The volume of lyrics includes many pieces
of imperfect quality and slight value,--personal tributes and
occasional productions,--but it includes also those national
songs that every Norwegian knows by heart, that are sung upon
all national occasions by the author's friends and foes alike,
and that have made him the greatest of Norway's lyric poets.
No translation can ever quite reproduce their cadence or their
feeling; they illustrate the one aspect of Bjornson's many-sided
genius that must be taken on trust by those who cannot read his
language. A friend once asked him upon what occasion he had
felt most fully the joy of being a poet. His reply was as follows:--
"It was when a party from the Right in Christiania came to my
house and smashed all my windows. For when they had finished
their assault, and were starting home again, they felt that
they had to sing something, and so they began to sing, 'Yes, we
love this land of ours'--they couldn't help it. They had to sing
the song of the man they had attacked."
Into this collection were gathered the lyrics scattered through
the peasant tales and the saga dramas, thus making it completely
representative of his quality as a singer.
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