Poems and Songs | Page 9

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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 L��tzen 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