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xvi INTRODUCTION
tinguishable and indefinable quality of melodiousness. Of
Bjérnson’s style or manner in the larger sense it must be
said that it is not subjectively lyrical. He is not disposed
to introspective dwelling on his own emotions and to
profuse self-expression without a conscious purpose. In
general he must have some definite objective end in view,
some occasion to celebrate for others, some “cause” to
champion, the mood of another person or of other per-
sons, real or fictitious, to reproduce synthetically in a
combination of thoughts, feelings, similes, and sounds. In
his verses words do not breed words, nor figures beget
figures unto lyric breadth and vagueness. When Bjornson
was moved to make a poem, he was so filled with the end,
the occasion, the cause, the mood to be reproduced, that
he was impatient of any but the most significant words and
left much to suggestion. Often the words seem to be in
one another’s way, and they are not related with gram-
matical precision. Thus in the original more than in the
translation of the poem Norway, Norway! the first strophe
of which is:
Norway, Norway,
Rising in blue from the sea’s gray and green,
Islands around like fledglings tender,
Fjord-tongues with slender
Tapering tips in the silence seen.
Rivers, valleys,
Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope
Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten,
Lake and plain brighten,
Hallow a temple of peace and hope.
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