Bjornstjerne Bjornson | Page 8

heart, that are
sung upon all national occasions by the author's friends and foes alike,
and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets. No
translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their feeling; they
illustrate the one aspect of Björnson's many-sided genius that must be
taken on trust by those who cannot read his language. A friend once
asked him upon what occasion he had felt most fully the joy of being a
poet. His reply was as follows:--
"It was when a party from the Right in Christiania came to my house
and smashed all my windows. For when they had finished their assault,
and were starting home again, they felt that they had to sing something,
and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we love this land of ours'--they couldn't
help it. They had to sing the song of the man they had attacked."
Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through the
peasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completely
representative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhat
extended edition of this volume was published about ten years later.
Björnson has had the rare fortune of having his lyrics set to music by
three composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf, and Grieg--as intensely national in
spirit as himself, and no festal occasion among Norwegians is
celebrated without singing the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This
Land of Ours," or the noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason." The
best folk-singer is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says the
poet, and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us that
life was ever more to him than song, and that existence, where it was
worth while, in the thick of the human fray, always had for him a
deeper meaning than anything he had written. The longest poem in
Björnson's collection is called "Bergliot," and is a dramatic monologue
in which the foul slaying of her husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and their
son Ejndride is mourned by the bereaved wife and mother. The story is
from the saga of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepest
tragic impressiveness.
"Odin in Valhal I dare not seek For him I forsook in my childhood.
And the new God in Gimle? He took all that I had! Revenge:--Who
says revenge?-- Can revenge awaken my dead Or shelter me from the
cold? Has it comfort for a widow's home Or for a childless mother?

Away with your revenge: Let be! Lay him on the litter, him and the son.
Come, we will follow them home. The new God in Gimle, the terrible,
who took all, Let him also take revenge, for he understands it! Drive
slowly: Thus drove Ejnar ever; --Soon enough shall we reach home."
It was also to the "Heimskringla" that Björnson turned for the subject
of his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline." Here we read in various rhythms of
Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how he
offers to stay his wrath and end the blood feud if the fair Ingigerd,
Trand's daughter, may be bestowed upon him; how, being refused, he
sets fire to Trand's house and bears Ingigerd away captive; how her
tears prevail upon him to release her, and how she seeks refuge in a
southern cloister; how Arnljot wanders restless over sea and land until
he comes to King Olaf, on the eve of the great battle, receives the
Christian faith, fights fiercely in the vanguard against the hosts of the
heathen, and, smiling, falls with his king on the field of Stiklestad. One
song from this cycle, "The Cloister in the South" is here reproduced in
an exact copy of the original metre, in the hope that even this imperfect
representation of the poem may be better than none at all.
"Who would enter so late the cloister in?" "A maid forlorn from the
land of snow." "What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?" "The deepest
sorrow the heart can know. I have nothing done Yet must still endeavor,
Though my strength be none, To wander ever. Let me in, to seek for
my pain surcease, I can find no peace."
"From what far-off land hast thou taken flight?" "From the land of the
North, a weary way." "What stayed thy feet at our gate this night?"
"The chant of the nuns, for I heard them pray, And the song gave peace
To my soul, and blessed me; It offered release From the grief that
oppressed me. Let me in, so if peace to give be thine, I may make it
mine."
"Name me the grief that thy life hath crossed." "Rest may I never,
never know." "Thy father, thy lover, thou hast then lost?" "I