"Here your Hamar-made matches!"
My thanks kindle fast. And oh!
This song at your heart-strings catches,
That kindling your thanks may glow.
The matches hold them in hiding,—
Scratching one you will find
The light with a warmth abiding
Carries them to his mind.
"Here your Hamar-made matches!"
Only to strike one here,
Our thanks far-away dispatches,
With peace his fair home to cheer.
His matches in thousands of houses,
In great and in small as well!—
The light that thanksgiving arouses
Shall scatter the darkness fell.
His matches in thousands of houses!—
Some eve from his factory
He'll see how thanksgiving arouses
The land, and its love flames free.
He'll see in the eyes so tender,
Through gleams that his matches woke,
The thanks that his nation would render,
His glistening wreath of oak,—
He'll feel that Norway with double
The warmth of other lands glows;
The harvest must more be than trouble,
When faith in its future grows.
"Here your Hamar-made matches!"
No phosphorus-poison more!
The bearer of light up-catches
The work of the school before:—
From home all the poison taking,
Hastening the light's advance,
Longings to warm light waking,
That lay there and had no chance.