Sin, Death (From Sigurd Slembe)

(See Note 17)

Sin and Death, those sisters two,
    Two, two,
Sat together while dawned the morning.
Sister, marry! Your house will do,
    Do, do,
For me, too, was Death's warning.

Sin was wedded, and Death was pleased,
    Pleased, pleased,
Danced about them the day they married;
Night came on, she the bridegroom seized,
    Seized, seized,
And away with her carried.

Sin soon wakened alone to weep,
    Weep, weep.
Death sat near in the dawn of morning:
Him you love, I love too and keep,
    Keep, keep.
He is here, was Death's warning.

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson was a Norwegian writer and one of the four great Norwegian writers, along with Henrik Ibsen, Jonas Lie, and Alexander Kielland. Bjørnson is recognized for his pivotal role in Norwegian literature and his works contributing significantly to Norwegian national identity. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1903 and also wrote the lyrics to the Norwegian national anthem, 'Ja, vi elsker dette landet'. Bjørnson was an influential figure in Norway's cultural and political life during his lifetime.

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

The Spinner

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson, Simple Poetry

Norwegian Seamen's Song (For The Stavanger Regatta, 1868)

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson, Simple Poetry

To Johan Dahl, Bookdealer (On His Sixtieth Birthday)

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson, Simple Poetry

To Aasmund Olafsen Vinje

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson, Simple Poetry

English

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On A Wife's Death

(See Note 55)

With death's dark eye acquainted she had been made ere this,
When to her son, her first-born, she gave the farewell kiss,
And when afar she hastened beside her mother's bed,
It followed all her faring with warning fraught and dread;
It filled her with foreboding when standing by the bier:
More sheaves to gather hopeth the harvester austere.
So soon she saw her husband, that man of strength, succumb,
She said with sorrow stricken: « I knew that it would come!"
She thought that he was chosen by God from earth to go,
Would check, her hands upthrusting, the harsh behest of woe;
And with her slender body, too weak for such a strife,
Would ward her gallant consort, - and gave for him her life.

She smiled, serene and blissful, as death's dark eye she brave...

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

To Aasmund Olafsen Vinje

(SUNG AT HIS WIFE'S GRAVE)
(See Note 48)

Your house to guests has shelter lent,
While you with pen were seated.
In silent quest they came and went,
You saw them not, nor greeted.
But when now they
Were gone away,
Your babe without a mother lay,
And you had lost your helpmate.

The home you built but yesterday
In death to-day is sinking,
And you stand sick and worn and gray
On ruins of your thinking.
Your way lay bare
Since child you were,
The shelter that you first could share
Was this that now is shattered.

But know, the guests that to you came
In sorrow's waste will meet you;
Though shy you shrink, they still will claim
The right with love to treat you.
For where you go
To you they show
The world in ra...

Bjørnstjerne Martinius Bjørnson

Sin.

There is a legend of an old Hartz tower
That tells of one, a noble, who had sold
His soul unto the Fiend; who grew not old
On this condition: That the demon's power
Cease every midnight for a single hour,
And in that hour his body should be cold,
His limbs grow shriveled, and his face, behold!
Become a death's-head in the taper's glower.
So unto Sin Life gives his best. Her arts
Make all his outward seeming beautiful
Before the world; but in his heart of hearts
Abides an hour when her strength is null;
When he shall feel the death through all his parts
Strike, and his countenance become a skull.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Sin.

That haunting air had some far strain of it,
That morning rose hath flung it back to met
The wind of spring, the ancient, awful sea.
        Bid me remember it.

And looking back against the look of Love,
I feel the old shame start again and sting;
Such eyes are Love's they will not ask the thing,
        But I remember it!

So this one dream of heaven I dare not dream :
We two in your familiar ways and high.
While you and God forget, and even I
        Cannot remember it!

Margaret Steele Anderson

I. M. R. G. C. B. 1878

The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.
From camp and church, the fireside and the street,
She beckons forth - and strife and song have been.

A summer night descending cool and green
And dark on daytime's dust and stress and heat,
The ways of Death are soothing and serene,
And all the words of Death are grave and sweet.

O glad and sorrowful, with triumphant mien
And radiant faces look upon, and greet
This last of all your lovers, and to meet
Her kiss, the Comforter's, your spirit lean . . .
The ways of Death are soothing and serene.



***



We shall surely die:
Must we needs grow old?
Grow old and cold,
And we know not why?

O, the By-and-By,
And ...

William Ernest Henley

On Ne Badine Pas Avec La Mort

1

The dew was full of sun that morn
(Oh I heard the doves in the ladyricks coop!)
As he crossed the meadows beyond the corn,
Watching his falcon in the blue.
How could he hear my song so far,
The song of the blood where the pulses are!
Straight through the fields he came to me,
(Oh I saw his soul as I saw the dew!)
But I hid my joy that he might not see,
I hid it deep within my breast,
As the starling hides in the maize her nest.


2

Back through the corn he turned again,
(Oh little he cared where his falcon flew!)
And my heart lay still in the hand of pain,
As in winter's hand the rivers do.
How could he hear its secret cry,
The cry of the dove when the cummers die!
Thrice in the maize he turned to me,...

Arthur Sherburne Hardy