Poems and Songs, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [top 10 ebook reader TXT] 📗

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