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xii INTRODUCTION
The poet does the prophet’s deeds ;
In times of need with new life pregnant,
When strife and suffering are regnant,
His faith with light ideal leads.
The past its heroes round him posts,
He rallies now the present’s hosts,
The future opes
Before his eyes,
Its pictured hopes
He prophesies.
Ever his people’s forces vernal
The poet frees, —by right eternal.
“The best bard for his nation” is he who ‘does the pro-
phet’s deeds,’ who “rallies now the present’s hosts,” and
“frees,—by right eternal.” Poet and prophet Bjornson
was, but more than all else the leader of the Norwegian
people, “where loud life’s battles call,” through conflict
unto liberation and growth. It has been said that twice in
the nineteenth century the national soul of Norway em-
bodied itself in individual men,—during the first half in
Henrik Wergeland and during the second half in Bjorn-
stjerne Bjornson. True as this is of the former, it is still
more true of the latter, for the history of Norway shows
that the soul of its people expresses itself best through will
and action. Bjornson throughout all his life willed and
wrought so much for his country, that he could give rela-
tively little time and power to lyrical self-expression.
But Bjornson strikingly represented the past of Norway
as well as his contemporary age. He was a modern blending
of the heroic chieftain and the gifted skald of ancient times.
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