|
|
To Johan Sverdrup
By Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson
(See Note 45)
When now my song selects and praises
Your forceful name, think not it raises
The rallying-flag for battle near;
The street-fight shall not reach us here.
If sacred poetry's fair hill
Lies open to assassination, -
Is this the newer revelation,
Then I withdraw and hold me still.
Then I the words of Einar borrow,
When southern change of kings brought sorrow,
And Harald's hosts their ravage spread:
I follow rather Magnus dead
Than Harald living thus, - and then
I sail away with ships and men.
Nor therefore do I lift anew
The flag of song just now for you,
Because my spirit's deepest yearning
To you for new light now is turning.
No, where the greatest questions started,
Just there it is our ways were parted -
From where the deepest thought can reach,
To plan and goal of daily speech.
My childhood's faith unshaken stands,
And thence our equal rights deriving,
I for a people free am striving
And brotherhood in kindred lands.
Though both of us are Christian men,
So wide a gulf between us lies;
Though both are true Norwegian men,
We Norway see with different eyes.
If but to-day we victory gain,
We must to-morrow fight amain.
But now I honor you in singing,
Because what ought just now to be
With strongest will you clearly see,
And foremost to the fight are springing.
When sinks the land 'neath heavy fogs
And no fair prospect cheers the eye,
The thickening air our breathing clogs,
Yes, all things dull in torpor lie, -
Then mounts your mind with freest motion,
Its thunder-wings the mist-banks driving,
Its lightning-talons cloud-walls riving,
Till sunlight spreads o'er land and ocean.
You are the freshening shower clean
Upon our sluggish day's routine.
You are the salt sea-current poured
Into each close and sultry fjord.
Your speech a mine-shaft is, deep-going
To where the veins of ore are showing.
And by your flashing eyes far-sighted
The past is for our future lighted.
So long as Sverre's sword you wield,
So long as you our hosts are heading,
We know we'll win on every field;
Foes flee, your battle trumpet dreading.
We see their struggling ranks soon rifted,
We see them set so many a snare:
Your head unharmed in thought's pure air
Above the waves of war is lifted.
We love you for this courage good,
That e'er before the banner stood,
We love the strength you boldly stored
In your self-forged and tempered sword.
Your vigilance we love and prize,
That sickness, slander, loss defies,
We love you, that at duty's call
You gave your peace, your future, all,
We love you still - hate cannot cleave! -
Because you dared in us believe.
How can they hope that backward here
Our land shall go? No, year by year,
Forward in freedom and in song,
Forward the truly Norse disclosing.
What might can now avail, opposing
The travail of the centuries long?
People and power no more divided;
In peace to save or war to kill,
Our freedom with one guard provided,
One nation only and one will.
The spirit of our nation's morn,
The unity of free gods dreaming,
And all things great to be great deeming,
Forever must the spurious scorn.
The spirit that impelled the viking
'Gainst kingly power for freedom striking, -
That, threatened, sailed to Iceland strong
With hero-fame and hero-song,
And further on through all the ages, -
That spirit never dwells in cages.
The spirit that at Hjörung broke
For thousand years the foreign yoke,
By might of king ne'er made to cower,
Defying e'en the papal power, -
The spirit that, to weakness worn,
Held free our soil with rights unshorn,
Held free, with tongue and hand combined,
'Gainst foreign host and foreign mind, -
By which our Holberg's wit was whetted,
And Wessel's sword and Wessel's pen,
And to whose silent forge indebted
The thoughts that armed our Eidsvold-men, -
The spirit that in faith so high
Through Odin could to God draw nigh,
As bridge the myth of Balder threw,
And almost found the free way new
To truth's fair home in radiant Gimle,
When this was closed and warded grimly
By monkish lies and papal speech, -
That threw a second bridge to reach
On freedom's lightly soaring arches
To heights whereon the free soul marches, -
So, when for Luther blood was shed,
The North but razed a fence instead,
- The spirit that, when men were deeming
True faith in all the world were dead,
Brun, Hauge, and their lineage spread,
From soul-springs in our nation streaming, -
Though pietism's fog now thickens,
Still guards the altar lights and quickens; -
Can this they make the fashion better,
By modern bishop-synod's letter?
Is this by politics provided,
When into "Chambers" 't is divided?
Can this into a box be juggled
And o'er the boundary be smuggled?
And that just now when beacons lighted
On all the mountain-tops are sighted,
And when our folk-high-school's young day
The Norse heart kindles with its ray,
Renewing mem'ries, courage bringing,
While they are hearing, trusting, singing; -
Just when the deep in billows surges,
Responsive to the tempest's might,
And over it the Northern Light
Of Youth's refulgent hope emerges; -
Just when the spirit everywhere,
While walls lie low as trumpets blare,
Is breaking from the ancient forms,
And will of youth the heights now storms.
A battle-age, - and we are in it!
The greatest thing on earth: to be
Where powers that are bursting free,
Self-shaping seek their place and win it; -
Our fusing passion all to give,
To cast the statue that shall live,
To press the mold of our own form
On what shall be the future's norm,
Into the age's soul thus breathed
The spirit God to us bequeathed.
'T was this that now I wished to say
To you, who late and early, aye
Within time's workshop great are going,
What is, what shall be, ever knowing; -
To you, who all our people's might
Have roused for freedom new to fight; -
To whom our people gave this power,
And sorrow, its eternal dower.
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 45.
TO JOHAN SVERDRUP. Written in November, 1869. Johan Sverdrup
(1816-1892) was the greatest political leader and statesman of
Norway in the nineteenth century, and left the deepest traces in
all its recent history. He settled in Laurvik in 1844 as a lawyer, was
soon active in municipal politics, laboring for the interests of the
working-class, was elected to the Storting in 1851. Reëlected in
1854, and regularly thereafter till 1885, his authority in the
Storting and his power in public life steadily increased. From 1871
on he was President of the Storting, except in 1881 for reasons
of health; from 1884 to 1889 he was Prime Minister. A consistent
democrat, he created and led the party of the Left, or "Peasant-
Left," and contended all his active life for the establishment of
real government by the people, i.e., a constitutional democracy with
parliamentary rule. This, the fulfillment of his famous saying, "All
power ought to be gathered in this hall [i.e., in the Storting],"
was consummated in June, 1884. Few men in Norway have been so
bitterly assailed by political opponents, and few so idolized by
followers. He was a masterful orator, inferior only to Björnson.
Assassination. An allusion to Ibsen's The Young Men's Union, first
performed in Christiania on September 30, 1869. Björnson regarded
the drama as directed against himself and his political friends. In
1881 he wrote: "With the word assassination I did not mean that
conditions and well-known men were aimed at. What I meant was, that
The Young Men's Union tried to make our young liberal party into a
band of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism could be carried off
with their phraseology, and especially that prominent men were first
made recognizable, and that then false hearts and base characters
were fictitiously given them and spurious alliances pasted on them."
The words of Einar. For Einar Tambarskelve, see Note 11, and for
Magnus the Good, Note 6. Immediately after the death of Magnus
in Denmark, Harald proposed to make himself King over all Denmark,
but Einar arose and spoke, ending with the words: "It seems to me
better to follow King Magnus dead, than any other King living."
Nearly all the Norwegians joined Einar, and Harald was left with too
small a force to carry out his plan.
My childhood's faith unshaken stands. Björnson was at the time
With full conviction an orthodox Christian; Sverdrup was for himself
a free thinker in religion.
Brotherhood in all three lands. Sverdrup was always opposed to any
close federation of the three countries, and to Scandinavism, see
Note 21.
What ought just now to be. The whole political programme of the
Left, as it was gradually wrought out during the next two decades.
Sverre, see Note 5.
One nation only and one will, Sverdrup's ideal, as outlined
above.
That impelled the viking, see note on Harald Fairhair, Note 5.
At Hjörung, see Note 11.
Wesssel's sword, seeTordenskjold, Note 5.
Wesssel's pen. Johan Herman Wessel (1742-1785) was a grand-nephew
of Peder Wessel Tordenskjold. He was the leader and most popular
member of the "Norwegian Society" in Copenhagen, in spirit and style
the most Norwegian of the writers born in Norway in the eighteenth
century.
That in faith so high, etc., refers to the teaching of Grundtvig
(see Note 57), who looked upon the Edda-gods as representing a
religion originally akin to Christianity.
Brun. Johan Nordal Brun (1745-1816) became bishop in 1804. A
popular poet, he was the creator of the older national hymn and
other patriotic songs; an ardent lover of his country, opposed to
Danish influences in politics and culture; strictly orthodox and a
powerful orator.
Hauge. Hans Nilsen Hauge (1771-1824), a peasant lay-preacher, of
whom a biographer has said: "Since the Reformation no single man has
had so profound an influence on ecclesiastical and Christian life in
Norway." The "Haugian revival" of the emotional religious life is
proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by
his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual
enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after
1830 among his followers. This explains Björnson's great sympathy
with Hauge and his school.
Modern bishop-synod's letter, the dogmatic literalism of the State
Church, seeking to impose itself on free popular religions faith.
Chambers, reference to proposals to revise the Act of Union with
Sweden, in particular to the plan of a Union-Parliament, all of
which were rejected by Norway.
Folk-high-school's, see Note 65.
|
|
Printable Page
Add Your Thoughts on this poem.
This page viewed 205 times.
|
|
