Best of friends that I found wert thou;
Thou waitedst for me in the eyes of mother.
And leave me last of them all wilt thou,
Who knewest me better than any other.
Thou spirit all knowing,
Our mother-tongue,
The ages foregoing,
The future now growing,
The present glowing,—
We hallow thee!
NOTES
PREFATORY
Björnstjerne Björnson was born in 1832 and died in 1909. The last edition of his Poems and Songs in his lifetime is the fourth, dated 1903. It is a volume of two hundred pages, containing one hundred and forty-one pieces, arranged in nearly chronological order from 1857, or just before, to 1900. Of these almost two-thirds appeared in the first edition (1870), ending with Good Cheer and including ten pieces omitted in the other editions, eight poems and two lyrical passages from the drama King Sverre; the second edition (1880) added the contents in order through Question and Answer and inserted earlier The Angels of Sleep; the third (1900) extended the additions to include Frederik Hegel.
This translation presents in the same order the contents of the fourth edition, with the exception of the following ten pieces:
Bryllupsvise Nr. I.
Bryllupsvise Nr. II.
Bryllupsvise Nr. III.
Bryllupsvise Nr. IV.
Bryllupsvise Nr. V.
De norske studenter til fru Louise Heiberg.
De norske studenters hilsen med fakkeltog til deres kgl. höiheder
kronprins Frederik og kronprinsesse Louise.
Til sorenskriver Mejdells sölvbryllup.
Nytaarsrim til rektor Steen.
Til maleren Hans Gudes og frues guldbryllup.
Nine of these are occasional longs in the narrowest sense, with little or no general interest, and showing hardly any of the author's better qualities: five Wedding Songs, a Betrothal Song, a Silver-Wedding Song, a Golden-Wedding Song, and a Students' Song of Greeting to Mrs. Louise Heiberg. The tenth, a characteristic, rather long poem of vigor and value, New Year's Epistle in Rhyme to Rector Steen, is extremely difficult to render into English verse.
The translator has thought it best not to include any of Björnson's lyric productions not contained in the collection published with his sanction during his life, the other lyrics in his tales, dramas. and novels, many occasional short poems in periodicals and newspapers which were abandoned by their author to their fugitive fate, two noble lyrical cantatas, and a few fine poems written after the year 1900.
The translation aims to reproduce as exactly as possible the verse-form, meter, and rhyme of the original. This has been judged desirable because music has been composed for so many of these songs and poems, and each of them is, as it were, one with its musical setting. But such reproduction seems also, on the whole, to be most faithful and satisfactory, when the translator is not endowed with poetic genius equal to that of the author. The very numerous double (dissyllabic) rhymes of the Norwegian are not easy to render in English. Recourse to the English present participle has been avoided as much as possible. If it still seems to be too frequent, the translator asks some measure of indulgence in view of the fact that the use here of the English present participle is formally not so unlike that of the inflectional endings and of the post-positive article Norwegian.
The purpose of the Notes is to assist the better understanding and appreciation of the contents of the book, by furnishing the necessary historical and biographical information. Of the persons referred to it is essential to know their dates, life-work, character, influence, and relation to Björnson. The Notes have been drawn from the accessible encyclopedias, biographical dictionaries, bibliographies, and histories. The notes of Julius Elias to his edition of German translations of Björnson's poems made by various writers and published in 1908 have been freely and gratefully used.