THE COLLECTED POEMS OF HENRIK IBSEN Translated by John ...

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make the black tarn bright!
Peace’s garlands twining Olaf’s axes
lastingly portend:
Fortune’s dew shall on our realm descend,
Spring by Spring the North’s well-being waxes!
Seas were barred: an English blockade resulted from Norway’s declaration of independence
in 1814; Draupner, Odin’s golden ring which was able to reproduce itself indefinitely; Olaf’s
axes: Saint Olaf became attributed, strangely enough, with Thor’s cruciform hammer or twoheaded
axe.
IN LUND
AT THE RALLY OF SCANDINAVIAN STUDENTS, 1862
(Mel: Af Reissiger)
Hail Skaane, low-land’s Queen, we hail thee,
Home of the North’s first-fostered dream,
Where memories of our race loom palely,
Like mountain walls beyond Time’s stream.
Here once clashed elders of our nation,
Here marched our princes, war to wage,
But out of conflict grew salvation,
The North’s harmonious Golden Age.
But you have seen a better rally,
A Braavall worth our time’s applause.
Our nation’s youngest led the tally
Of fighters in our future’s cause.
It seemed the Valkyr stood there eyeing
The North, perceiving victory there;
The North’s new leaders in the vying
Were Œhlenschlæger and Tegnér.
Here flew the flag’s initiation,
Implanted firm on Sweden’s shore:
Well met then, Swede, on this occasion
Shared with your kin from Dan and Nor.
We’ll let our foe’s sly, devious legions
Scan day and night each paper clause, —
A host of Swedes, of Danes, Norwegians
Has youth’s zeal fighting for its cause.
Henr. Ibsen
Skaane, the southernmost region of Sweden, once part of the Danish Viking kingdom; Lund,
the settlement in the south that King Canute turned into a township about C.1020 AD; about
1080 a start was made on the construction of a great stone cathedral there, which later
became the seat for the first Scandinavian Archbishop. Braavall, the site of the internecine
and bloody battle between Harald Hilditann and his nephew Honig for possession of Sweden;
Œhlenschlæger and Tegnér, leaders of, respectively, the Danish and the Swedish
historical/romantic movement in literature; our foe — Germany, pursuing its claim on the
duchies of Slesvig and Holstein.