A revised and
somewhat extended edition of this volume was published about
ten years later. Bjornson has had the rare fortune of having
his lyrics set to music by three composers--Nordraak, Kjerulf,
and Grieg--as intensely national in spirit as himself, and no
festal occasion among Norwegians is celebrated without singing
the national hymn, "Yes, We Love This Land of Ours," or the
noble choral setting of "Olaf Trygvason." The best folk-singer
is he who stands in the whirling round of life, says the poet,
and he reveals the very secret of his power when he tells us
that life was ever more to him than song, and that existence,
where it was worth while, in the thick of the human fray,
always had for him a deeper meaning than anything he had written.
The longest poem in Bjornson's collection is called "Bergliot,"
and is a dramatic monologue in which the foul slaying of her
husband Ejnar Tambarskelve and their son Ejndride is mourned
by the bereaved wife and mother. The story is from the saga
of Harald Haardraada, and is treated with the deepest tragic
impressiveness.
"Odin in Valhal I dare not seek
For him I forsook in my childhood.
And the new God in Gimle?
He took all that I had!
Revenge:--Who says revenge?--
Can revenge awaken my dead
Or shelter me from the cold?
Has it comfort for a widow's home
Or for a childless mother?
Away with your revenge: Let be!
Lay him on the litter, him and the son.
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