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To Johan Sverdrup

by Bj'rnstjerne Martinius Bj'rnson

(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 Hj'rung 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.