If ever the mountains the fjord would immure,
Their narrows press nigher, a prison sure;--
His water-hands then with a gesture haughty
Seize the whole saucy pass like a shell;
Set to his mouth, he begins to blow it
With western-gale-lungs,--and then you may know it,
Loud is the noise, and the swift currents swell.
Forcing the coast, a big fjord, black and gray,
Breaks us our way;
Waterfalls rushing on both sides rumble.
Sponge-wet and slow,
Cloud-masses over the mountain-flanks fumble;
The sun and mist, lo,
Symbol of struggle eternal show.
This is my Romsdal's unruly land!
Home-love rejoices.
All things I see, have eyes and have voices.
The people? I know them, each man understand,
Though never I saw him nor with him have spoken;
I know this folk, for the fjord is their token.
_One_ is the fjord in the storm's battle-fray,
_Another_ is he when the sunbeams play
In midsummer's splendor,
And radiant, happy his heart is tender.
Whatever has form,
He bears on his breast with affection warm,
Mirrors it, fondles it,--
Be it so bare as the mossy gray rubble,
Be it so brief as a brook's fleeting bubble.
Oh, what a brightness! Beauty, soul-ravishing,
Shines from his prayer, that now he be shriven
Of all the past! And penitence lavishing,
All he confesses; with glad homage given
Mirrors and masses
Deep the mountains' high peaks and passes.
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