Song
Song brings us light with the power of lending
Glory to brighten the work that we find;
Song brings us warmth with the power of rending
Rigor and frost in the swift-melting mind.
Song is eternal with power of blending
Time that is gone and to come in the soul,
Fills it with yearnings that flow without ending,
Seeking that sea where the light-surges roll.
Song brings us union, while gently beguiling
Discord and doubt on its radiant way;
Song brings us union and leads, reconciling
Battle-glad passions by harmony’s sway,
Unto the beautiful, valiant, and holy
—Some can pass over its long bridge of light
Higher and higher to visions that solely
Faith can reveal to the spirit’s pure sight.
Songs from the past of the past’s longings telling,
Pensive and sad cast a sunset’s red glow;
Present time’s longings in sweet music dwelling,
Grateful the soul of the future shall know.
Youth of all ages in song here are meeting,
Sounding in tone and in word their desire;
—More than we think, from the dead bringing greeting,
Gather to-night in our festival choir.
ON THE DEATH OF N. F. S. GRUNDTVIG
(1872)
(See Note 57)
E’en as the Sibyl in Northland-dawn drew
Forth from the myth-billows gliding,
Told all the past, all the future so true,
Sank with the lands’ last subsiding,—
Prophecies leaving, eternally new,
Still abiding
Thus goes his spirit the Northland before,—
Though, that he sank, we have tiding,—
Visions unfolding like sun-clouds, when o’er
Sea-circled lands they are riding,
Northern lands’ future, till time is no more,
Ever guiding.