I knew a man: in autumn clearness
His even course,--
His heart's fine force
Like autumn sky in soft-hued sheerness.
His memory is, as--when a-swarming
The cold blasts first
Of winter burst--
The gentle flame my room first warming.
When all our outward longings falter,
And summer's mind
Within we find,
Is friendship's feast round autumn's altar.
OUR LANGUAGE
(1900)
(See Note 80)
Thou, who sailest Norse mountain-air,
And Denmark's songs by the cradle singest,
Who badest in Hald the war-flames flare,
And, heard in our children's joy, gently ringest,--
Thou treasure of treasures,
Our mother-tongue,
In pains as in pleasures
Our home and our tower,
With God our power,--
We hallow thee!
Whispering secrets that Holberg stored,
Thou borest him home to a brighter morning,
Didst serve him with armor and whet his sword
For satire's assaults and for laughter's warning.
Thou spirit all knowing,
Our mother-tongue,
The ages foregoing,
The future now growing,
The present glowing,--
We hallow thee!
Kierkegaard thou to the deeps didst bring,
Where life's full currents in God he sounded.
For Wergeland wert thou the eagle's wing,
That lifted him sunward to heights unbounded.
Thou treasure of treasures,
Our mother-tongue,
In pain as in pleasures
Our home and our tower,
With God our power,--
We hallow thee!
Radiant warmth of a May-day
Thou to the spring of our freedom gavest.
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