Rivers, valleys,
Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope
Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten,
Lake and plain brighten,
Hallow a temple of peace and hope.
Norway, Norway,
Houses and huts, not castles grand,
Gentle or hard,
Thee we guard, thee we guard,
Thee, our future's fair land.
Such abrupt brevity of expression, not uncommon among Norwegian
peasants, was no doubt natural to Bj?rnson, but was confirmed by
the influence of the Old Norse sagas and skaldic poetry. The
latter may also have increased his use of alliteration, masterly
not only in the direct imitation of the old form, as in _Bergliot_,
but also in the enrichment of the music of his rhymed verse in
modern forms. Conciseness of style in thought and word permitted
no lyrical elaboration of figures or descriptions; it restricted
the poet to brief hints of the ways his spirit would go, and along
which he wished to guide that of the hearer or reader. Herein is
the source of much of the power of Bj?rnson's patriotic songs and
poems of public agitation. Those who read or hear or sing them
are made to think, or at least to feel, the unwritten poetry
between the lines. Scarcely less notable is this paucity in the
expression of wealth of thought and feeling in the memorial and
other more individual poems.
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