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P. A. Munch (1863)

by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(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;

Gently their message of innocence pure

Made him a childlike believer.

Or he joined glad in their light-hearted game,

Colors and music surrounding, -

Gone were the clouds, in the heavens came

Sparkling of star-light abounding.

But as in an autumn evening

Silent, dreamy, dark, sheet-lightning

Wakens thought and feeling stormward, -

Or as in a boat a sudden

Stroke when gliding as in slumber

On between the cliffs that tower

In a quiet, balmy spring night, -

But a single stroke and soft, then

Echo takes it up and tosses

To and fro 'mid walls of mountains,

Thrush and grouse send forth their wood-calls

Deer rise up and listen keenly,

Stones are rolling, all are up now,

Dogs are barking, bells are clanging,

Ushering in the strife of daytime, -

Thus could oft a recollection

Down-light falling in that playtime,

Waken all his thought and doubting!

Then it roved the wide world over,

Then it hottest burned within him, -

But it lavished light for others!

Rise of races, spread of language,

Birth of names, all laws' close kinship,

Small and great in equal passion,

Equal haste and doubting goal-ward! -

There where others stones saw only,

He saw precious gems that glistened,

Sunk his shaft the mine to deepen.

And where others thought the treasure

Sure and safe for years a hundred,

Doubt possessed him as he burrowed

Day and night - and saw it vanish!

But the unrest that gave power

Made him oft the goal pass over;

While to others he gave clearness,

Intuitions new deceived him.

Therefore: where he once had striven,

Thither he would turn him never,

Changed his ground and shifted labor,

From his own thought-conquests fleeing.

But his thoughts pursued, untiring,

Followed, growing, as the fire,

Kindled in Brazilian forests,

Storm-wind makes and storm-wind follows!

Where before no foot had trodden,

Ways were burned for many millions!

Northward stretches Scandinavia

'Mid the fog that dims the Ice-sea,

Darkness of the months of winter

Lays its weight on sea and mountain.

Like our lands are too our peoples.

Their beginnings prehistoric

Stretch afar in fog and darkness.

But as through the fog a lighthouse,

Or as Northern Lights o'er darkness,

Gleamed his thought with light and guidance.

When with filial fond remembrance

Tenderly he sought and questioned,

Searching for his people's pathways -

Names and graves and rusty weapons,

Stones and tools their answer gave him.

Through primeval Asian forests,

Over steppes and sands of deserts,

'Neath a thousand years that moldered,

Saw he caravan-made footsteps

Seek a new home in the Northland.

And as they the rivers followed,

Followed them his thought abundant,

Into Nature's All full-flowing. -

See his restless soul's creation!

Harmony of truth he yearned for,

Found it not, but wonder-working

New discoveries and pathways,

- Like those alchemists aforetime

Who, though gold was all their seeking,

Found not that, but mighty forces,

Which to-day the world are moving. -

***

Deepest ground of all his being

Was the polar power of contrast,

For his thought, to music wakened

By the touch of Northern Saga,

Vibrated melodious longing,

Toward the South forever tending.

In his eye the lambent fire,

Of his thought the glint, showed kinship

With the free improvisator

In the land of warmth and vineyards.

And his swiftly changing feeling

And his all-consuming ardor,

That could toil the livelong winter

Till caprice the fruit discarded, -

That immeasurable richness

Wherein thoughts and moods and music,

Joy and sorrow, jest and earnest,

Gleamed and played without cessation, -

All a Southern day resembled!

Therefore was his life a journey,

Towards the South in constant movement, -

Through the mists of intuition,

From the darker to the brighter,

From the colder to the warmer, -

On the bridge of ceaseless labor

Bearing over sea and mountain!

Oh, the time with wife beside him

And his bonny playmate-sisters

(Gladsome children, winsome daughters),

When he stood, where evening sunshine

Glowed on Capitol and Forum, -

Stood where from the great world-city,

As from history's very fountain,

Knowledge wells in streams of fullness; -

Where a clearness large and cloudless

Falls upon the bygone ages

That have laid them down to rest here; -

Where to him, the Northern searcher,

It would seem, he had been straying

Too long lost in history's fogland,

Rowing round the deep fjords' surface; -

Stood where dead men burst the earth-clods

And themselves come forth for witness

In their heavy marble togas; -

Where the goddesses of Delos

In the frescoed halls are dancing,

As two thousand years before now; -

Pantheon and Coliseum

In their spacious fate have sheltered

All the world's swift evolution; -

Where a Hermes from that corner

Saw the footsteps firm of Cato,

Pontifex in the procession, -

Saw then Nero as Apollo

Lifted up take sacrifices,

Saw then Gregory, the wrathful,

Riding forth to rule in spirit

Over all the known world's kingdoms, -

Saw then Cola di Rienzi

Homage pay to freedom's goddess

'Mid the Roman people's paeans, -

Saw Pope Leo and his princes

Choose instead of the Lord Jesus

Aristotle dead and Plato;-

Saw again how stouter epochs

Raised the Church of Papal power,

Till the Frenchman overthrew it

And exalted Nature's Godhead;

Saw anew then wonted custom

In its pious, still processions

With a Lamb the great world's ruler! -

All this saw the little Hermes

On the corner near the temple,

And the wise man from the Northland

Saw that Hermes and his visions.

Yes, when over Rome he stood there

In that high, historic clearness,

And his eye the mountain-ridges

Followed toward the red of evening, -

Then all beams of longing focused

In a blessed intuition,

And - he saw a church before him

Greater far than that of nature,

And he felt a peace descending,

Larger far than all the present.

When the second time he came there,

After days and nights of labor,

Hard as were it for redemption, -

Then the Lord Himself gave welcome,

Led him gently thither, saying:

"Peace be with thee! Thou hast conquered!"

But to us with sorrow stricken

Turned the Lord with comfort, saying:

"When I call, who then dares murmur,

That the called man had not finished?"

Whoso dies, he here had finished!

Spite our sorrow we believe it,

Hold that He, who unrest giveth

(The discoverer's disquiet,

That drove Newton, drove Columbus),

Also knows when rest is needed.

But we question, while reviewing

All that mighty thought-armada

Now disbanded, home-returning:

Who again shall reunite it?

For when he cut his war-arrow,

Lords and liegemen soon were mustered,

And to aid from Sweden, Denmark,

England, France, swift-flying vessels

Coursed the sea-ways toward his standard.

Royal was that fleet and mighty,

By our shore at anchor lying;

We were wont to see it near us

Or to hear the wondrous tidings

Of its cruises and its conquests.

What it won we own forever;

But the fleet is sailing homeward.

Here we stand the last sail watching

As it sinks on the horizon.

Then we turn and breathe the question:

Who again shall reunite it?