Taylor’s Song (From Maria Stuart)
For joys the hours of earth bestow
With sorrow thou must pay.
Though many follow close, yet know,
They’re loaned but for a day.
With sighing in thy laughter’s stead
Shall come a time of grief,
The load of usury bow thy head,
With loss of thy belief.
Mary Anne, Mary Anne,
Mary Anne, Mary Anne,
Hadst thou not smiled upon me, thou,
I were not weeping now.
May God help him who never can
Give only half his soul;
The time comes surely for that man
To take the sorrow whole.
May God help him who was so glad,
That he cannot forget,
Help him who lost the all he had,
But not his reason yet.
Mary Anne, Mary Anne,
Mary Anne, Mary Anne,
The flowers that my life had grown,
Died out when thou went gone.
LECTOR THAASEN
(See Note 27)
I read once of a flower that lonely grew,
Apart, with trembling stem and pale of hue;
The mountain-world of cold and strife
Gave little life
And less of color.
A botanist the flower chanced to see
And glad exclaimed: Oh, this must sheltered be,
Must seed produce, renewing birth,
In sun-warmed earth
Become a thousand.
But as he dug and drew it from the ground,
Strange glitterings upon his hands he found;
For to its roots clung dust of golden hue;
The flower grew
On golden treasure!
And from the region wide came all the youth
To see the wonder; they divined the truth:
Here lay their country’s future might;
A ray of light
From God that flower!—
This I recall now even while I mourn;
The Lord of life has lifted him and borne
From mountain-cold and wintry air
To fruitage fair
In warmth eternal.
For where the roots were of that life replete,
What gleams and glitters! See, they ran to meet
The shafts of wisdom’s goodly mines,
The gold that shines
In veins of God’s thought.
Now he is lifted up, to light are brought
The riches he to guard so faithful sought.
The treasures of our past are there,
And glintings rare
Of future riches.
Come, Norway’s youth! Unearth to use the hoard
That round this heaven-borne flower’s roots was stored!
To you his message! Hear and heed!
Achieve in deed
His dream and longing!
DURING A JOURNEY IN SWEDEN
(See Note 28)
My boyish heart in thee confided,
For to the great by thee ’t was guided.
As man, my waiting is for thee,—
The Northern cause with thee, with thee!
Rich lands and talents are thy dower,
But fallow lie thy wealth and power.
Thou must the North in concord bind,
Or never shalt thy true self find.
There’s longing in thy folk arisen,
Poetic hope—but yet in prison.
Though forces great within thee dwell,
Thou art not wholly sound and well.
Too many things are undertaken,
Too oft the task is soon forsaken.
Though rich in promptings of the heart,
In faith and duty faint thou art.
In danger only hast thou thriven,
When something great to guard was given.
When every breast with warmth shall glow
At Sweden’s name, thy strength thou’lt know.
What’s thine alone lifts not thy feeling,
Till honor’s cause the skies are pealing,
Thou hast no joy but daring deed
In fortune’s favor or in need.
For thy fair memories inspiring
Are far too great, much more requiring:
The Northern cause! Lead thou the way!
’T will double glory thee repay!
Of all thou canst, this is the greatest,
Thy duty earliest and latest.
Thy future rests in its embrace
With cure for ills that now abase.
Thou land of heart-born fancies thronging,
Thou land of poetry and longing,
Fill now thy heart, thy spirit free!
The Northern banner waits for thee!