An enterprising Danish bookseller, some time during the sixth decade of
the present century, issued a calendar, for which he solicited short
vignette poems by well-known authors, each one of whom was requested
to choose his own month. When the man applied to Björnson, the latter
wrote:--
"Young April's praise I'll sing!
The old in April falleth,
The new is firmly planted;
Its turmoil wild appalleth,--
And yet, if peace were granted,
Nor will, nor deed, 'twould bring.
"Yes, April's praise I'll sing!
Because it stormeth, sweepeth,
Because, with forces living,
It smileth, melteth, weepeth,
Because it is life-giving,--
For summer's born in spring."
It would scarcely have been possible to give a better characterization
of his entrance into his own first period. The beautiful novel,
"Fiskerjenten" (The Fisher Maiden), 1868, which, less idealistic than
the author's tales of peasant life, yet more nearly approaching his
later style, conveyed in the poem introduced into it, called "The Young
Viking," a remarkable presentation of the poet's own first struggles
and his speedily gained mastership. Although Björnson has not written
a large number of lyric poems, and is no correct versifier, he has,
nevertheless, accomplished some ever-memorable and imperishable results
in the domain of lyrics. His popular songs are noted for their purity
and genuineness. His patriotic poems have become national songs. His
few old Norse descriptions or monologues have hit that style of the
ancient North which Oehlenschläger and Tegnér never attained. Read in
the drama "Hulda" the little poem written in dialect, which Gunnar
sings, and of which Lobedanz, the German translator, appropriately
remarks, "In the Norwegian summer, which knows no nightingale, winter
has a terror-inspiring influence as it appears in the song of Nils
Finn, a sort of ballad that may be ranked with Goethe's "Erl-King."
It is the story of a little boy who has lost his snow-shoes, and who,
dragged downward by the powers of the deep, is swallowed up in the
snow. This simple occurrence, however, is represented with a power of
imagination that renders it immortal, especially the concluding lines,
in which the two long snow-shoes are represented as being all that was
left behind, are most impressive and awe-inspiring. Let me here cite
the last stanzas, viz.:--
"The rock laughs with scorn, snow covers its side,
But Nils knit his fist, and swore that it lied.
'Have a care!' was heard below.
"But the avalanche yawns, the clouds break asunder,
Thought Nils Finn: 'My grave I see yonder.'
'Art ready?' was heard below.
"Two shoes stood in the snow and looked around,
They saw not a thing, and heard not a sound.
'Where is Nils?' was heard below."
It is only needful to study a few lines of Björnson's patriotic poems
in order to comprehend fully why it was they became national songs.
Let me choose by way of example four lines of the most peculiarly
Björnsonic national song, which has completely supplanted the older
national songs of Norway. The lines read as follows, in the metrical
translation:--
"Yes, we love with fond devotion
Norway's mountain domes,
Rising storm-lashed, o'er the ocean,
With their thousand homes."[4]
Literally they read thus: "Yes, we love this country, as it rises
furrowed, weather-beaten, from the ocean, with its thousand homes." It
would be impossible to reproduce in a more accurate, genial way, the
impression which the coast of Norway makes upon the son of the land
when he approaches it from the ocean.
Among all the shorter compositions of Björnson the most eminent is the
monologue "Bergliot." It is the wail of a chieftain's wife over her
assassinated husband, Einar Tambarskelver, and her only son who lies
slain at his side. I know of nothing in the modern reproduction of old
Norse poetry that has ever made so deep an impression on me as the
refrain-like recurrence of the words with which Bergliot addresses the
driver of the cart on which she had had the dead body of her husband
lifted:--
"Drive slowly; for thus drove Einar ever--
Even so will home be reached soon enough."
The first line represents with wonderful simplicity the calm and proud
dignity of the slain chieftain, the second embraces in the fewest
possible words the profound bitterness of the desolated life.