Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

(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,<...

(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 he...

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 ...

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 ...

(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 h...

(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,...

(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 

(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 prese...

(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 brave...

(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.

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 ...

(See Note)

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 ...

(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.

(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.

(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,
Wh...

(See Note)

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,
S...

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!

(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...