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??rnson, Bj??rnstjerne, 1832-1910

"Poems and Songs"


His matches in thousands of houses,
In great and in small as well!--
The light that thanksgiving arouses
Shall scatter the darkness fell.
His matches in thousands of houses!--
Some eve from his factory
He'll see how thanksgiving arouses
The land, and its love flames free.
He'll see in the eyes so tender,
Through gleams that his matches woke,
The thanks that his nation would render,
His glistening wreath of oak,--
He'll feel that Norway with double
The warmth of other lands glows;
The harvest must more be than trouble,
When faith in its future grows.
"Here your Hamar-made matches!"
No phosphorus-poison more!
The bearer of light up-catches
The work of the school before:--
From home all the poison taking,
Hastening the light's advance,
Longings to warm light waking,
That lay there and had no chance.


THEY HAVE FOUND EACH OTHER
(FROM THE DRAMA THE KING, THIRD INTERLUDE)
Mute they wander,
Meeting yonder,
In the wondrous Spring new-born,
That though old as Time's first morn,
Brings fresh youth to all the living,
Now held fast, now far retreating,
But through hearts in oneness beating
Ever fullest bloom is giving.
Mute they wander. E'en the eye
Speaks no thought. For from on high
To their souls sweet strains have spoken
From the wide world's harmony,
Born of light, the darkness broken,
In the dawn of things to be.


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