The herd of "barbarians" he thus headed on their way
Had no purpose to settle and just there to stay.
"Non-Latins" they remained, by no alien thought enslaved,
And found their true selves, as the foreign foes they braved.
In conquering the language we learned the laws of thought,
And following him, his fine longing we caught
For wanderings and wonders, all the conqueror's zeal,
To win unknown lands and their mysteries reveal.
Each lesson seemed a vision that henceforth was ours,
Inspiring each youth's individual powers.
His pictures made pregnant our creative desire,
His wit was our testing in an ordeal of fire,
His wisdom was our balance, to weigh things great and small,
His pathos told of passions, burning, but held in thrall,
Oft the stricken hero scarce his tedious toil could brook,
He wished to go and write, though it were but a single book,
To show a _little_ what he was, and show it to the world:
He loosed his cable daily, but ne'er his sails unfurled.
His "grammar" was not printed! And he passed from mortal ken
To where the laws of thought are not written with a pen.
His "grammar" was not printed! But the life that it had,
In ink's prolonging power did not need to be clad.
It lived in his soul, so mighty, so warm,
That a thousand books' life seems but poor empty form.
It lives in a host of independent men,
To whose thought he gave life and who give it again
In the school, at the bar, in the church, and Storting's hall,
In poetry and art,--whose deeds and lifework all
Have proved to be the freer and the broader in their might,
Because Heltberg had given their youth higher flight.
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