God with strength his soul shall cover
'Mid the starry throng
Through the spheres' pure song.
Even here on earth
Harmony's sweet birth--
When discovery new truth sunders,
When the small reveals its wonders--
Filled his soul with song
For the ages long.
Where his watch he kept,
Eyes a hundred swept.
Where millenniums sand assembled,
Where the tiniest life-pulse trembled,
There he sought the clue,
Silent, wise, and true.
In a water glass
Searching he saw pass
All the ocean's life; his thinking
To unfathomed deeps was sinking;
Where lay riddles locked,
There he came and knocked.
Fair our fatherland,
While such faith shall stand!
With an eye so true and tender,
With a sense so fine for splendor
In the small and still,--
Great ends we fulfil!
TO JOHAN SVERDRUP
(See Note 45)
When now my song selects and praises
Your forceful name, think not it raises
The rallying-flag for battle near;
The street-fight shall not reach us here.
If sacred poetry's fair hill
Lies open to assassination,--
Is _this_ the newer revelation,
Then I withdraw and hold me still.
Then I the words of Einar borrow,
When southern change of kings brought sorrow,
And Harald's hosts their ravage spread:
I follow rather Magnus dead
Than Harald living thus,--and then
I sail away with ships and men.
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