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.