the saga dramas, thus making it completely representative of his quality as a singer. A revised and somewhat extended edition of this volume was published about ten years later. Björnson 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 Björnson'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.
Come, we will follow them home.
The new God in Gimle, the terrible, who took all,
Let him also take revenge, for he understands it!
Drive slowly: Thus drove Ejnar ever;
     —Soon enough shall we reach home."

It was also to the "Heimskringla" that Björnson turned for the subject of his epic cycle, "Arnljot Gelline." Here we read in various rhythms of Arnljot the outlaw, how the hands of all men are against him; how he offers to stay his wrath and end the blood feud if the fair Ingigerd, Trand's daughter, may be bestowed upon him; how, being refused, he sets fire to Trand's house and bears Ingigerd away captive; how her tears prevail upon him to release her, and how she seeks refuge in a southern cloister; how Arnljot wanders restless over sea and land until he comes to King Olaf, on the eve of the great battle, receives the Christian faith, fights fiercely in the vanguard against the hosts of the heathen, and, smiling, falls with his king on the field of Stiklestad. One song from this cycle, "The Cloister in the South" is here reproduced in an exact copy of the original metre, in the hope that even this imperfect representation of the poem may be better than none at all.

"Who would enter so late the cloister in?"
     "A maid forlorn from the land of snow."
"What sorrow is thine, and what thy sin?"
     "The deepest sorrow the heart can know.
     I have nothing done
             Yet must still endeavor,
         Though my strength be none,
             To wander ever.
        Let me in, to seek for my pain surcease,
             I can find no peace."

"From what far-off land hast thou taken flight?"
     "From the land of the North, a weary way."
"What stayed thy feet at our gate this night?"
     "The chant of the nuns, for I heard them pray,
     And the song gave peace
             To my soul, and blessed me;
         It offered release
             From the grief that oppressed me.
         Let me in, so if peace to give be thine,
             I may make it mine."

"Name me the grief that thy life hath crossed."
     "Rest may I never, never know."
"Thy father, thy lover, thou hast then lost?"
     "I lost them both at a single blow,
         And all I held dear
             In my deepest affection;
         Aye, all that was near
             To my heart's recollection.
         Let me in, I am failing, I beg, I implore,
             I can bear no more."

"How was it that thou thy father lost?"
     "He was slain, and I saw the deed."
"How was it that thou thy lover lost?"
     "My father he slew, and I saw the deed.
             I wept so bitterly
                 When he roughly would woo me,
         He at last set me free,
             And forbore to pursue me.
         Let me in, for the horror my soul doth fill.
             That I love him still."

Chorus of nuns within the Church.

"Come child, come bride,
To God's own side,
From grief find rest
On Jesus' breast.
Rest thy burden of sorrow.
             On Horeb's height;
Like the lark, with to-morrow
             Shall thy soul take flight.

Here stilled is all yearning,
No passion returning;
No terror come near thee
When the Saviour can hear thee.
For He, if in need be
             Thy storm-beaten soul,
Though it bruised as a reed be,
             Shall raise it up whole."

Despite the power and beauty of an occasional manifestation of his genius during the late sixties and early seventies, the poetic impulse that had made Björnson the most famous of Norwegian authors seemed, toward the close of the fifteen-year period just now under review, to be well nigh exhausted. Even among those who had followed his career most closely there were few who could anticipate the splendid new outburst of activity for which he was preparing. These years seemed to be a dead time, not only in Björnson's life, but also in the general intellectual life of the Scandinavian countries. Dr. Brandes thus describes the feelings of a thoughtful observer during that period of stagnation. "In the North one had the feeling of being shut off from the intellectual life of the time. We were sitting with closed doors, a few brains struggling fruitlessly with the problem of how to get them opened... With whole schools of foreign literature the cultivated Dane had almost no acquaintance; and when, finally, as a consequence of political animosity, intellectual intercourse with Germany was broken off, the main channel was closed through which the intellectual developments of the day had been communicated to Norway as well as Denmark. French influence was dreaded as immoral, and there was but little understanding of either the English language or spirit." But an intellectual renaissance was at hand, an intellectual reawakening with a cosmopolitan outlook, and, Björnson was destined to become its leader, much as he had been the leader of the national movement of an earlier decade. During these years of seeming inactivity, comparatively speaking, he had read and thought much, and the new thought of the age had fecundated his mind. Historical and religious criticism, educational and social problems, had taken possession of his thought, and the philosophy of evolution had transformed the whole tenor of his ideas, shaping them to, deeper issues and more practical purposes than had hitherto engaged them. He had read widely and variously in Darwin, Spencer, Mill, Müller, and Taine; he had, in short, scaled the "lofty mountains" that had so hemmed in his early view, and made his way into the intellectual kingdoms of the modern world that lay beyond. The Weltgeist had appealed to him with its irresistible behest, just as it appealed at about the same time to Ibsen and Tolstoy and Ruskin, and had made him a man of new interests and ideals.

One might have