Love Song
Have you love for me,
Yours my love shall be,
While the days of life are flowing.
Short was summer's stay,
Grass now pales away,
With our play will come regrowing.
What you said last year
Sounds yet in my ear,--
Birdlike at the window sitting,
Tapping, trilling there,
Singing, in would bear
Joy the warmth of sun befitting.
Litli-litli-lu,
Do you hear me too,
Youth behind the birch-trees biding?
Now the words I send,
Darkness will attend,
May be you can give them guiding.
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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When comes the morning?
When
comes the real morning?
When golden, the sun's rays hover
Over the earth's snow-cover,
And where the shadows nestle,
Wrestle,
Lifting lightward the root enringèd
Till it shall seem an angel wingèd,
Then it is morning,
Real, real morning.
But if the weather is bad
And my spirit sad,
Never morning I know.
No.
Truly, it's real morning,
When blossom the buds winter-beaten,
The birds having drunk and eaten
Are glad as they sing, divining
Shining
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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The meeting
(At The Student Meeting Of 1869)
Thoughts toward one another coursing
To their pole must run,
Hearts that meet, all bonds are forcing,
Like the springtime sun.
Though to-day too heavy sorrow
Dull the mind of youth,
Higher on the meeting's morrow
Roll the tides of truth.
Though each man with courage fired
Hundreds forward bore,
Though a thousand died inspired,
There is need of more.
May a Northern Spring come blowing
Over wood and field,
Wake the hundred thousands, knowing
Meeting-hour revealed!
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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At Michael Sars's Grave
Ever he would roam
Toward th' eternal home;
From the least life deep in ocean
To each gleam of stars in motion,
Worth of all he weighed.
Now the Lord lends aid.
Still he passed beyond,
Softly dreaming; fond
Nature met him as her lover.
God with strength his soul shall cover
'Mid the starry throng
Through the spheres' pure song.
Even here on earth
Harmony's sweet birth-
When discovery new truth sunders,
When the small reveals its wonders-
Filled his soul with song
For the ages long.
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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They Have Found Each Other
Mute they wander,
Meeting yonder,
In the wondrous Spring new-born,
That though old as Time's first morn,
Brings fresh youth to all the living,
Now held fast, now far retreating,
But through hearts in oneness beating
Ever fullest bloom is giving.
Mute they wander. E'en the eye
Speaks no thought. For from on high
To their souls sweet strains have spoken
From the wide world's harmony,
Born of light, the darkness broken,
In the dawn of things to be.
Power crowned-
Earth around
Like a sun-song rolled the sound.
Mute they wander. Sweet strains ending-
Eye nor tongue dares yet the lending
Speech to thought.
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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Frida
Frida, I knew that thy life-years were counted.
If but before thee a lifting thought mounted,
Upward thy gaze turned all wistful to view it,
As wouldst thou pursue it.
Eyes that so clear saw the wonderful vision
Looked far away beyond earth's indecision.
Snow-white unfolded the pinions that later
Bore thee to the greater.
Speaking or asking thou broughtest me sorrow;
Eyes thine and words thine seemed wanting to borrow
Clearness more pure and thoughts, victory gaining
Beyond my attaining.
When thou wert dancing in all a child's lightness,
Shaking thy locks like a fountain in brightness,
Laughing till heaven was opened in gladness
Over thy gladness,-
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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Post festum
A man in coat of ice arrayed
Stood up once by the Arctic Ocean;
The whole earth shook with proud emotion
And honor to the giant paid.
A king came, to him climbing up,
An Order in his one hand bearing:
'Who great become, this sign are wearing.'
-The growling giant said but 'Stop!'
The frightened king fell down again,
Began to weep with features ashen:
'My Order is in this rude fashion
Refused by just the greatest men.
'My dear man, take it, 't is but fit,
Of your king's honor be the warder;
On your breast greater grows the Order,
And we who bear it, too, by it.'-
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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Song of freedom to
Freedom's father-power strong,
Freedom's mother-wrath and song.
Giant-stout, a youth self-taught,
Soon a giant's work he wrought.
Ever he, full of glee,
Thought and wit and melody,
Mighty, merry, made his way,-
Labor's toil or battle-fray.
Enemies whom none could tell
Lay in wait this foe to fell,
Found him waking all too stark,
Sought his sleeping hours to mark,
Tried their skill, bound him still;
When he wakened, they fared ill.
Glad he forward strode firm-paced,
Full of power, full of haste.
Bare fields blossom 'neath his feet,
Commerce swells about his seat,
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My fatherland
I will fight for my land,
I will work for my land,
Will it foster with love, in my faith, in my child.
I will eke every gain,
I will seek boot for bane,
From its easternmost bound to the western sea wild.
Here is sunshine enough,
Here is seed-earth enough,
If by us, if by us all love's duty were done.
Here is will to create;
Though our burdens be great,
We can lift up our land, if we all lift as one.
In the past we went wide
O'er the sea's surging tide,
And the Norman's high walls stand on many a shore.
But our flag flies its way
Ever farther to-day
And is red with life's vigor as never before.
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The land that shall be (dedicated to herman anker and m. anker on the
Ocaasion of their silver-wedding, September 15, 1888)
Land that shall be
Thither, when thwarted our longings, we sail,-
Sighs to the clouds, that we breathe when we fail,
Form a mirage of rich valley and mead
Over our need,-
Visions revealing the future until
Faith shall fulfil,-
The land that shall be.
Land that shall be!
All of our labor to sow seeds of gain
Grows in the ages when
our
names shall wane,
Gathered with others', 't is stored in the true
Will to renew.
This then shall carry our labor within,
Safely within
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poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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