Naar Buen Du strög, om borte Du var,
Det klang som et: “Leve vort Norge!”
Thi altid din Hug til Norge Dig bar,
Alt kan for din Kjærlighed borge.
Du elsked dit Land, dets veirbidte Strand,
Og aldrig Du kunde det glemme,
Og Folket Dig elsked, Kvinde som Mand,
De vidste, kun her var Du hjemme.
Saa Tak da for alt, for Toner, for Sang,
For Glöden, Du tændte og vakte.
Hav Tak for din kjække, mandige Gang,
Hav Tak for hvert Offer, Du bragte.
Nu nedlagt er Buen, Tonen dör hen,
Dit Minde dog aldrig skal svinde:
Det Norge, Du var saa fuldtro en Ven,
En Evighedskrans vil Dig binde.
TO OLE BULL.
BY BARON DE LA MOTTE FOUQUÉ.
[From his Preface to his “Selected Works,” where he introduces it as “a song of salutation to one who, honored by me as master, is not less dear to me as a man” (Tracy’s translation).]
Profoundly dreamt a youth on Norland waste;
But no—it is not waste where fairy rings
Reflect the past as well as future things,
When love and woe in boding tones are drest.
They greeted him, they kissed him, and retreated;
They left for him an instrument of sound,
Whose forceful strings with highest deeds could bound,
And yet with childish frolics be entreated.
He wakes—the gift he seizes, comprehending
Its sweet mysterious pleasure how to prove,
And pours it forth in pure harmonious blending.
O mayst thou, ever victor, joyful move,
Thou Northland sailor, on life’s voyage wending,
Conscious of God within thee and above.
ON HEARING OLE BULL IN 1879.
BY PHILIP BOURKE MARSTON.
What note is this of infinite appeal
That wakes beneath thy hand’s inspired control?
Is it a prayer from man’s most secret soul
To the dim gods Death only can reveal,—
Whose hands we know can wound, yet trust may heal?
Hark, now, for ’twixt the prayer and the prayer’s goal,
From far away, beyond where planets roll,
Something I hear, or something subtly feel:
Down all the deep, untraveled, star–watched way,
Faint as a wind at dawn of a June day,
Comes a divine response: Ah! now ’tis here.
Lo! prayer is turned to passionate triumphing,
And in thy music’s moon–thrilled atmosphere
My soul drinks deep of some immortal spring.