which have +flourished in the country, but not in the cities. Quite a few were +started in Norway, and all were highly successful for some years. + +Note 66. +THE PURE NORWEGIAN FLAG. The poems here grouped were written in 1879 +during the active beginning of the so-called "Flag-conflict" in +behalf of the removal from the flag of Norway the mark of union with +Sweden. For a description of the flags of Norway and Sweden, see +Note 6. + The history of the flag of Norway is briefly this: In 1748 the use +of the Dannebrog (see Note 25) was fixed by law for Denmark and +Norway. In February, 1814, a decree of Prince Regent Christian +Frederik made Norway's flag to be the Dannebrog with Norway's arms +(a crowned lion bearing an axe) in the upper square nearest the +staff. Article 11 of the Constitution of 1814 declared: Norway +shall have its own merchant-flag; its war-flag shall be a +union-flag. Because of the Barbary Coast pirates, however, the +Swedish flag with the mark of union was used south of Cape +Finisterre, and north of it Christian Frederik's Norwegian flag. In +1821 the present pure Norwegian flag was established by Royal +resolution as the merchant-flag, to be used north of Cape +Finisterre; in 1838 its use was extended by the King to all waters. +The war-flag was still the Swedish flag with a union-mark consisting +of a white diagonal cross on a red ground. In 1844 King Oskar I by +resolution decreed that both the merchant-flag and the war-flag of +Norway should be the flag of 1821, with the addition of a mark of +union. There was at once some criticism of the union-mark in the +merchant-flag, but in general the situation was quietly accepted for +a generation. This was due to Scandinavism, which began to flourish +soon after 1844. Towards 1870, however (i.e., after 1864), +Scandinavism lost its force, and the pure flag began to be used +within Norway more and more. The real conflict began in 1879 with a +motion in the Storting on February 17 to reënact the flag-law of +1821. There was bitter opposition from Conservatives in Norway, and +naturally from Sweden, and the conflict gradually broadened to +embrace everything involved in the union with Sweden, in proportion +as the national spirit of Norway was quickened and strengthened. The +famous flag-meeting in Christiania on March 13, 1879, and Björnson's +speech there were the first decisive blow. Essentially the law of +1821 was passed by three Stortings, in 1893, 1896, and 1898, and +proclaimed as law without the King's sanction. + Thor's hammer-mark. Thor's weapon was a hammer=the blue lightning. +The symbol of this was the T-mark, to which shape the name cross has +also been given; this mark was much used in the viking period as a +sign of Thor's protection. In the flag the blue cross is within a +white cross on a red ground. Colors of freedom. On the institution +of the flag of 1821, its red, white, and blue were especially +acceptable in Norway, as being the colors characteristic of free +states, typified by the French tricolor. + Torgny, see Note 6. + Ridderstad. The author and journalist, Karl Fredrik Ridderstad +(1807-1886), who had published in his newspaper a conciliatory poem +in defense of the Swedish view, to which Björnson here makes answer. + +Note 67. +TO MISSIONARY SKREFSRUD IN SANTALISTAN. Written in 1879. Lars +Olsen Skrefsrud, born in Gudbrandstal in 1840, at first a metal +worker, led for a time a wild life, and was committed under a +sentence of four years to a penitentiary, where he remained from +February, 1859, to October, 1861. Here he underwent a complete inner +transformation and resolved to become a Christian missionary. +Rejected by the Norwegian missionary institutions, he went in 1862 +to Berlin, and entered a School for Missions there. He supported +himself by work as an engraver, and by unflagging private study +acquired learning and the knowledge of languages. He went to a +German Mission in India, which he left in January, 1866. In 1867 he +began his independent work in Santalistan. Here his persistence and +success attracted the attention and support of the English, and thus +he gradually became known and esteemed in his native land, where a +Santalistan Society was formed to aid his undertakings. In 1882 he +was duly ordained as clergyman by a bishop of the State Church. In +1873 he published a grammar and in 1904 a dictionary of the language +of Santalistan. + I do not share your faith. The memorable speech which Björnson +delivered to the students in Christiania on October 31, 1877, the +anniversary of Luther's posting his theses in Wittenberg, revealed +that after a hard inner struggle he had freed himself from the +religious faith of his early life. The theme of his speech "Be in +the truth!" showed that for him henceforth the supreme thing was +freedom of thought and fidelity to the truth as expanding +development might manifest it to the individual. Liberal in thought +from the beginning, Björnson departed more and more, not least +through the influence of Grundtvig, from the strict dogmatic +orthodoxy of the State Church. The study of Darwin, Spencer, Mill, +and Comte led him still farther on to a position which may be called +that of the agnostic theist, that of Spencer, who does not deny God, +but says ignoramus. We may recall the late utterance of Björnson, +quoted above: "Grundtvig and Goethe are my two poles." It was the +dogma of Hell, the teaching of eternal damnation and punishment, +that began Björnson's breach with the Church. He saw how this +doctrine enslaved and dwarfed the souls of the peasants, and +blighted all liberal development, both personal and political. + +Note 68. +POST FESTUM. Björnson was a decided opponent of the whole system of +decorations and orders, royal and other. Here he attacks the Swedish +polar explorer, A. E. von Nordenskjöld (November 18, 1832-August 20, +1901), who earlier had taken the same stand. After Nordenskjöld had +successfully made the Northern Passage, there was a great formal +reception for him on his return to Stockholm, April 24, 1880, at +which King Oskar II decorated him. He also received similar honors +from most of the rulers of Europe. + +Note 69. +ROMSDAL. Written in 1880 on a lecture tour along the western coast. +The scenery and the people described Björnson knew intimately from +his boyhood's years at Nes and in Molde, and from later visits to +his parents at the former place. Collin says: "The whole poem fits +like a frame about the poet and his life-work . ... Both with its +[Norway's scenery's] violence and brusqueness and with its +surprising gentleness Björnson has kinship." The last line of the +poem includes the poet himself. + +Note 70. +HOLGER DRACHMANN. Probably written in 1879. This Danish productive +author (and painter), best known as lyric poet and novelist, was +born in 1846 and died in 1908. Here he received from Björnson a +reply to verses of homage addressed by him to the latter in 1878. +Drachmann's early years were turbulent and revolutionary, full of +feuds with everybody. He belonged to the literary and esthetic Left, +opposing all existing institutions. Björnson's characterization +exhibits Drachmann at the height of his poetic production. +His most popular prose book had recently stirred the Danish national +heart and roused the spirit of Scandinavism. The collections of his +poems: Songs by the Sea, Tendrils and Roses, Youth in Poem and Song, +he never surpassed. Perhaps the best were the group of Venetian +Songs, written in Venice in the spring of 1876, to which time +belongs also his finest story, Two Shots. During the next decade +Drachmann underwent an extreme conservative reaction, but about 1890 +returned again to his youthful passion for rebellion, romantic +radicalism, and the religion of esthetic freedom. + +Note 71. +A MEETING. Hans Thorvald Brecke was born December 1, 1847, and died +June 9, 1875. As student from 1864 to 1870 he wrote several witty +student comedies, and is described as a remarkably charming +personality. In 1871 he became judge's clerk in Molde, and here had +one bright and happy year. Against the disease which showed itself +in the fall of 1872 he contended in vain. This poem was probably +written in the latter part of 1875. + +Note 72. +THE POET. This poem, the following Psalms, and Question and Answer +conclude the second edition of Poems and Songs, which was published +April 29, 1880. They were probably written late in 1879 or very +early in 1880. In a crisis of renewed litetary and political attacks +upon him, the poet Björnson, under the inspiration of his motto "Be +in the truth!" (see Note 67), proclaims the mission to which he is +called: To be in religion and life, political and social, the +liberator of his people from falsehood and ignorance, and the +comforting helper of all who suffer. + +Note 73. +SONG FOR NORWAY'S RIFLEMEN. In 1881 the constitutional conflict +between the Left and the Right over the nature of the King's veto +had become acute. The question was whether the veto-power was +suspensive or absolute as to amendments of the Constitution. The +Left maintained that it was only suspensive, and the conflict was +ended in favor of this view by the Supreme Court in 1884; an +amendment enacted by three independently elected Stortings is valid +without the King's sanction. This poem shows that the people were +preparing to defend their right by force in the spirit of Björnson's +often quoted words in his electoral campaign speech about the same +time at Sticklestad: "If any one says that the monarchy [the King] +declares it [he] cannot give up the absolute veto, you must answer +openly: 'Then the Norwegian people must give up the monarchy [the +King].'" + +Note 74. +WORKMEN'S MARCH. Published in the third edition of 1890, and +written not long before for the Workmen's Union in Christiania. It +is a plea for the universal franchise and party organization. + Vardö = northernmost, Viken and Vinger = southernmost Norway. + +Note 75. +THE LAND THAT SHALL BE. See the poem Hamar-made Matches, and notes +thereto. + +Note 76. +NORWAY, NORWAY! First published in the edition of 1890. The poet has +himself stated that he wrote it at Aulestad, on being asked to +furnish a song for the flag-procession of boys and girls on the 17th +of May (see Note 4). + Runes in the woodlands, as it were written records of the labors +of past generations. + +Note 77. +WHEN COMES THE MORNING? From the novel, ln God's Way, published in +1889. + +Note 78. +MAY SEVENTEENTH. In memory of the unveiling of Henrik Wergeland's +statue in Christiania on the 17th of May, 1881, when Björnson also +delivered a great oration. Henrik Arnold Wergeland was born June 17, +1808, in Christiansand, and died August 12, 1845, in Christiania. +Though he studied theology, he devoted his life to poetry and +politics. His earliest writings, farces and poems, showed powerful, +but uncontrolled, genius. His great popularity began in 1829 +with his active entrance into public life. He labored for the +enlightemnent of his people through his writings and his personal +influence in journeyings all over the land, and especially through +speeches at political meetings. His chief poetic work, the +rationalistic-republican didactic poem, Creation, Man, and +Messiah, appeared in 1830. It was severely criticised in a special, +polemical writing by Welhaven (see Note 36), who continued his +attack on all Wergeland's views and teachings in his Norway's Dawn. +Thus arose the Wergeland-Welhaven conflict, which was carried on +hotly for many years by their adherents, and contributed much to the +intellectual development of the nation. Wergeland was very +productive as editor, publicist, and poet. In 1840 he was appointed +Keeper of the Archives, and held this government office until his +death. + In his own time Wergeland was in spirit the head of the radical- +national "Peasant party," which was indeed patriotic and democratic, +but too narrowly Norwegian, in opposition to all that was Danish, +European, foreign. During the years preceding 1881 he had come to +be in the constitutional conflict a national hero, the idol of the +peasants, as their political power increased. + Come now the peasants. In this volume of translations "peasant" +is the rendering of the Norwegian word "bonde." The meaning is +"farmer," i.e., in general the independrnt owner of land, which he +cultivates and on which he lives. In Norway the conditions have for +many centuries been more favorable for the "peasant" than in any +other European country; this is due to the topography and to the +absence of a powerful nobility. At the present time scarcely one- +twentieth of the tilled area in Norway is cultivated by tenants. +The Norwegian "peasants" have always had great self-consciousness in +the best sense, and importance in the political, economic, and +social life of the country, especially since the adoption of the +democratic Constitution of 1814. Very often the "peasants" have an +aristocratic pride in a lineage traced back to ancient "kings," and +in their own distinctively "Norse" culture. + Österdal's ... chieftain, a peasant of large stature, named +Hjelmstad, a radical member of the Storting. + The old banner. A flag much used in earlier times as specifically +Norwegian, dating back to King Erik (1280-1299), before the union +with Demnark, showed on a red ground a lion wearing a golden crown +and bearing an axe. As late as 1698 it flew over the fortress +Akershus in Christiania. The future, i.e., the independence +realized in 1905 through the dissolution of the union with Sweden. + +Note 79. +FREDERIK HEGEL. This poem is the last in the third edition (1890), +for which it seems to have been written. Hegel (1817-1887) was from +1850 the head of the Gyldendal publishing house in Copenhagen. +Björnson made his acquaintance in 1860, and, beginning with King +Sverre in 1861, Hegel became Björnson's publisher. In 1865 +Björnson's influence secured to him Ibsen's works, and later those +of Lie and many other Norwegian authors. The cultural +dependence of Norway upon Denmark for centuries had prevented the +prosperous growth of the publishing business in the former country, +whose leading publisher went into bankruptcy soon after 1860. That +Björnson thus went to Copenhagen with his books may seem to have +been a blow to the cause of Norwegian independence, and to have +delayed the rise of a thriving, stable business, but on the other +hand Björnson's action and influence contributed greatly to +establish for perhaps half a century a certain dominance of the +Norwegian spirit in all Scandinavia. For Björnson personally, as his +correspondence with Hegel shows, it was certainly a great good +fortune to gain Hegel as his publisher and later as his friend. This +Hegel was to all his authors in the most faithful, self-sacrificing +way, and no less their valued financial adviser. + + +Note 80. +OUR LANGUAGE. Written in defense of the Norwegian-Danish speech +of the cultured classes and of the cities in Norway, the result of +development and tradition through several centuries, the so-called +Riksmaal (language of the kingdom) or Bymaal (city-language). This, +and with it the higher spiritual interests of the nation, seemed to +Björnson to be endangered by the agitation in behalf of the +Landsmaal (rural language). The Landsmaal arose from a movement +after 1814, to make Norway independent of Denmark in language also. +The rural dialects were regarded as more purely Norwegian; on them +and the Old Norse as a basis was constructed somewhat artificially +this standard rural language. It has been gradually perfected, and +is now, in fact, spoken and written a good deal. Björnson advocated +rather the natural process of making the language of the country +more national by gradually introducing dialect words and reforming +the orthography. He thought that the Riksmaal thus modified alone +could preserve, increase, and transmit the treasures of culture. + Hald=Fredrikshald, see Note 5. + Holberg, see Note 19. + Kierkegaard. Sören Aaby Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was the most +subtle and profound thinker produced by Denmark, with a prose +style noble, poetic, and eloquent. His writings deal with religion, +ethics, and esthetics, and present his individual, ideal conception +of Christianity. + Wergeland, see Note 78. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, POEMS AND SONGS *** + +This file should be named 6619.txt or 6619.zip + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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