University of Virginia Library

NORWEGIAN SONNETS

I. BALDER BACK!

Facing the North, in the grey sea he stands.
The solar orb comes northward, sliding slow,
And—empties on him its solstitial glow!
Blinks up at last with tear-bewildered glands
The puzzled jotun: from his rough red hands
Slip the huge balls of hard compacted snow
That in his wrath enraged he meant to throw,
And where they melt, behold! a brace of vands.
Meanwhile the blinding tears run down his cheeks,
Like torrents swollen with sudden summer rain;
In vain deep-knuckling in his eyes he seeks
To clear his sight—the cataracts burst amain;
Till, at the last, he gets a peep, and speaks
—It's you, Balder! So you've got back again!

II. UP THE SKAGER RACK.

It was the point of dawn; and in the bow
I stood alone, facing the grey north-east.
Far on the left, like a huge brown sea-beast
That had been chased and was o'ertaken now,
Surprised asleep, lay Norway. From the prow
A hissing of salt spray that still increased
Rose plainly audible—for the gale had ceased
And the keel cut the sea-plain like a plough.
And so with only a ripple on the sea,
And ne'er a storm-cloud o'er us muttering black,
We voyaged with an easy course and free
And—disappointing, now on looking back;
For the old sagas make the surges flee
Like riderless horses up the Skager Rack.

III. WELCOME!

Was it the filial instinct of a child
Yearning to visit the ancestral home
That drove me o'er the furrows and the foam
To Norway northward of the ocean wild?
Meseemed at least from fell on fell up-piled
Streamed voices—Now at last, though late, ye come;
Here is your parent land, no longer roam:
And the scenes grew familiar all, and smiled.
But who was he, this worshipper of Thor?
Or, likelier, Odin would the genius suit
Of a bold-cruising Viking ancestor—
Some scale-mailed Eric, or chain-shirted Knut!
—Vainly I questioned welcoming breeze and torr,
The winds were silent now, the mountains mute!

IV. THAT SPEAR.

We parted with the Times at Guldsmedmo'n,
Yet two days longer up the dale the hum
Of European politics would come—
But sunk, and sinking, to an undertone.
At last we entered a deep dell o'ergrown
With ancient pines of lofty stature—some
An hundred feet—and Europe's voice was dumb,
And we now fairly found ourselves alone.
Silence, and gloom, and isolation drear
Produced a feeling, hard to understand,
Which grew at last a dim-embodied fear
As of a Spirit, gloomy, silent, grand,
That rose from out the wood, and drew a-near,
Grasping a pine-spear in his rebel hand!

V. MILTON IN NORWAY.

The feeling passed, the Spirit passed away
—The silence and the isolation drear,
As broke in fitful bursts on Fancy's ear
A gravely measured yet melodious lay.
Wider the sweep, and more complete the sway,
And longer, deeper, louder, and more clear,
Until I cried—Milton is monarch here,
Whatever Oscar and his subjects say!
—How had the Master slung into his song
The pride of Norway, with an arm as free
As fierce Alcides' when he hurled along
The ether from Mount Œta to the sea,
Nerved with the strength of that Thessalian wrong,
The groaning trunk of many an uptorn tree!

VI. THE SCENERY—GO AND SEE IT!

And speak ye may of grandeur and of gloom
And all the dread magnificence that lies
Where through the dale the foam-fleckt torrent flies,
Or gorgeous sunsets o'er the mountains bloom.
But who shall in the sonnet's scanty room
Set the majestic magnitude, the size,
The mighty mountains and the widening skies
Up on Norwegian table-lands assume?
This you must see to feel within your heart,
And cannot know from others: Nature still
In this defies all imitative art,
Baffles all schools and soars beyond their skill:
It is a joy she only shall impart,
But, once received, it ne'er can cease to thrill.

VII. A TERROR OF THE TWILIGHT.

Far in Norwegian solitudes we strayed:
Behind us lay a long bright summer day,
But evening now was stooping o'er our way,
When, at a sudden turn, alarmed we stayed.
It was a terror by the twilight made
Of river, cliff, and cloud, and the weird play
Of sunset's one live liberated ray
Piercing the horror of the pinewood shade.
Stood, like a charred cross, or a huge sword-hilt,
Against the sky, above the cliff's black line,
That seemed a bastion by Harfager built,
A solitary thunder-blasted pine;
On the dark flood below, the sunset spilt
What now was blood and now was wassail-wine.

VIII. A WATERFALL WITHIN A WOOD.

The sound, that seemed at sunrise—when the glow
Of Morning, mingling with the early breeze,
Caught the still water through the lakeside trees—
The Voice of Liberty, now seems to grow
The muffled moan of an imprisoned woe;
And Fancy, peering through the forest, sees
An agonising Samson on his knees,
With the pines looking on and whispering low.
How does a noise, monotonous and rude,
Take tone, when blown into a poet mind,
Concording with the mystery of its mood,
And suiting with the symphony it designed!
—'Tis but a waterfall within a wood
To Peter Bell and others of his kind.

IX. MINERVA IN THE SÆTERSDAL.

We said Far Vel to Frœsnæs at the dawn—
Leaving it as one leaves a treasure, soon
To long for it, and call it prize and boon
In words, sincere no doubt, but overdrawn.
Then on we raced as gamesome as the fawn
Though not so graceful, till mid-afternoon
Brought us to Hellé to the skydsstation
Under a cliff behind a natural lawn.
Here in a squalid room we look for ease,
Loath to sit down, but yet too tired to stand,
And call for black-cock, bacon, bread and cheese
—In short, whate'er their larder might command:
Enters Minerva, kilted to the knees,
With a vast shield of fladbröd in her hand!

X. THE LITTLE MEAL-MILL.

Perched on its four grey cairns across the stream
That tumbles down the cliff, secure it stands;
An old possession, for on plank and beam
Are Knuts and Olës carved by various hands.
Its cubic measure, six by five by four;
Yet in this compass, everything complete;
And there he bent—his back was towards the door—
While plashed the mill-wheel merrily at his feet,
And ground his rye, and sang with honest glee.
—Be mine the knowledge that I now possess,
And mine a heart, like his, of envy free,
And I could don to-day the sæter dress,
And bring my wishes docile to my will
To moil content in this Norwegian mill.

XI. THE CLIMB FROM VALLË.

Steep was the climb from Vallë: far below
The sæter we had left lay lost in mist,
And still the height rose higher than we wist
Beyond the ravings of the Otteraa.
And now a thin bleak air began to blow,
And now the bispevei to turn and twist,
Here round a tjern no summer ever kissed,
And there behind a hide of hoarded snow.
The stars dissolved anon; and airy trills
Of wavering music showed the day begun:
We toiled to meet the morn—o'er rocks, o'er rills;
And, breathless, but at last our wish we won—
The top! and lo, a countless herd of hills
Tossing their shining muzzles in the sun!

XII. “PAA HEJA:” LIFE ON THE HEIGHTS.

Is there a pleasure can with this compare?—
To leap at sunrise from your mountain-bed,
Roused by a skylark revelling overhead,
And drink great draughts of golden morning air;
A plunge, and breakfast—simple rural fare;
Then forth with vigorous brain, elastic tread,
Hope singing at your heart o'er sorrow dead,
And strength for fifty miles, and still to spare!
That joy was ours!—O memory! oft restore us
Those autumn runs, here in the smoky town,
When through the woods our mad nomadic chorus
Rang freedom up and civilisation down!
Io! my hearts! the world was all before us,
And we nor owned nor envied king nor crown!

XIII. THE MOUNTAIN LAUREATE.

Morning is flashing from a glorious sun
On the broad shoulders of the giant fells
That outreach arms across the narrow dells
And form a silent brotherhood of one
Listening their skylark laureate! New begun
He up the heavens in ever-rising swells
Carries their thanksgiving in song that wells
From his small breast as if 'twould ne'er be done.
What life his music gives them! They are free
In the wild freedom of his daring wing;
And in the cataract of his song, the sea
Of poetry that fills all heaven, they sing;
—He is their poet-prophet in his glee,
And in his work and worth their priest and king!

XIV. A THOUGHT OF HOME.

She walks where Callerfountain to Kinnoull
Looks lovingly across the twists of Tay,
And oft, along the zigzag of her way,
Up Craigie burn, or through the plantains cool,
Stoops, from the bank beside the shaded pool
To pluck forget-me-nots, or from the brae
A gowan, with whose petals she will play,
Filling her breast of love's distractions full.
Fair are the Scottish hills around her here,
Nor fairer scenes a wandering eye beheld,
But now in all the glory of the year
To her their beauty is a dream of eld,
And Norway's distant hills have grown more dear
—For sake of one far up the Dovrefeld.

XV. MORNING—THE MOUNTAIN FAMILY AT THEIR DEVOTIONS.

I see across the lofty table-lands
A hundred regal mountains at the least
Inclining mutely towards the opening East,—
As many little tjerns and queenly vands
Kneeling at different levels: Phœbus stands
Beaming benevolence like a great High Priest
Blessing a nation for some holy feast
At his wide temple-door with lifted hands.—
Rejoice, ye hills! ye happy mountains, fling
Your arms aloft in worship wildly free!
Ye vands, and rivers in the valleys, sing!
Shout! till the heavens ring with your choral glee;
And God Himself with mild face wondering
Looks out at last, and smiles well-pleased to see!

XVI. A CANDIDATE FOR HONOURS.

This were a spectacle to cleanse the heart
Of all the mean vexations of the town,
The envious slander and the jealous frown,
And all remembrances that make it smart.
Phœbus Apollo! fit another dart
And shoot the last surviving meanness down
Ere on my head thou place the golden crown
And teach my lyre the mystery of thine art!
Then, with a bosom purified of hate
And rankling cares and cankers reared of wrong,
Envy forgotten and the low debate
That to unworthy rivalry belong,
On thine own heights, Apollo, will I wait
A shriven candidate of holy song!

XVII. “THE LAST INFIRMITY.”

The god!—or else a fierce consuming flame!
Spare me, Apollo of the burning brow!
Spare me! It was a rash novitiate's vow
When to thy shrine with shameful haste I came
And vowed, alas! with an unworthy aim,
To be a priest of thine: forgive me now
And let me go, or take me where I bow
And purge me of that lust of earthly fame!
—Thus, like a weed that woos the summer sun
To wither in the fierceness of his glance,
The ignoble wish that I had told to none
And scarcely to myself, by sweet mischance,
Seeking to honour it, was clean undone,
Pierced by Apollo's keen detecting lance.

XVIII. HARVEST IN THE DALE.

A million fields to-day are standing white
Over the north of Europe: here is one,
And three bright sickles circling in the sun
Will have the little crop cut down ere night.
The girl is singing, for her heart is light;
But the two brothers think it best to shun
The guise of gladness till the work be done
And they have earned a reason and a right;
Yet they are glad: God of the bounteous Year,
What pleasure must be Thine to look from heaven
Into a thousand happy dales, and hear
From out the barren rocks, where man has striven,
The voices of Thy children far and near
Rejoicing in the gifts which Thou hast given!

XIX. ARTHUR'S SEAT AGAIN!

Fjord, wood, and waterfall, and cliff whose line
Rose level with the heavens, and the long swell
Of fell up-reaching arm to brother fell,
And the lone aspiration of the pine
That stood erect on sunset heights divine
Under the gaze of God in holy spell,
While on the slope, or from the sunken dell,
Aspens looked up and trembled—these were mine;
And I had grown familiar with them till
They seemed a patrimony all my own;
And yet when Arthur's green and rounded hill
Met my returning gaze, and seaward blown
A Scottish voice came floating—closer still
Was Scotland at my heart than I had known.

XX. A GREY MORNING AT GRANTON.

“How bright it is to-day! we see across
The Firth quite clearly to the shores of Fife!”
—Good heavens! And yet 'twere pity of my life
(Thought I, while travelling northward to Kinross)
If I should count as worse to me than loss
My fellow-creature's gain. Yet was the strife
'Twixt scorn and pity for the grey-worn wife,
Thankful for nothing as it seemed, a toss.
For I had been where skies of brilliant hue
Soared o'er gigantic cliffs to heaven itself,
Where the delighted eye for miles looked thro'
Opaline widths of air, and aa and elv
Linked vand to fjord with chains of living blue,
Or shot in foam from granite shelf to shelf!

XXI. ON THE PIER AT BURNTISLAND.

So ran my thoughts at Granton as the train
Swept curving round in view of the grey sea,
But when the lazy steamer crossed, and we
Were free of its collective stinks again,
I caught a glimpse, through cloud, coal-smoke, and rain
Upon the sloppy pier, that furnished me
The missing gloss there well was need to be
To clear the air for her, and light the main!—
The world looks bright to kings—a favoured race
Who free of toil through earth's gay gardens roam;
Looks fair to lovers; and a happy place
To children; but its brightest mornings come
To humble mother waiting the embrace
Of her bronzed sailor son returning home.

XXII. A RARE DIP.

I've floated on Lochleven, dipped in Tay,
And many another stream both great and small,
Dared the white thunder of a waterfall,
And been baptised in many a mill-wheel's spray;
I've drunk the brine in Kristiania bay
And swum almost all up the Sætersdal,
And every bath was ecstasy, but all
Must yield to one rare dip I had to-day.
Oh, pleasantly the Farg's clear waters flashed
Into the rocky pool their liquid song;
With more than Alpheus' haste I stripped, and dashed
Among the music, plunging oft and long;
And not alone my limbs—the music washed
Hate from my heart, and from my memory wrong!

XXIII. FROM THE WICKS OF BAIGLIE.

Here there are braes, and glens, and brawling brooks,
And cascades flinging loose their diamond spray,
And waters winding down to firth and bay,
And woods, and craigs, and knowes, and fairy nooks;
But on the hill-tops there are golden stooks,
And mill-wheels in the cascade's thunder play,
Boats breast the river, artists glenward stray,
And over barren craigs rise pastoral crooks.—
Not many years ago the scene was claimed
By the rude elements—to whom it gave
Thistle, and thorn, and stone, and stream unnamed,
Harvestless hill, and undivided wave;
Now the wild elephant is trapped and tamed,
Caparisoned and tended—and a slave!

XXIV. THELEMARKEN: A PER-CONTRA.

However, there's the freedom of the Fells,
Such as the wilds of Thelemarken show,
Where cataracts roar unbridged, and torrents flow
Burdened but with the beauty of their bells;
Where the cliff soars, and the broad sky-roof swells,
And morning comes with larger longer glow,
And, pinnacled beyond the axe's blow,
In peace the stately pine its centuries tells!
Here you may live at large, with no one nigh:
—Only, when twilight darkens earth and air,
From the lone uplands you may chance to spy
On the cliff-edge a wolf, perhaps a pair;
Or silhouetted on the evening sky
The slouching horror of a hermit bear!