Poems and Songs by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (classic books for 11 year olds TXT) 📖

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