Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Scotland: Vols. VI–VIII. 1876–79.
Norway
By Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (18481895)W
Pressed round Norway’s temples hoary;
Midnight’s sun has poured down
On her head its glory.
’Gainst her ancient rocks and bowlders;
Ocean has its misty cloak
Thrown around her shoulders.
Blows the mantling mist asunder,
Far the gloom-fraught pine-woods roll
Sun-enriched thereunder.
O’er the lucid fjords and valleys,
Bursts the wood-lake’s wintry links
And the lily’s chalice,—
O, how fair the birch and willow,
And the gulls, that drift like snow
O’er the rippling billow!
Seaward throws its branches mazy;
And on Winter’s bosom blooms
Fearlessly the daisy.
Through the clouds that veil their bosom,
At whose foot, mid birch and pine,
Fresh-lipped lilies blossom.
Gleams the fjord-like snow-cool river,
While the cloud-shades, fancy-born,
On its mirror quiver.
Wooed King Belé’s fair-haired daughter;
Here she sang the sweet, sad lay
Which her love had taught her.
Waked the South from idle dalliance;
Who in Vineland’s rivers moored
Dauntlessly their galleons.
Fled the spirit that upbore it.
Ah, but still doth midnight shed
Flaming splendor o’er it.
Spanned the sky with runes of fire,
Now but rustles tremblingly
Through the poet’s lyre.