By oppression’s woes and pains!
By your sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!
Let us do or die!
These examples, though but disjecta membra poetæ, are sufficient to show something of the structure and appearance of Icelandic poetry; and, probably to the general reader, as interesting as a dissertation that would fill a volume.
One more specimen, however, of their verse, shall be given; a couple of stanzas of a very popular Icelandic hymn. It is entitled, “The weeping of Jacob over Rachel,” or,