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

/> (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;