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

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