Poems and Songs Part 32

DURING A JOURNEY IN SWEDEN. Written in the summer of 1866, Bjornson's speeches then made a sensation by reason of the warmth of his feeling for Sweden. Ellen Key has written with approval of his characterization of the Swedes here, which agrees with that of Schuck in his History of Swedish Literature, i, 325, 326.

Note 29.

SONG FOR THE STUDENTS' GLEE CLUB. Written in 1863 for the journey of the Club to Bergen (see Note 19).

Hald, Fredrikshald, see Note 5.

Arendal. This city is an important shipping center.

Sverre, see Note 5.

Note 30.

MRS. LOUISE BRUN. Louise Gulbrandsen was born in Bergen, December 16, 1831, and died in Christiania, January 21, 1866. In childhood she knew the narrowness and darkness of poverty. Made her first appearance as an actress at the opening performance of Ole Bull's theater in Bergen, January 2, 1850, when she also recited the Prologue. An attractive personality, a voice clear and flexible both in speech and song, and unusual mentality made her the most talented actress of her time in Norway. Her power was comprehensive; she began with romantic parts and always liked these best, though later she was distinguished in conversation-plays. In 1851 she married Johannes Brun, Norway's most gifted comedian. They came to Christiania in April, 1857. A picture drawn from life, etc., refers to the romantic drama, The Sisters at Kinnekullen, of the Dane, Carsten Hauch (1790-1872). It was his most frequently performed play, dealing with the mysterious power of gold over the human mind, as something demonic in the servitude it imposes. It had recently been played with Mrs. Brun in the part of Ulrika.

He, who from fairy-tale, etc. Ole Bull, see Note 19. Thus is introduced here a poetical history and eulogy of Ole Bull's Norwegian Theater.

Note 31.

TO JOHAN DAHL, BOOKDEALER. Johan Fjeldsted Dahl was born in Copenhagen, January 1, 1807, and died in Christiania, March 16, 1877. He came to Christiania in 1829, and established in 1832 a business of his own, both publishing and selling. In the mercantile, social, literary, and artistic life of the city he came to have an important place and influence. Dahl had published Norway's Dawn, by Welhaven, and in the time of the Wergeland-Welhaven conflict (see Note 36, and as to Wergeland, Note 78) a violent personal quarrel developed between Wergeland and Dahl about an entirely unimportant matter. Dahl had provided his porter with a green livery having red borders. Wergeland, who regarded Dahl as the leading representative of the "Copenhagenism" (Danish, anti-Norwegian tendencies) he was contending against, had an epigram printed, The Servant in Livery, and insulted the porter on the street. This led to a slashing newspaper feud between Wergeland and Dahl. After everybody's feelings had grown calmer, Wergeland wrote about the burlesque occurrence in a farce ent.i.tled The Parrot, and Dahl had humor enough, himself to publish this satirical skit.

The light from his shop. Wergeland derisively styled Dahl's store "the first slander-shop of the city;" it was, in face, the meeting- place of the "party of intelligence," those interested in European culture and esthetic criticism, i.e., it was the resort of those opposed to Wergeland.

Note 32.

TO SCULPTOR BORCH. Christopher Borch (1817-1896) was a lifelong friend, of whom in 1857 Bjornson wrote in letter: "The most childlike, natural man I know, with his even, light walk, and his fine, small hands," and "there is poetry in that man. Oh, how you have misunderstood him!" It was this friend who, about the same time as these letters were written, helped Bjornson open his spirit to the influence of Grundtvig (see Note 57). Borch for many years gave free instruction to convicts in the Akershus prison in drawing and other subjects, and so helped them to a future when they came out.

Note 33.

CHOICE. A Danish publisher issued a calendar with poems on the months by different Scandinavian poets. When Bjornson was invited to contribute, all the other months were already written up or a.s.signed, and only April was left.

Note 34.

NORWEGIAN SEAMEN'S SONG.

Saint Olaf's Cross. Of the insignia of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olaf, founded in 1847 by King Oskar I; the characteristic feature is a white cross.

Hafursfjord's great day (see Note 5), near Stavanger.

Note 35.

HALFDAN KJERULF was born September 15, 1815, and died August 11, 1868. He early showed talent for music, and though he had to study law from 1834 on, he yet studied and wrote music with a crushing sense of lack of knowledge and opportunity. He was dangerously ill in 1839, and always weak physically. His father died in 1840, and Kjerulf then began to earn his living by music. A stipend received in 1850 enabled him to go to Leipzig for a year. In 1851 he settled in Christiania as a teacher of music, where for the rest of his life his influence as a composer was most important. His compositions are all of the lesser forms; his best work was done from 1860 to 1865. He was in general a pioneer of modern Norwegian music, and one of the first to draw from the inexhaustible fountain of folk-music.

He wrote exquisite music for many songs of Welhaven, Wergeland, Moe, Bjornson, and others.

Note 36.

NORWEGIAN STUDENTS' GREETING TO PROFESSOR WELHAVEN. Johan Sebastian Cammermeyer Welhaven was born December 22, 1807, lived from 1828 in Christiania, was lector from 1840 to 1846, and from 1846 to 1868 professor of philosophy in the University; he died October 21, 1873.

His poetical works were: Norway's Dawn, 1834; Poems, 1839; New Poems, 1845; Half a Hundred Poems, 1848; Pictures of Travel and Poems, 1851; A Collection of Poems, 1860. A polemical writer, gifted with wit and fine taste, and a social-political author, Welhaven represented in his earlier period the "party of intelligence"" over against the chauvinism of the radical Peasant party of Wergeland (see Note 78). He was an adherent of Danish culture and of the esthetic view of art and life, who hated all national exclusiveness and showed a love of his country no less true and intense than Wergeland's by chastising the Norwegians of his time for their big, empty words and their cra.s.s materialism. For this he was rewarded with abuse, and called "traitor to his country" and "matricide." In reality Welhaven was a dreamer, a worshiper of nature, a man of tender feeling. His subjective lyric poetry is not surpa.s.sed in richness of content and beauty of form by that of any other Norwegian. Outside of his ordinary University duties Welhaven was also active; he was a favorite speaker at student festivities and musical festivals, notably at the Student Meetings in Upsala, 1856, and in Copenhagen, 1862. But early in 1864 his health failed and he was unable thereafter to lecture regularly. In August, 1868, he requested to be retired; on September 24, the University Authorities granted his request and a pension at the highest rate; but the Storting, on November 12, reduced this to two-thirds of the amount proposed. The same day the students brought to Professor Welhaven their farewell greeting, marching with flags to his residence, where this poem of homage was sung.

Note 37.

FORWARD. The composer Grieg and his wife spent Christmas Eve, 1868, with Bjornson's family in Christiania. Grieg, who then gave to Bjornson a copy of the first part of his Lyriske Smaastykker, has written the following account of the origin of this poem: "Among these was one with the t.i.tle 'Fatherland's Song.' I played this for Bjornson, who liked it so well that he said he wanted to write words for it. That made me glad, although afterwards I said to myself: It probably will remain a want, he has other things to think of. But the very next day I met him in full creative joy: 'It's going excellently. It shall be a song for all the youth of Norway. But there is something at the beginning that I haven't yet got hold of -- a certain wording. I feel that the melody demands it, and I shall not give it up. It must come.' Then we parted. The next forenoon, as I was giving a piano lesson to a young lady, I heard a ring at the entry-door, as if the whole bell apparatus would rattle down; then a noise as of wild hordes breaking in and a roar; 'Forward! Forward! Now I have it! Forward!' My pupil trembled like an aspen leaf. My wife in the next room was frightened out of her wits. But when the door flew open and Bjornson stood there, glad and shining like a sun, there was a general jubilee, and we were the first to hear the beautiful new poem."

Note 38.

THE MEETING. The Student Meetings, i.e., conventions of university students in the three countries, were originally an important part of "Scandinavism" (see Note 21). The first was held in 1843; that of 1862 was the last to have a distinctly political character.

After 1864 the chief aim of these gatherings was to improve the position and strengthen the influence of the student in the community. In 1869 Christiania invited the Danish students to meet there with their Swedish and Norwegian comrades, in the interest of culture, better acquaintance with one another, people, and land, and cooperation in general for the future of the kingdoms.

Gjallar-horn, Heimdall's horn, to be blown especially at the beginning of Ragnarok, symbolical here of the painful pa.s.sing of the old order, which ushers in a new world.

Note 39.

NORSE NATURE. See note to the preceding poem.

King Halfdan the Black (died 860) was the father of Harald Fairhair. It was said of him that he once dreamed he had the most beautiful hair one could see, luxuriant locks of various lengths and colors, but one of them larger, brighter, and fairer than all the others. This was interpreted to mean that King Halfdan would have many descendants, and they would rule Norway with great honor; but one of them would surpa.s.s the others, and later this was said to be Olaf the Saint.

Nore, the largest mountain of Ringerike.

Note 40.

I Pa.s.sED BY THE HOUSE. Written in 1869. The translator has not been able to verify the statement that the poem refers to a cousin, to whom Bjornson was devoted from his student days.

Note 41.

THOSE WITH ME. This poem of tender homage to his wife (see Note 12) and home was written during the summer of 1869, while Bjornson was on a lecture tour, which took him to northernmost Norway. His fourth child, and first daughter, Bergliot, was born June 16, 1869, in Christiania. When their golden wedding was celebrated in 1908, Bjornson said to his wife: "You knew me and knew how ungovernable I was, but you loved me, and there was a holy joy in that. To you always came back from much wildness and many wanderings. And with all my heart I give you the honor. To you I wrote the poem: 'As on I drive, in my heart joy dwells'. It was not poetical and not sentimental, but just plain and direct. I wrote it to glorify my home and you. And I believe that no more beautiful and deep poem in praise of home has been written. For there is life's wisdom in it.

It is yours, Karoline, and your honor."

Note 42.

TO MY FATHER. Written in 1869. Peder Bjornson was settled as a pastor at Kvikne in osterdal at the time of the poet's birth.

Originally he was an independent farmer, like his father and grandfather, on the large farm Skei on the Randsfjord, where he was born in 1797. He completed his theological training in 1829, came to Kvikne in 1831, to Nes in Romsdal in 1837, and to Sogne in 1852.

On retiring in 1869 he moved to Christiania, where he died, August 25, 1871. His large frame and great physical strength were hereditary in his father's family. Our race. Allusion to the tradition of the descent of the Bjornsons from ancient kings through the poet's great-grandmother, Marie oistad.

The Norwegian peasant, see Note 78.

Note 43.

TO ERIKA LIE (-NISSEN) (1847-1903). One of the great pianists in Norway, she was born in Kongsvinger on the river Glommen, where her parents resided also when this poem was written in 1869. She gained European fame by her concerts from 1866 on, married the physician Oskar Nissen in 1874, and after 1876 resided in Norway. She was distinguished for the poetic quality of her playing, for warmth and fullness of tone, and for faultless technique.

Note 44.

AT MICHAEL SARS'S GRAVE. He was born in Bergen, August 30, 1805, and died in Christiania, October 22, 1869. In 1823 he became a student of the University in Christiania, where for a time he devoted himself to natural science, continuing his boyhood's lively interest. But the necessity for self-support turned him to theology. In 1830 he was appointed pastor at Kinn in the Sondfjord, married in 1831 a sister of Welhaven, and in 1839 was transferred to Manger, near Bergen. Both the places mentioned were very convenient for zoological study, which Sars resumed at once and continued unbrokenly. His earliest published work appeared in 1829; it was of first-rate importance, and his reputation was soon established everywhere in the world of learning. In 1853 he sought retirement from the Church, and in 1854 was professor of zoology in the University, where he continued his remarkable researches until his death. He was a pioneer in his special field, the lower marine fauna, and his aim from the beginning was not merely to discover new species, but to trace the physiological processes and the development of these lower, minuter forms of life,--ovology, embryology, organology. It was his work that led to the deep-sea expeditions of The Challenger and other similar voyages.

Note 45.

TO JOHAN SVERDRUP. Written in November, 1869. Johan Sverdrup (1816-1892) was the greatest political leader and statesman of Norway in the nineteenth century, and left the deepest traces in all its recent history. He settled in Laurvik in 1844 as a lawyer, was soon active in munic.i.p.al politics, laboring for the interests of the working-cla.s.s, was elected to the Storting in 1851. Reelected in 1854, and regularly thereafter till 1885, his authority in the Storting and his power in public life steadily increased. From 1871 on he was President of the Storting, except in 1881 for reasons of health; from 1884 to 1889 he was Prime Minister. A consistent democrat, he created and led the party of the Left, or "Peasant- Left," and contended all his active life for the establishment of real government by the people, i.e., a const.i.tutional democracy with parliamentary rule. This, the fulfillment of his famous saying, "All power ought to be gathered in this hall [i.e., in the Storting],"

was consummated in June, 1884. Few men in Norway have been so bitterly a.s.sailed by political opponents, and few so idolized by followers. He was a masterful orator, inferior only to Bjornson.

a.s.sa.s.sination. An allusion to Ibsen's The Young Men's Union, first performed in Christiania on September 30, 1869. Bjornson regarded the drama as directed against himself and his political friends. In 1881 he wrote: "With the word a.s.sa.s.sination I did not mean that conditions and well-known men were aimed at. What I meant was, that The Young Men's Union tried to make our young liberal party into a band of ambitious speculators, whose patriotism could be carried off with their phraseology, and especially that prominent men were first made recognizable, and that then false hearts and base characters were fict.i.tiously given them and spurious alliances pasted on them."

The words of Einar. For Einar Tambarskelve, see Note 11, and for Magnus the Good, Note 6. Immediately after the death of Magnus in Denmark, Harald proposed to make himself King over all Denmark, but Einar arose and spoke, ending with the words: "It seems to me better to follow King Magnus dead, than any other King living."

Nearly all the Norwegians joined Einar, and Harald was left with too small a force to carry out his plan.

My childhood's faith unshaken stands. Bjornson was at the time With full conviction an orthodox Christian; Sverdrup was for himself a free thinker in religion.

Brotherhood in all three lands. Sverdrup was always opposed to any close federation of the three countries, and to Scandinavism, see Note 21.

What ought just now to be. The whole political programme of the Left, as it was gradually wrought out during the next two decades.

Sverre, see Note 5.

_One_ nation only and _one_ will, Sverdrup's ideal, as outlined above.

That impelled the viking, see note on Harald Fairhair, Note 5.

At Hjorung, see Note 11.

Wesssel's sword, seeTordenskjold, Note 5.

Wesssel's pen. Johan Herman Wessel (1742-1785) was a grand-nephew of Peder Wessel Tordenskjold. He was the leader and most popular member of the "Norwegian Society" in Copenhagen, in spirit and style the most Norwegian of the writers born in Norway in the eighteenth century.

That in faith so high, etc., refers to the teaching of Grundtvig (see Note 57), who looked upon the Edda-G.o.ds as representing a religion originally akin to Christianity.

Brun. Johan Nordal Brun (1745-1816) became bishop in 1804. A popular poet, he was the creator of the older national hymn and other patriotic songs; an ardent lover of his country, opposed to Danish influences in politics and culture; strictly orthodox and a powerful orator.

Hauge. Hans Nilsen Hauge (1771-1824), a peasant lay-preacher, of whom a biographer has said: "Since the Reformation no single man has had so profound an influence on ecclesiastical and Christian life in Norway." The "Haugian revival" of the emotional religious life is proverbial. Its value was great in every way; directly and also by his widely distributed writings it fostered intellectual enlightenment. The peasant political movement started soon after 1830 among his followers. This explains Bjornson's great sympathy with Hauge and his school.

Modern bishop-synod's letter, the dogmatic literalism of the State Church, seeking to impose itself on free popular religions faith.

Chambers, reference to proposals to revise the Act of Union with Sweden, in particular to the plan of a Union-Parliament, all of which were rejected by Norway.

Folk-high-school's, see Note 65.

Note 46.

OLE GABRIEL UELAND (born October 28, 1799; died January 9, 1870) was the son of a farmer. He was self-taught, reading all the books he could find in the region about his home; became a school teacher in 1817. His marriage in 1827 brought to him the farm Ueland, whose name he took. He early became foremost in his district, and from 1833 to 1869 was member of the Storting for Stavanger. He organized and led the Peasant party. In his time one of Norway's most remarkable men, the most talented peasant and most powerful member of the Storting, belonging to the generation before Sverdrup, he prepared the way for the latter, with whom he then cooperated.

Sverdrup once said: "All of us who are engaged in practical politics are Ueland's pupils."

Note 47.

ANTON MARTIN SCHWEIGAARD, jurist and statesman, was born in Kragero, April 11, 1808, and died in Christiania, February 1, 1870.

After five years as lecturer in the University he was, in 1840, made professor of law, political economy, and statistics. Regarded as the most representative Norwegian of his age and its aspirations, he was called by his countrymen "Norway's best son." Though interested in the reform of education and the introduction of European culture, and hence favorable to Danish literature, standing with Welhaven and against Wergeland, it was in economics that his influence was greatest, and indeed greater than that of any other one man in all Scandinavia. He was the soul of the organizing labor that accompanied and conditioned Norway's surprisingly rapid material advance in the decades before and after the middle of the nineteenth century. A friend of Scandinavism, in politics a liberal conservative, but never a party man, he was member of the Storting for Christiania from 1842 to 1869. Schweigaard's personality contributed most to the high esteem in which he was universally held; his character was open and direct, actively unselfish, loftily ideal. His wife died on January 28, 1870. On a walk the next day he suddenly was seized with intense pains, had to go home and to bed, and died on February 1. An autopsy showed that his heart had ruptured. Their joint funeral was held on February 5.

Note 48.

TO AASMUND OLAFSEN VINJE. Vinje, the son of a poor cottager, was born on a farm in Telemarken, April 6, 1818, and died July 30, 1870.

Poverty and his peculiar personality made life hard for him from first to last. Bent on testing all things for himself, he came into conflict with the authorities. He was discharged from a school in Mandal in 1848 because of his scoffing criticism of a religious schoolbook. He went then to Heltberg's School (see Note 50) in Christiania, soon after became a student in the University, and pa.s.sed the state examination in law in 1856. But his life was devoted to literary pursuits, and he was most gifted as a lyric poet. In 1858 Vinje went over completely to the Landsmaal (see Note 80), and in this form of dialect found his natural medium of expression. In October of the same year he began his weekly paper, Dolen, in which he treated all the current interests.