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I Passed By The House
By Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
(See Note 40)
I passed by the house one summer day,
Morning sunshine upon it lay;
Toward the windows that blood-red burned
Flaming my soul was turned, was turned.
There spring had found me
And captive bound me
To lissome hands and soft lips enthralling,
To smiles now stained by the teardrops falling.
Till the view from my vision dies,
To it backward I send my eyes;
All that was becomes new and near,
The forgotten grows warm and dear;
Mem'ries wander,
While this I ponder,
And from the springtime all love's sweet dreaming
Forward and back in my soul is streaming.
Joyous that time and joyous now,
Sorrow that time and .sorrow now.
Sun on meadows bedewed appears,
Soul in mem'ries of smiles and tears.
When they waking
Their bounds are breaking,
When streams their ebbing with sinking power,
The soul bears poetry's bud and flower.
Extra Info:
TRANSLATED FROM THE NORWEGIAN IN THE ORIGINAL METERS BY ARTHUR HUBBELL PALMER
Professor of the German Language and Literature In Yale University
Note 40.
I PASSED BY THE HOUSE. Written in 1869. The translator has not been
able to verify the statement that the poem refers to a cousin, to
whom Björnson was devoted from his student days.
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